BS SHOW BIZ BUZZ:
Today the new movie “Rage” is being launched in London with an interactive press conference beamed live on 40 screens worldwide in an attempt to create hype for Brit actor Jude Law’s quirky role as a drag artist in the experimental film, the first-ever to be released straight-to-cellphone (now he’s a really small-screen star) . . . Academy Award-winning film “Little Miss Sunshine” (2006) is being re-envisioned as a stage musical at the Sundance Institute Theatre Lab in Florida and, if successful, it will hopefully move to Broadway (might work if they can make Abigail Breslin 10 again) . . . Acting couple Sarah Michelle Geller & Freddie Prinze Jr are parents of a new baby girl, their first child, whom they’ve named Charlotte Grace (how unbelievably normal!) . . . Former adult movie star Jenna Jameson is being sued by her divorce lawyers who claim she still owes them $72,000 (we’re sure she can think of some way to pay them off) . . . 20-year-old “Heroes” actress Hayden Panettiere (‘Claire’) is reportedly dating 35-year-old “Entourage” actor Kevin Connolly (‘Eric’), as they’ve been spotted holding hands during intimate conversation at a recent Hollywood party (if true, they’d be the teensy TV twosome – he’s 5′-7”, she’s 5’1”) . . . And TV’s highest-paid actor, 44-year-old Charlie Sheen at a reported $825,000 per episode, is hinting he’s set to quit his hit sitcom “Two & A Half Men” after 1 more season (maybe CBS-TV will change format and make this into an actual comedy?).

TODAY’S SHOW BIZ SKED:
• “Ellen DeGeneres Show” (syndicated/A Channel) – Noisettes (“Wild Young Hearts”).
• “F1 Rocks” (Singapore) – Tonight through Saturday at Fort Canning Park in Singapore, Beyoncé, Black Eyed Peas, NERD, Simple Minds, and ZZ Top perform at the 1st of 8 music festivals tied in with Formula One races. The Singapore Grand Prix runs Sunday. The concerts will be screened in over 180 countries.
• “Guinness Brewery 250th Anniversary” (aka “Arthur’s Day”) – The company is celebrating the decision by Arthur Guinness to sign a 9,000-year lease on a run-down brewery in Dublin, Ireland’s St James’ Gate in 1759. 24-hours of live music & festivities take place in various cities worldwide including NYC; Lagos, Nigeria (Sean Paul); Yaoundé, Cameroon; and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (Black Eyed Peas); as well as, of course, Dublin (Paolo Nutini, OK Go).
• “Jay Leno Show” (NBC/CityTV) – Smokey Robinson w/Joss Stone (“Time Flies When You’re Having Fun”).
• “Last Call With Carson Daly” (NBC) – Paolo Nutini (“These Streets”).
• “Late Night With Jimmy Fallon” (NBC/A Channel) – Phoenix (“Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix”).
• “Late Show With David Letterman” (CBS) – Snow Patrol (“A Hundred Million Suns”).
• “Oprah Winfrey Show” (syndicated/CTV) – Jay-Z (“The Blueprint 3”).
• “Tonight Show With Conan O’Brien” (NBC/A Channel) – India.Arie (“Testimony: Vol 2, Love & Politics”)

BS MUSIC NOTES:
• The Beatles – EMI reports that consumers in Japan, North America, and the UK bought more than 2.25 million copies of their re-mastered albums in the first 5 days after their September 9th release.
• Jimi Hendrix – He’ll continue rocking from beyond the grave for at least another 10 years as his family plans to market box sets of previously unreleased material. The legendary guitarist died in 1970.
• Marilyn Manson – The shock rocker has confirmed he has H1N1 swine flu. “Unfortunately, I am going to survive,” he says on his blog … whatever that means.

COMING ATTRACTIONS:
A BS selection of movies in the making …
• “The Host” – Producers have acquired screen rights to the first adult novel written by Stephenie Meyer, author of the “Twilight” series. The novel is a love story set in the near future on Earth, which has been assimilated by an alien species of parasites that call themselves ‘Souls’. One of them teams with a dying Earthling locate the last pocket of surviving humans.
• “Made For Each Other” – Actress Bijou Phillips (“Almost Famous”) found herself in a difficult position on the set of this comedy, having to film love scenes with Chris Masterson (“Malcolm In the Middle”), the brother of her real-life fiancé, actor Danny Masterson (“That ’70s Show”). As Danny also has a role, he was forced to watch as his wife-to-be got passionate with his brother … day after day. Phillips & Masterson announced their engagement earlier this year.
• “Sherlock Holmes 2” – A sequel to the upcoming movie about the super sleuth is being planned, 3 months before the first instalment hits theaters. Robert Downey Jr stars as the legendary detective in Guy Ritchie’s film, set for release December 25th. Jude Law plays sidekick ‘Dr Watson’. Screenwriters are now being rounding up to draft a script for a follow-up. Both Downey & Law have already agreed to a 2nd film.
• “The Social Network” – The cast has now been filled for this Aaron Sorkin-scripted drama about the formation of Facebook. Jesse Eisenberg will play Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg; Justin Timberlake will play Sean Parker, the Napster co-founder who became Facebook’s founding president; and Andrew Garfield will play Eduardo Saverin, the Facebook co-founder who fell out with Zuckerberg over money. Production begins next month in Boston MA.
• “Sweet Valley High” – Universal Studios is in talks to acquire the film rights to the high school girls’ book series created by Francine Pascal. Screenwriter Diablo Cody (“Jennifer’s Body”, “Juno”) has already been signed to write & produce the bigscreen adaptation. The “Sweet Valley” novels follow the lives of identical twins with dissimilar personalities – sensitive & practical ‘Elizabeth’; flighty & boy-crazy ‘Jessica’. There were more than 150 books in the series that was published 1983-2003 and became a TV series1994-97.

