BS SHOW BIZ BUZZ:
“Gossip Girl” actor Chace Crawford is stepping up his dating game, reportedly seeing movie star Leonardo DiCaprio’s supermodel ex-, Bar Refaeli, whom Leo shed earlier this summer (she’s hot but you’ll always be #2, bud) . . . Activision CEO Bobby Kotick says the videogame-maker is considering developing a version of “Guitar Hero” that doesn’t require a gaming console to play, though he’s mum on exactly how that would work (you send them money, then hum a tune in your head?) . . . 54-year-old actor Chris Noth tells “Us Weekly” he slimmed down for the next “Sex & The City” movie (March 2010) by going to a special Brazilian resort specializing in a holistic approach to fitness, where you spend all day doing yoga, hiking, kayaking and eating vegetarian food (seems ‘Mr Big’ was getting TOO big) . . . A giraffe named ‘Tweet’ that starred in Toys ‘R’ Us ads, the movie “Ace Ventura: Pet Detective”, and the upcoming Kevin James comedy “The Zookeeper” (October 2010) has died at the Boston Zoo at age 18, attendants saying he just collapsed during feeding time (pain in the neck or sore throat?) . . . Acting couple Jim Carrey & Jenny McCarthy, who’ve been dating since 2005, have held a special ‘commitment ceremony’ in front of family & friends in Malibu CA, in which they promised to be ‘together forever’ (in Hollywood terms, they already have!) . . . As she awaits the December birth of their first child, 39-year-old Russian pop star Oksana Grigorieva, 53-year-old Mel Gibson’s pregnant girlfriend, says she’s craving ice cream and olives (ew, together?) . . . And show biz-mad Norwegian bus driver Andreas Jankov has legally changed his name to ‘Julius Andreas Gimli Arn MacGyver Chewbacca Highlander Elessar-Jankov’, in honor of his favorite movies, “Star Wars” and “Lord Of the Rings”, as well as the vintage 1985-92 TV series “MacGyver” (if you were as wacked as this guy, what famous fictional names would you pick?).

TODAY’S SHOW BIZ SKED:
• “Ellen DeGeneres Show” (syndicated/A Channel) – Maxwell (“BLACKsummers’night”).
• “Jay Leno Show” (NBC/CityTV) – Bruce Hornsby & The Noisemakers (“Levitate”), joined by guitar legend Eric Clapton.
• “Jimmy Kimmel Live” (ABC/CityTV) – Lives of Famous Men (“Sunshine”).
• “Late Night With Jimmy Fallon” (NBC/A Channel) – Megadeth (“Endgame”).
• “Vans Warped Tour” – The annual concert trek celebrates its 15th anniversary with a 2-hour theatrical special, a one-time screening in over 460 movie theaters.
• “VH1 Divas” – VH1’s femmes concert special returns, featuring Adele, Jennifer Hudson, Jordin Sparks, Kelly Clarkson, Leona Lewis, and Miley Cyrus. Paul Abdul hosts live from NYC’s Brooklyn Academy of Music in her first TV gig since departing “American Idol”. Special appearances by Cyndi Lauper, Martina McBride, Melissa Etheridge, and Sheryl Crow.

BS MUSIC NOTES:
• The Beatles – Last week their combined album sales (including albums not reissued) exceeded 626,000 units in the US alone, according to SoundScan. Notice Yoko’s been smiling a lot lately?
• Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band – Steven Van Zandt is launching a social networking website focused on music. Called ‘Fuzztopia’, it’s designed to be an interactive portal where artists and fans can talk shop. It will also include music streaming, music sales, and music classes. Currently in beta testing, it’s scheduled to go live within 6 months.
• Carrie Underwood – Today she’s inducted into the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame during the 13th annual induction ceremony at the Muskogee Civic Center.
• Coldplay – They’ve settled out-of-court with guitar hero Joe Satriani (Chickenfoot) over his allegation they lifted portions of “Viva La Vida” from his 2004 track “If I Could Fly”. While details of the case are sealed, insiders speculate a financial settlement may have been reached.
• Kenny Chesney – For the first time in a long time he will NOT be touring next summer. He tells “Entertainment Weekly” he needs to recharge creatively and ‘get off the clock’.
• Rolling Stones – 61-year-old former guitarist Mick Taylor (1969-74) is virtually destitute, now living in a small, rundown house with mounting unpaid bills. He says the band stopped paying him royalties in 1982 when they changed labels but he’s never considered pursuing a lawsuit. Meantime, police have been called to the London home of 62-year-old current guitarist Ronnie Wood to intercede in loud, drunken fight between him & his 20-year-old Russian girlfriend Ekaterina Ivanova. The former cocktail waitress was heard yelling: “I’m going to kill myself; you are going to find me dead!”, to which Wood replied: “F– off home you sl-t.” Things seem a bit iffy then.
• Tim McGraw – Tonight he does a makeup concert at Rexall Place in Edmonton to replace his cancelled performance at the “Big Valley Jamboree” in nearby Camrose. A violent windstorm during the August 1st event led to a fatal stage collapse. Tonight’s show is open to those who held tickets to the festival.

