Thursday, December 15, 2011       Edition: #4652
Ah, the Sweet Smell of BS!

BS SHOW BIZ BUZZ:
Protests by right-wing fringe group Florida Family Association over “All-American Muslim” (TLC) have led Lowe’s retail chain to yank it’s ads but it won’t take the new reality TV show off-air, it may even help boost its ratings (the show follows the daily lives of Muslim families who live in suburban Detroit, Michigan) . . . New couple alert: Cameron Diaz & Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs, all over each other at Manhattan club PhD (the shorter list nowadays would be ‘who hasn’t slept with her?’) . . . Ex-“Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” star Christopher Meloni is joining the cast of “True Blood” (HBO) as a series regular, playing a vampire lord who tries to control ‘Bill and Eric’ (after he left “SVU” over a salary dispute, the show’s ratings dropped dramatically) . . . “Us Weekly” reports that “CBS Evening News” anchor-turned-ABC News special correspondent Katie Couric (54) has ended her 5-year relationship with 37-year-old Brooks Perlin (17-years-younger than her; 17-years-older than her daughter) . . . Actress Gwyneth Paltrow’s oft-belittled ‘GOOP Newsletter’ blog has now spawned the app ‘GOOP City Guide’, filled with all her favorite places, services, and people in NYC – including her OB/GYN (cool, now you can get pretentiousness on your iPad!) . . . 36-year-old Angelina Jolie tells the January issue of “Marie Claire” she’s open to expanding her brood with partner Brad Pitt and ‘could end up pregnant’ again (biggest deterrent – they’re running out of names) . . . And according to “New York Post”, famed ladies’ man Derek Jeter of the NY Yankees sends his one-night-stands home with swag, gift baskets containing signed Jeter memorabilia such as an autographed baseball (let’s hope that’s the only ‘souvenir’ they take home).

TODAY’S SHOW BIZ SKED:
• “Ellen DeGeneres Show” (syndicated/CTV2) – Lindsay Lohan was supposed to ‘premiere’ her “Playboy” pictorial but the pre-taped segment was canceled after she missed her flight from Hawaii. Typical.
• “Jimmy Kimmel Live” (ABC/CHCH) – Lenny Kravitz (“Black & White America”).
• “Last Call With Carson Daly” (NBC) – Death Cab For Cutie (“Codes & Keys”).
• “Late Night With Jimmy Fallon” (NBC/CTV2) – Retiring alternative rocker Michael Stipe (REM-“Collapse into Now”).
• “Late Show With David Letterman” (CBS/NTV/Omni1) – My Morning Jacket (“Circuital”).
• “Live With Kelly” (syndicated/CTV) – Michael Bublé (“Christmas”).
• “Tonight Show With Jay Leno” (NBC/CTV2) – Robin Thicke (“Love After War”).
• “The X Factor” (FOX/CTV) – Mariah Carey & Justin Bieber perform “All I Want for Christmas Is You”; another performer is eliminated. (Paula Abdul is denying Nicole Scherzinger’s claim that Paula told her to vote off popular 13-year-old contestant Rachel Crow last week.)

BS MUSIC NOTES:
• Chris Isaak – Today he performs at Terminal 5 of NYC’s John F Kennedy International Airport as the latest artist in the ‘Live From T5 Concert Series’. The show is available to ticketed customers as part of JetBlue’s ‘entertainment-happy customer experience’.
• Drake – A dimwit female in LA has decided to have ‘DRAKE’ inked on her face in the biggest font that can fit on her forehead. She arrived at Will Rise ink shop with her head and eyebrows already shaved, ready for ink. She was then asked 3 times if she was sure about the decision.
• Eli Young Band – “Billboard” magazine has named their hit “Crazy Girl” the #1 country song of the year, based on ‘total audience impressions’ in 2011.
• Queens Of the Stone Age – They’ve confirmed in a Facebook post that they’re ‘locked away in the desert’ hard-at-work on their 6th album.
• Trace Adkins – The latest edition of “Good Housekeeping” reveals that the country star is so tall (6’-6”) that he can change the lightbulbs in his house without using a ladder.
• Will.i.am – He’s debuted the video for his new solo single “THE (The Hardest Ever)” via his Google+ page. The track features Jennifer Lopez and Mick Jagger, who appear in the clip.

