Sorry but today is a slightly shortened edition of The Humanoids. By slightly shortened, I mean that I could only think of eight instead of nine victims. Mind you, with the readership number I usually get, I would have to think that no one will notice. But I’m sure that someone cares that my column was abbreviated because I had to be elsewhere today. I figure that, even though we have more visitors to the blog in a day than listeners to our radio show in a season, most people are here for the pretty pictures.

Anyway, we’ve been working hard on the radio show over the last week. For the next season, we are planning on launching a Facebook fan page, a Twitter account, a Talkshoe account, and a YouTube channel. That’s all the fun technical stuff that involved in running a crazy bi-weekly radio show. Meanwhile, we’re still pulling together segment ideas for the next season. Expect a lot more of us and less of those big feature segments. One new segment we’re going to frequent is “It’s New But Is it Any Good?” where we’ll review new products on the market to see if they’re worth buying. It’s not a great idea but we’re working on it. I’m sure we’ll have a great season upcoming. But that’s then, this is now so let’s roll on.

MLB All-Star Game
Once again, this year it counted. I don’t suppose it’s too late to mention to Bud Selig and his gang of cronies and yes men that it’s an exhibition. Hell, the players know it doesn’t really mean anything. I lost count of how many starters and reserve players had mysterious injuries that seemed to crop up only in the final days before the game. The MLB’s own policies show it doesn’t count. It’s an all-star game but every team must have one representative. That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s all stars. The real star of the show and the reason why I tuned in was the appearance of US President Barack Obama. He threw out the first pitch, though he was a bit short on the toss. Not that you would have seen that on FOX. Expert camera work covered that up. Other than Obama on the field and in the FOX booth, it matter to anyone. Back to the drawing board, Bud. By the way, the AL won 4-3 to extend its unbeaten streak to 13 games.

Harry Potter
The latest and likely not the greatest iteration of the Harry Potter movie series came out earlier this week. I was so excited that I had to look up what this movie was called for this column. It’s Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, the sixth book and movie in the inexplicably multi-billion dollar franchise. I’ve seen and read the first five books and movies and the books are all better than the movies. The third movie is the best of the bunch and definitely gives the book a run for its money. Anyway, all this hype for a movie that’s likely to be too long and too bland to be worth seeing until it hits free TV. I don’t understand what’s so good about the books and movies. To me, they’re fairly generic. They’re very easy reads so they’re very accessible. On the whole, I’ve found them good if you want to shut off before going to sleep. You know what I mean. Read these books and your brain just shuts down like a computer as you’re reading. No thinking, no remembering, just reading words. Though, I’m sure many folks will find a plus side to Emma Watson in the movie.

Chicago Blackhawks
Don’t tell me you didn’t see this coming last season. Scotty Bowman was hired as a senior advisor and works with/for his son Stan Bowman. Now, Stan is the man as Dale Tallon was turfed. I shouldn’t say turfed. He was reassigned to the position of senior advisor. Team president John McDonough suggested if there wasn’t an administrative snafu with the qualifying offers for some restricted free agents, then Tallon would still be GM. I’m calling shenanigans on the parts of the Bowmans and McDonough. All the RFAs were re-signed so it was no harm, no foul and Tallon would learn from his mistakes. I guess not. It has to be the one mistake that fell Tallon. In four years, he’s taken the Hawks from cellar-dwellers to within 2 games of the Cup finals. He had a team ready to contend for years to come. Hell, his players love him so much that they used an off day to go to Tallon’s father’s funeral. The Hawks loss of Tallon (for all intents and purposes) is the gain of the rest of the NHL. No wonder why Chicago sports franchises all suck. They don’t know what they’re doing.

Elbow
The great thing about this column is that I can talk about anything. While I was watching the MLB All-Star Game and promo for the two-hour season premiere of House came on. Let’s forget the fact that House won’t be back until late September. The big thing for me was the background music in the promo was the song Grounds For Divorce by Elbow. That was the second time that I had heard the song in a trailer recently. I seem to recall this song in a movie trailer recently. Not to mention that they’re opening Coldplay on tour in Toronto. We even used theme in our energy drinks segment on the radio show. And to think, the first place I heard them was on Top Gear. These guys are going places.

