Can You Believe This Sheet?
BS SHOW BIZ BUZZ:
The 45th “Academy of Country Music Awards” led CBS-TV to a ratings win Sunday night but the numbers were lower than last year, the 3-hour show averaging 12.5 million viewers . . . It appears CNN talk show host Larry King and his 7th wife (8th marriage) are talking about calling off the divorce that they announced last week (thereby threatening his bid at a record for 1 billion divorces) . . . “South Park” creators Matt Stone & Trey Parker are crafting a play – right now dubbed “The Book of Mormon” – scheduled to make its debut next Spring as a Broadway musical about 2 eager-yet-naive LDS missionaries in Uganda (let the lawsuits begin!) . . . Producers have announced the 23rd ‘James Bond’ movie has been suspended indefinitely due to the ‘uncertain future’ of MGM Studios, said to be $3.7 billion in debt (BS translation: We’re still trying to figure out that last cockamamy storyline) . . . Famous person Kim Kardashian says she regrets the ‘uncomfortable’ experience of posing for “Playboy” in 2007 and admits she only did it because her mother told her to (for more info, Google ‘dysfunctional family’) . . . And 57-year-old Sharon Osbourne has let it be known that she’s having her breast implants removed this Summer and will give them to her rocker-husband, Ozzy Osbourne – as a paperweight.
TODAY’S SHOW BIZ SKED:
• “American Idol” (FOX/CTV) – After a one-year break, the charity fundraiser “Idol Gives Back” returns as a 2-hour special amalgamated into the top 7 results show. Former contestants like Carrie Underwood participate; other performers include Alicia Keys, Annie Lennox, Black Eyed Peas, Elton John, Justin Bieber, and Mary J Blige. Past editions of “Idol Gives Back” have raised more than $140 million in total.
• “Ellen DeGeneres Show” (syndicated/A Channel) – Annie Lennox (“The Annie Lennox Collection”).
• “Jimmy Kimmel Live” (ABC/CityTV) – Rob Zombie (“Hellbilly Deluxe 2”).
• “Last Call With Carson Daly” (NBC) – Lisa Hannigan (“Sea Sew”).
• “Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson” (CBS) – Corinne Bailey Rae (“The Sea”).
• “Late Night With Jimmy Fallon” (NBC/A Channel) – Silversun Pickups (“Swoon”).
• “Late Show With David Letterman” (CBS) – Jakob Dylan (“Women and Country”).
• “Tavis Smiley” (PBS) – Shelby Lynne (“Tears, Lies and Alibis”).
• “Tonight Show With Jay Leno” (NBC/A Channel) – Natalie Merchant (“Leave Your Sleep”).
BS MUSIC NOTES:
• The Beatles – Builders working at a house in Weymouth, England once owned by John Lennon believe they’ve dug up a stash of LSD he buried on the grounds back in 1967.
• Coldplay – They’ve already penned over 50 potential tracks for their 5th studio album which have each been posted on a ‘grading wall’ and ranked as ‘A’,’B’, or ‘C’ material.
• Creed – They’ve announced “The 20-10 Tour”, which begins July 28th in Washington DC and features tickets priced at just $20 and $10.
• Dierks Bentley – Tonight in Portland OR he kicks off a 24-date tour in support of his new album “Up On the Ridge”. The Travelin’ McCourys and Hayes Carll are the opening acts.
• The Killers – Tonight at its 27th annual “Pop Music Awards” in LA, ASCAP presents them the ‘Vanguard Award, which recognizes the impact of musical genres that help shape the future of American music.
• Metallica – They aren’t letting a little volcanic ash wreck their European tour, instead using roads and railways to get to their Lithuanian and Russian shows this week.
• Phoenix – Guitarist Christian Mazzalai tells MTV they’ll score the new Sofia Coppola film, “Somewhere”. Of course, they had an inside shot at the gig as frontman Thomas Mars is Coppola’s long-time partner and father of their child Romy.
• Susan Boyle – The 49-year-old Scottish singing sensation is set to tell her life story in “The Woman I Was Born to Be”, an autobiography due for release this Fall.
TODAY’S MOVIE OPENING:
“Kenny Chesney: Summer in 3-D” ( G-Rated Music Documentary ): Highlights of last Summer’s “Sun City Carnival” tour performances in Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Seattle, Indianapolis, and Foxboro, Massachusetts. A limited theatrical run through May 2nd is planned.