HOW TO PICK UP ANY WOMAN:
Tips from women on the best ways to attract them …
• Walk This Way – Women look first at your attire and second at how you walk. Always walk as if you know where you’re going and what you’re doing.
• Look Into Her Eyes – Tell her you love her dimples while gazing at her feet and you’ll reek of emotional insecurity.
• Take a Compliment – Secure people accept praise gracefully and without ado.
• Call Before Day 3 – If she gives you her number, use it within 48 hours or you’ll look either scared or stupid for resorting to high-school mind games.
• Perform At the Beep – If you get her voice mail, leave a message. Ask a question that presupposes her interest in you, such as “How soon would you like to get together?”
• Don’t Expose Your Negatives – When talking about yourself, stick to your best attributes and the interests you’re most passionate about.
• Celebrate Her Success – A confident man doesn’t feel emasculated if the woman he’s with makes more money or is more successful than he … he takes it as a compliment.
– Condensed from MensHealth.com

THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME:
Many of the shapes of today’s traffic signs are thanks to recommendations from the Mississippi Valley Association of State Highway Departments way back in 1923. It’s theory was that the more sides a sign has, the higher the danger it invokes. So the circle, with an infinite number of sides, screamed danger and was used for railway crossings. The octagon, with its 8 sides, was used to denote ‘STOP’, the 2nd-highest level. The diamond shape was reserved for warning signs, and the rectangle and square shapes were used for information. (Speed limit signs were apparently designed to be suggestions.)
– “New York Times”

VIRTUALLY OPEN:
Today Canada’s federal government is hosting its first-ever Twitter town hall. Officially dubbed the ‘Open Government Consultation’, Treasury Board president Tony Clement hosts the event on the Twitter account @TBS_Canada at 5 pm EST (hashtag #opengovchat). This might seem like a dramatic about-face for a government that’s notoriously uncommunicative about its business, but in reality it’s simply fulfilling a requirement for membership in what’s called the ‘Open Government Partnership’, an international initiative to increase government accountability to citizens. (To see how ‘open’ it really is, try asking Clement about the 50 mill spent on the G8 summit in Huntsville.)
– CBC.ca

SIRI SURROGATE:
Android users anxiously awaiting a fully functional reply to Apple’s digital personal assistant ‘Siri’ are going to have to wait a little bit longer. Google announced Tuesday it has acquired a company called Clever Sense, which has developed a similar app named ‘Alfred’. Eventually the app will perform Internet searches and offer useful info such as restaurant and nightlife options, but ‘Alfred’ has a lot of catching up to do. Apple’s ‘Siri’ already provides users with those benefits and also answer questions about weather, news, and directions. (There’s a nifty website devoted to Siri’s funniest answers: http://www.sirifunny.com)
– Techieapps.com

MOMS & METEOROLOGY:
Dutch psychologists investigating how weather affects mood have found a surprisingly high number of us inherit our attitudes toward weather conditions from our mothers. The study identifies 4 types of weather reactions: Summer lovers, Summer haters, rain haters, and the thick-skinned who ignore it all. After asking mothers and their adolescent offspring to keep a ‘mood diary’ over a year, they found that how we react to weather tends to run in our families. The final figures: 16% are much happier on sunny days; 26% become more anxious and uncomfortable on hot days; but nearly half of us aren’t significantly affected by seasonal weather changes at all. (Until the wind chill hits -20.)
– “Times of London”

SOMEBODY’S WATCHING YOU:
Looking at digital ads has become commonplace in malls and transit stops around-the-world. But did you know a growing number of those signs are looking back at you? Intel Corporation’s ‘AIM Suite’ digital signs use facial detection cameras and software to determine a viewer’s age and gender, and then tailor the ads. If a 23-year-old woman walks by, for instance, the sign might display an ad for a hair product. But if a 53-year old man strolls past, a BMW ad may be displayed. The system is designed to detect broad age ranges (18-34, 34-59, etc) and determine gender by … checking out the ears. Howzat? If ears are showing, there’s an 85% chance the subject is male. (Unless Ashton Kutcher’s in the area.)
– CNN.com

FOR THE RECORD:
• At 23,675 pages, it’s most likely the ‘World’s Thickest Book’ and a shoo-in for a listing in Guinness World Records. What is it? A listing of all the rules around which the country of Denmark’s unemployment insurance is administered. (50 years ago, it ran just 421 pages.)
– Scandinavian Press
• Researchers at California Institute of Technology have managed to hit a new world record where data transfer is concerned, touching a combined rate of 186Gbps (gigabits per second) within a wide area network. (Compare that to the 50 or so Mbps you’re chugging along at thanks to your ‘high-speed’ server.)
– ScienceDaily.com

BS AMAZING FACTS:
• This week the 3-page document that marked the 1976 founding of Apple Corporation sold for $1.35 million at a Sotheby’s Fine Books & Manuscripts auction, 10 times the pre-sale estimate. – Blomberg News
• Birds run hot, much hotter than mammals. In fact, their bodies are always within a few degrees of temperatures that can kill them. A bird in flight produces up to 20 times its body heat at rest.
– “Wilson Quarterly”

AND WE QUOTE:
“I get asked a lot about getting into politics. I say, ‘Take a look at politics. You tell me what seems appealing about that’.”
– Actor George Clooney in the January ‘Meaning of Life’ issue of “Esquire” magazine.

BS CHRONOMETER 12.15.11