THINGS YOUR RESTAURANT WON’T TELL YOU:
Sure, there are lots of honest eateries, but there are also more than a few that use dirty little restaurant secrets to rip off customers. Among them …
• Substituting Top-Shelf Alcohol with Generic Booze – One of the most common scams at restaurant bars, because most customers can’t tell the difference.
• Using Cabbage in Place of Seaweed – A trick employed by expensive but unethical Chinese restaurants to save money on expensive seaweed appetizers.
• Topping Pitchers of Beer with Seltzer Water – The drunker the guys in some sports bars get, the more seltzer they get.
• Substituting Pricey Bottled Waters – Some unscrupulous restaurants refill water bottles with tap water, easy to do if the bottles come with screw tops.
• Recycled Oil – Several dishes may be cooked in the same deep-fry basket, using the same oil.
• Serving Rotten Meat – It’s an old trick to keep steak that’s past its prime and wait until somebody orders it well done or medium-well. The more you cook it, the more you disguise its flavor.
• Serving Caffeinated Coffee as Decaf – Just like brand-name booze, most customers can’t tell the difference … until they’re awake half-the-night.
• Using Fake Cream – Those little pots of cream served with your after-dinner coffee might actually be topped up with non-dairy, powdered creamer.
– Condensed from SlashFood.com.

PLASTIC PLAYTHING FOR POOCHES:
The makers of ‘Hot Doll’, which costs circa $600, claim the first-ever sex-toy for canines makes it easier to control and improve a dog’s behavior. French design firm Feel Addicted came up with the idea, noting that most dog owners are embarrassed when their pooches attempt to mount cushions, teddy bears and, worst case scenario, the legs of neighbors, guests, and themselves. ‘Hot Doll’ is designed to control this problem. It’s purportedly easy to teach them to use what is essentially a plastic dog that’s semi-anatomically correct.
NET: http://www.hotdollfordog.com
– “Daily Telegraph”

MEDICAL SLAVERY:
A new survey of more than 350 residents at over 160 medical schools worldwide has found that fully 39% admit to making at least one major medical error during the study period due to sleepiness and its accompanying distress and mental fatigue. While doctors, unions, and other medical experts have been clamoring to cut the hours worked by residents, who once routinely put in 100-to-120 hour work-weeks, it seems they are still required to work at least 80 hours a week at most training hospitals. (Funny how they all look so fresh on “Grey’s Anatomy”.)
– “Journal Of the American Medical Association”

TV’S TOP TANKERS:
Every new TV season brings a massively hyped, over-promoted show that tanks quickly and spectacularly. Here are a few of the most notorious …
5. “Kings”, 13 episodes (2009).
4. “Emily’s Reasons Why Not”, 1 episode (2006).
3. “Studio 60 On the Sunset Strip”, 22 episodes (2006-07).
2. “Return of Jezebel James”, 3 episodes (2008).
1. “Osbournes Reloaded”, 6 episodes recorded, 1 aired. (2009).
And which do you think will be this season’s stinkers?
– Adapted from EW.com.

SORRY FOR YOUR LOSS:
Customers are happier to receive an apology than a refund following disputes on eBay, according to a new study. Researchers made the discovery after monitoring the reaction of more than 100 customers a month who filed negative feedback about an established firm that sells over 10,000 items-a-month on the auction site. The findings show that 45% of complaints were withdrawn after the company apologized. In contrast, only 23% of customers were content after receiving compensation. (When the teeth whitener you ordered online has burned your gums, it’s too late to apologize.)
– “Daily Express”