NET: http://www.kennychesneymovie.com
SLIM SECURITY:
Imperva, a California-based data security company, has analyzed some 32 million user passwords that were erroneously posted online as the result of a security breach last December. The data shows the most common passwords, in order of popularity are …
1. 123456
2. 12345
3. 123456789
4. Password
5. iloveyou
(Seems we’re not a very creative bunch, are we?)
– “Boston Globe”
BS BUZZWORDS:
New terms leaking into the lingo …
• ‘Off the Grid’ – Out of circulation; in hiding. (“Good luck finding him, he’s off the grid.”)
• ‘Skee-Wee’ – A loose woman with a bad reputation. (“I can’t believe you’re in love with that skee-wee!”)
• ‘Zumba’ – A new dance craze that fuses Latin dance moves to create a total body workout.
WHERE WE GATHER:
Facebook and YouTube are displacing rivals and taking over the social web, according to new data from comScore. In addition to showing massive and continued traffic growth throughout 2009 and the beginning of 2010, Facebook and YouTube continued to capture the highest volume of social web traffic. Twitter also garnered a ton of mainstream attention, helping the company increase the number of visitors to its site by fivefold over the course of a year. (What’s the worst social network site? MySpace? Classmates.com? We pick Lost Zombies.)
NET: http://www.lostzombies.com
– Mashable.com
FROM THE BS POLL VAULT:
A statistical breakdown of life by the numbers …
• 76% of women say they will not date a man who wears pleated pants.
• 56% of us are scared of driving in a rainstorm.
• 33% of guys will admit they have cried during a movie.
• 30% of guys admit they’ve skipped out on a bar tab at least once.
• 15% of us know somebody who wears a toupée.
• 10% of home owners have never looked in their attic.
MORE LOSS OF PRIVACY:
Online coupons are the fastest-growing segment of the coupon world. Their redemption increased 263% to about 50 million coupons in 2009, according to data analyst Inmar. But you may not know that the new breed of coupon, printed from the Internet or sent to mobile phones, is packed with info about the customer who uses it. Bar codes can be loaded with identification about the customer: email address, Facebook info, even the search terms used to find the coupon in the first place. And all of that data follows the customer into the store where it can be analyzed after the coupon redemption. (Is it possible to be anonymous anymore?)
– NYTimes.com
BS QUICKIES:
• A British man has been banned from driving for 3 years after police pulled him over for driving a toy Barbie car on the road … while drunk.
• An Australian publisher is reprinting 7,000 cookbooks due to a typo in a recipe for pasta that calls for ‘salt and freshly ground black people’.
• A man who called a suicide help-line in Sweden was left pondering his options on his own after the Church of Sweden pastor who was on duty fell asleep and started snoring down the line.
DULL IS HOT:
A new study at universities in California and Pennsylvania suggests that men with monotone voices are more attractive to women. A monotonous voice is associated with strength, power, and confidence, researchers say, and has evolved to be an indication of authority and independence. A poll shows that men with a ‘steady’ tone of voice have significantly more sexual partners than their more expressive counterparts. Among those with monotone voices who are considered ‘sexy’ – actors Clint Eastwood and George Clooney. (And our news guy.)
– “Daily Telegraph”
FOR THE RECORD:
52-year-old Wendy Southgate of Suffolk, England has most likely become the most photographed person on ‘Google Street View’. While walking her dog recently, she just happened to take the same route as Google’s multi-camera equipped car, leading to her being photographed 43 times. Composite photos are patched together to provide the final Street View feature on Google Maps. (This is no road to stardom – her face is blurred out every time.)
– “The Sun”
DID YOU KNOW?
The total amount paid out in sexually related costs (to victims, for treatment of priests, and in legal expenses) between 1950 and 2002 by the Catholic Church was $573 million. Of that, $219 million was covered by insurance. (From the ‘good hands’ people?)
– ToiletPaper.com
BS CHRONOMETER 04.21.10
TODAY’S CELEBIRTHDAYS . . .
1926 [84] Queen Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Mountbatten-Windsor), London UK, British monarch FACTOID: According to WhoOwnsTheWorld.com, she’s the largest personal landowner on Earth with 6,600 million acres. Her main holdings are in Canada (2,467 million acres), Australia (1,900 million acres), Papua New Guinea (114 million acres), New Zealand (66 million acres), and the UK (60 million acres). The 2nd-largest personal land empire belongs to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia who owns a mere 553 million acres.