FUTURE FLICKS:
A BS selection of movies in the making …
• “The A-Team” – Jessica Biel (“7th Heaven”) & Sharlto Copley (“District 9”) are in final talks to star opposite Liam Neeson, Bradley Cooper, and Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson in the upcoming bigscreen remake of the vintage TV series (1983-87) about 4 wrongly convicted military vets who become do-gooder mercenaries. Lensing begins this fall in Vancouver.
• “The Danish Girl” – Nicole Kidman will co-produce and star in the true-life story of Danish painter Einar Wegener, who in 1931 became the first man to go through a sex-change operation to become a woman. Charlize Theron, who had been attached to play the painter’s wife, has now left the production. Even so, filming is expected to get underway soon.
• “Easy Rider: The Ride Back” – A sequel to the 1969 cult biker film is set to hit cinemas next month, 40 years after Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, and Jack Nicholson hit the road to make movie magic. The new film features little-known actors and is planned to be the first part of a new movie trilogy.
• “Indiana Jones 5” – 67-year-old actor Harrison Ford has confirmed he’ll play the role one more time … if the script is any good. The franchise’s 4th instalment, “Indiana Jones & The Kingdom Of the Crystal Skull” (2008), came almost 20 years after the 1989 original. Ford’s co-star last year, Shia LaBeouf, has confirmed a new film is in the works, with director Steven Spielberg overseeing the project. Isn’t it about time to hang up the hat, Harrison?

BENEFITS OF BREAKFAST:
In the time you spend each morning calibrating your hair gel, you could be doing something more important with a much better payoff: eating breakfast. Mom was right, it’s the most important meal of the day. And here’s why …
• It Keeps You Slim: Breakfast eaters are less likely to be overweight than breakfast skippers, and successful dieters are also more likely to be breakfast eaters.
• It Keeps You Healthy: Eating breakfast may reduce your risk of serious illnesses such as heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and cancer, and it strengthens your immune system so you’re more resistant to common ailments like colds and the flu.
• It Keeps You Sharp: Memory and concentration get a boost from breakfast. A study on children found that kids who eat breakfast score higher on tests and are less likely to suffer from depression, anxiety, and hyperactivity. It should help you at the office, too.
– “Men’s Health”

FACTS ABOUT NEWS BEING FACTUAL:
The public’s perception of the accuracy of news stories is now at its lowest level in more than 2 decades. Just 29% of poll respondents now say that news organizations ‘generally get the facts straight’, while 63% say that ‘news stories are often inaccurate’. In the initial survey about news media’s performance in 1985, 55% said news stories were accurate and just 34% thought them inaccurate. (At least those are the figures to the best of our recollection. We might be wrong.)
– Pew Research Center

BS LAW & DISORDER:
• Indianapolis IN – The Indiana Court of Appeals has ruled that a pizza shop must foot the bill for a weight-loss operation on a former cook. The man weighed 340 lbs when he was accidentally struck in the back by a freezer door in 2007. Doctors advised he needed surgery to ease severe pain but the operation would do no good unless he first had surgery to reduce his weight … which eventually rose to 380 lbs. In the meantime, the big guy has also been receiving disability payments. (Ill he give them up? Fat chance.)
– AP
• Olbia, Italy – Much of the jewelry stolen from a Saudi princess last month has been found dumped near the Sardinian hotel where the heist took place. The thieves pried a small safe off a hotel room wall and made off with it August 5th. Italian police theorize they eventually discovered that fencing $16 million-worth of jewelry isn’t easy when it’s one-of-a-kind and listed in various catalogues. (Seems crime doesn’t pay … more than $10 million.)
– ANSA
• Mount Holly NJ – A pharmacy technician who says she was traumatized when an armed and masked gunman burst into her store demanding OxyContin is suing her employers for arranging the fake holdup, which was part of a ‘training drill’. The woman claims she was not told in advance of the mock-up and only later found out the gun was fake and the gunman worked for the company. She’s since been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and is now seeking damages. (She’ll be dismayed when she learns the store burned down last week in a fake fire.)
– Yahoo! News
• Papua New Guinea – Cops are hunting the leader of a cult who’s been promising villagers that their banana harvest will increase 10-fold every time they … have sex in public. When police tried to arrest him for a variety of offences, the cult leader made a dash for freedom into the wilderness with about 7 naked followers, using his 2 wives as a human shield to avoid being shot at. (Meantime, the local village is knee-deep in f-ing bananas!)
– “Post Courier”