GAMING BIAS:
UCLA researchers recently conducted a census of videogame characters, recording the demographics of each character that appeared onscreen in gaming sessions, no matter how briefly, then weighting them in proportion to each game’s sales. For example, characters in a game selling 2 million copies counted for twice that of those in a game selling 1 million. The results: 85% of characters are male (compared to 51% of the real population); Asian characters are over-represented by 25% and Caucasians by 7%; while Black characters are under-represented by 13% and Latinos by a massive 78%. (Bigotry or just a representation of who gamers are most likely to be?)
– “Popular Science”

FOR THE RECORD:
British jeweler Donald Edge was asked to create a gold, pearl, and diamond-encrusted bottle of Chambord raspberry liqueur. His work is estimated to be worth $2 million and contains 1,100 individual diamonds. It will be entered in the “Guinness Book of World Records” as ‘Most Expensive Bottle of Spirits’. It was created for promotional purposes at the just-ended “London Fashion Week” and now moves to a theater display at a stage production of “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” in London. (It’d look classier if they took it out of the paper bag.)
– “Vogue Magazine”

AND WE QUOTE:
“As any radio listener knows, it’s amazing how much you can see with your ears.”
– Ashleigh Brilliant, said to be the most quoted author in the world, who’s written over 10,000 wonderful bon mots, all 17-words or less.
NET: http://ashleighbrilliant.com

BS CHRONOMETER 09.24.09

---

TODAY’S CELEBIRTHDAYS . . .
1959 [50] Steve Whitmire, Atlanta GA, Muppet voice actor (since Jim Henson died in 1990, voice of ‘Ernie’, ‘Kermit the Frog’, ‘Rizzo the Rat’, ‘Beaker’, ‘Bean Bunny’, ‘Doozer’, etc)

1962 [47] Nia Vardalos, Winnipeg MB, movie actress/screenwriter (“My Life in Ruins”, “My Big Fat Greek Wedding”)

1969 [40] Shawn ‘Clown’ Crahan, Des Moines IA, metal rock percussionist/vocalist (Slipknot-“Dead Memories”, “Duality”)

BS REASONS TO PARTY . . .
• “Cherries Jubilee Day”, celebrating the decadent dessert that’s always served flambée. Wanna make a home version easily? All you need is a can of cherry pie filling, some cognac (or brandy), vanilla ice cream and … a match.

• “National; “Punctuation” Day!”, the 6th annual celebrating the traffic signs of written language. Wow! Eh?
NET: http://nationalpunctuationday.com/

THIS DAY IN SHOW BIZ . . .
1968 [41] “60 Minutes” debuts (CBS), TV’s longest running news magazine, with corespondents Harry Reasoner & Mike Wallace (back when Andy Rooney is only 75)

1991 [18] Children’s author Theodor Seuss Geisel, better known as ‘Dr Seuss’, dies in La Jolla, California at age 87  FACTOID: Dr Seuss’s German-derived name is properly pronounced ‘zoice’ (rhymes with ‘voice’).

TODAY’S MUSIC EVENT . . .
2007 [02] Aerosmith cancels the biggest concert ever scheduled for Maui, Hawaii because their equipment purportedly can’t be transported from Chicago in time (leads to a class action lawsuit that results in 2 concerts this October)

TODAY’S FIRSTS . . .
1927 [82] Conn Smythe changes the name of the NHL’s Toronto St Patricks hockey team to the ‘Maple Leafs’

1979 [30] 1st ‘Online Service’ (CompuServe, later absorbed by AOL)

TODAY’S RECORD . . .
1984 [25] ‘Longest Recorded Kiss’ sets “Guinness Record” at 17 days, 10.5 hours (Eddie Levin & Delphine Crha in Chicago IL)

AND REMEMBER . . .
[Fri] Hug A Vegetarian Day
[Fri] One-Hit Wonder Day
[Sat] Fish Amnesty Day
[Sat] Hunting & Fishing Day
[Sun] Good Neighbor Day
This Week Is … Adult Immunization Awareness Week
This Month Is … Cholesterol Education & Awareness Month

BULL’S BITS

---

THE OTHER BATHROOM NUMBERS:
Everyone knows about #1 and #2, but what are the other functions performed in the bathroom?
#3. Shower.
#4. Shave.
#5. Talk to mirror.
#6. Purge.
#7. Moisturize.
#8. Brush teeth.
#9. Clean (a. Tub; b. Toilet; c. Sink; d. Floor).
#10. First aid.
#11. Just want to be alone.
#12. Both #1 and #2.
– Thanks to David Wechsler.

BS RANDOM JOKE:
If only women came with pull-down menus and online help.

BS PHONE STARTER:
What’s your favorite Dr Seuss book? How old were you when you first read it?

BS WATER COOLER QUESTION:
Today’s Question: Girls, dating experts say you can tell a guy is really into you if he does THIS.
Answer to Give Out Tomorrow: Asks you on a ‘day date’, to have lunch for example.

BS DEEP THOUGHT:
The greatest pleasure – doing what they said couldn’t be done.