1958 [52] Andie MacDowell, Gaffney SC, spokesmodel (L’Oreal)/movie actress (“Four Weddings & a Funeral”, “Groundhog Day”)
1977 [33] Jamie Salé, Calgary AB, figure skater (2009 “Battle Of the Blades” winner with former NHLer Craig Simpson on CBC-TV, 2002 Olympic pairs champion with husband-partner David Pelletier)
1979 [31] James McAvoy, Glasgow, Scotland, movie actor (“Atonement”, “Last King of Scotland”)
BS REASONS TO PARTY . . .
• “Administrative Professionals Day” (“Secretaries Day” in ancient times), an annual observance since 1952 to salute those dedicated souls in the office who do the work in the trenches. Over the years, the tradition of bosses giving APs flowers and/or lunch has given way to professional development opportunities or other work-themed awards.
NET: http://www.iaap-hq.org/APW/apwindex.htm
• “Big Word Day”, a day to use humongous words on purpose just to impress yourself. So go ahead, you can facilitate this celebration of excess verbiage!
• “Kindergarten Day”, honoring the 1782 birth of German educator Friedrich Froebel, who established the 1st kindergarten in 1837. (Thanks for all the finger paintings, Freid.)
• “Teach Children to Save Day”, another way of planning for your retirement besides contributing to that constantly quivering mutual fund.
TODAY’S MUSIC EVENT . . .
2005 [05] Relatively unknown indie band Death Cab For Cutie appears on “The OC” (FOX), generating immediate buzz
TODAY’S FIRST . . .
1997 [13] 1st ‘Space Funeral’ as ashes of LSD advocate Timothy Leary and “Star Trek” creator Gene Roddenberry are sent into orbit
TODAY’S RECORDS . . .
1975 [35] “(Hey Won’t You Play) Another Somebody Done Somebody Wrong Song” by BJ Thomas becomes the longest title ever that’s a #1 “Billboard” pop hit
1996 [14] ‘World’s Highest Roller Coaster’ opens in Las Vegas, circling the new Stratosphere hotel on a track 1,149 feet up in the air
AND REMEMBER . . .
[Thurs] Earth Day
[Thurs] “Oceans” opens in movie theaters
[Thurs] “Avatar” released on DVD
[Thurs] Jelly Bean Day
[Fri] “The Back-up Plan”; “The Losers” open in movie theaters
[Fri] Talk Like Shakespeare Day
[Fri] Brooks & Dunn “Last Rodeo Tour” begins (Sacramento CA)
This Week Is … Inspirational News Week
This Month Is … International Pet First Aid Awareness Month
BULL’S BITS
LITTLE KNOWN BS HOCKEY PENALTIES:
With the Stanley Cup playoffs underway, time to review a few lesser-known on-ice infractions …
• Too many men on the linesman.
• Shucking and jiving.
• Sequined gloves.
• Groping the groupie.
• Illegal use of pants.
• Doin’ the “Hokey Pokey”.
• Icing the mascot.
• Two guys, one goalie uniform.
• Grand theft Zamboni.
BS RANDOM JOKE:
The older we get, the farther we had to walk to school as a kid.
FAQ AT THE OFFICE:
In celebration of “Admin Pro Day”, a sampling of most-asked questions around the workplace …
• “What’s your workload like?”
• “Can you help me with this?”
• “Did you see what she’s wearing?”
• “Who’s he sleeping with?”
• “What do you mean lunch hour is only an hour?”
• “Do I look hung over?”
• “Did you fix the paper jam?”
• “Can you cover for me?”
• “You needed this yesterday?”
• “What do you mean by ‘late’?”
– Thanks to Kurt Shriner
BS WEB GOODIE:
Food and flowers are fine once a year, but creating a healthier workspace is a gift that lasts all year. Here are a few things you can do to create a more supportive work environment for administrative professionals and the whole office gang, thanks to ‘Feng Shui Diva’ …
NET: http://www.fengshuidiva.com/articleadminprofday.htm
BS PHONE STARTER:
What do you let your pet get away with that you probably shouldn’t?
BS WATER COOLER QUESTION:
Today’s Question: Teaching is considered the ‘germiest’ job; THIS is #2.
Answer to Give Out Next Show: Bank teller.
BS DEEP THOUGHT:
Those of you who think you know everything are annoying those of us who do.