BEWARE THE SHOWER HEAD!
A new study of shower heads has discovered that about 20% of those investigated contain disease-causing mycobacterium stuck there in their own slime. Lead researcher Laura Baumgartner of the University of Colorado says microbes are everywhere, so finding them in showers is no surprise, but finding them in such large numbers is. Some strains of the bacteria can cause lung disease and showerheads ‘aerosolize’ them, making them easy to inhale. A couple of tips: Microbes grow much better on plastic rather than metal; and the first burst of water is the most microbe-concentrated. For the average person this isn’t a concern, but people with health issues may want to change showerheads every 6 months or so. (We don’t even wanna guess what’s lurking in the drain!)
– “USA Today”

VIRTUAL PAGE-TURNER:
Web surfers can now read online news like a newspaper, using Google’s new program ‘Fast Flip’ which launched this week. The software allows readers to flip screen-shots of newspaper web pages much like they’d browse a real paper. Google says the idea of the new service is to help boost the flagging sales of printed newspapers and magazines by replicating the experience online and allowing publishers to share in Google’s ad revenue. So far, about 30 publications are available in the format, including the “NY Times” and the “Washington Post”. (Does this mean you have to put your laptop in the bird cage the next day?)
– AHN

FOR THE RECORD:
A 107-year-old Malaysian woman fears her marriage is on the rocks so she’s seeking to find … her 23rd husband. Wook Kundor married a 33-year-old man – 70-years-younger – 4 years ago but now fears he will not return home after completing treatment for drug addiction in Kuala Lumpur. (And finally realizes he married a fossil.)
– BBC News

BS AMAZING BEER FACTS:
• On average, Guinness sells 7 million glasses of beer a day.
• Germany has about 1,300 breweries that produce more than 5,000 varieties of beer.
• Budweiser beer is named after a town in the Czech Republic.
– GreatFacts.com

BS CHRONOMETER 09.17.09

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TODAY’S CELEBIRTHDAYS . . .
1960 [49] Kevin Clash, Baltimore MD, TV show ‘Muppet captain’ (‘Elmo’ on “Sesame Street” since 1985)/author (“My Life As a Furry Red Monster”)

1978 [31] Shawn Horcoff, Trail BC, NHL forward (Edmonton Oilers)

1979 [30] Chuck Comeau, Montréal QC, punk-pop drummer (Simple Plan-“Untitled [How Could This Happen to Me?]”, “Welcome to My Life”)

1985 [24] Alexander Ovechkin, Moscow, Russia, NHL hockey superstar (Washington Capitals) with largest contract in NHL history ($124 million over 13 years)

1985 [24] Mason Raymond, Calgary AB, NHL forward (Vancouver Canucks)

1985 [24] Jon Walker, Chicago IL, rock musician (Panic At the Disco-“Nine in the Afternoon”, “I Write Sins Not Tragedies”)

BS REASON TO PARTY . . .
• “Apple Dumpling Day”, celebrating the tasty autumn treat that’s made by filling pastry with sweet, delicious apples. Apples are the world’s most varied food, with some 7,500 varieties. On average, Canadians eat 86 apples each per year, according to Agriculture Canada.

THIS DAY IN SHOW BIZ . . .
1983 [26] ‘Miss New York’, Vanessa Williams, becomes the 1st black woman to be crowned ‘Miss America’ in the 62-year history of the pageant but quickly has to relinquish the title when nude pics of her are published in “Penthouse” magazine (now plays ‘Wilhelmina Slater’ on ABC-TV’s “Ugly Betty”)

TODAY’S MUSIC EVENT . . .
1999 [10] Celine Dion receives a star on ‘Canada’s Walk of Fame’ in Toronto

TODAY’S FIRSTS . . .
1974 [35] 4 women swear oaths of allegiance to RCMP to become 1st female ‘Mounties’

1975 [34] 1st-ever ‘Playing President’ of a sports franchise (Gordie Howe with the Houston Aeros of the World Hockey Association)

COMING UP . . .
[Fri] World Water Monitoring Day
[Fri] ALMA Awards (LA)
[Sat] POW/MIA Recognition Day
[Sat] Talk Like a Pirate Day
[Sat] Wife Appreciation Day
[Sat] Responsible Dog Ownership Day
This Week Is … Adult Daycare Center Week
This Month Is … Pleasure Your Mate Month

BULL’S BITS

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BS REJECTED FALL TV SHOWS:
• “So You Think You Can Yodel?”
• “America’s Next Top Podiatrist”
• “CSI: Poughkeepsie”
• “Find Love or Die!”
• “Bill Nye the Scientology Guy”
• “Deal, No Deal, or Sex With the Woman Holding the Briefcase”
• “America’s Fattest Losers”
• “STDs of Love with Bret Michaels”
– Adapted from BBspot.com.

BS PHONE STARTER:
What film is so sacred it should NEVER be remade or sequelized?

BS RANDOM JOKE:
I may be schizophrenic, but at least I’ll always have each other.

BS WATER COOLER QUESTION:
Today’s Question: Perhaps due to the economy, sales of THESE have increased 11% this year.
Answer to Give Out Next Show: Hair clippers.

BS DEEP THOUGHT:
There is no job so simple that it cannot be done wrong.