Brock Lesnar
The new undisputed UFC heavyweight champion of the world definitely left his mark on the mixed martial arts world in his post-fight interview with Joe Rogan. For some reason known only to himself, Lesnar proceeded to flip off the crowd who was very pro-Mir before the fight. Then, during his post-fight interview, he ran down Bud Light saying he would drink a Coors Light because Bud wouldn’t pay him. The only thing he said that people liked was that he’d get on top of his wife (his wife is former WWE star Sable so you can’t blame him for bragging). He later apologized for the very sponsor unfriendly outburst after being torn apart by Dana White. Lesnar may be an idiot but he’s entertaining. No other fighter would be stupid enough to piss off a sponsor or Dana White but he’s got balls of steel for at least trying it. Anyway, Brock is playing the heel in the UFC, a role he knows well from his days working for crazed promoter Vince McMahon. Brock is proof that you can take the man out of the WWE but you can’t take the WWE out of the man.

Tony Romo
I mentioned this on Wednesday but it’s worth repeating that Tony Romoand Jessica Simpson are no more. Tony broke up with her on the day before her 29thbirthday and that birthday party was supposed to a Barbie and Ken theme. Tony ran away just in time then. While this may destroy Jessica’s fragile and clingy psyche, it’s the best thing for Tony and the Dallas Cowboys. It’s not like his other high profile relationships were blamed for ruining his career. He was previously linked with Carrie Underwood and Sophia Bush and turned out just fine. There’s probably a good reason why none of Jessica’s other relationships have ended well. Anywho, now that Tony can renew his focus on football instead of dealing with Joe Simpson and the paparazzi, good times are ahead for the Cowboys. Or at least he’ll go back to partying with his teammates which can’t hurt. Maybe Artie Lang will stop calling him “Tony Homo” now. No, I don’t think so either. But you can always find out on Joe Buck’s second favourite website, suckingcock.com. Where was I? Oh, yeah. Go Cowboys!

WNBA
The women’s basketball league took a step toward legitimacy earlier this week when one of its stars was arrested for DUI. Diana Taurasi of the Phoenix Mercury was charged with “extreme DUI” (according to the AP, sounds made up to me) for blowing 0.17 which is more than twice Arizona’s legal limit (0.08). The good news is that it shows that the women can party just as well as the men. Really, in the grand scheme of things, a WNBA player getting arrested is great news for them. It gets them more exposure than a game on ABC (which they show because the NBA forced it into the contract). It also creates a certain level of parity with other men’s leagues. After all, it’s almost every day that we’re hearing about an NFL or NBA player getting arrested for this or that. Those leagues aren’t consider hives of scum and villainy for that and neither will the WNBA. Now the WNBA can change it’s slogan from “Where layups happen” to “Where the same stuff that happens everywhere else happens, except dunking.” And before you give me a hard time about this, remember that WNBA players are trying harder for exposure than the NHL so you have to give them credit. It’s certainly working out better than this whole Superstars show Lisa Leslie is on.

MXC
Before there was Wipeout, there was the world’s most toughest competition in town. We got fired up MXC, the Most Extreme Elimination Challenge. Wipeout is laughing solely at the pain and misfortune of people who fail miserably at attempting to tackle the obstacle course. MXC had that and the ridiculous commentary that went with it. While you might hear a couple of decent jokes spread over an hour, MXC fires off jokes at a rate of a few a minute. Instead of being bad nicknames or use of the telestrator, MXC uses double entendres or other puns to have your sides splitting. I know that MXC probably has better source material with the repackaging of the original Japanese show Takeshi’s Castle and they’re on cable TV, not network. The thing with Wipeout is that they try to treat it as though it was a serious athletic competition with a funny guy commentator. The British version of the show is funnier because they just laugh at the competitors. They don’t even try to treat it like a real competition. If Wipeout could take itself less seriously, it would be a better show. It still wouldn’t be half the show MXC is, but it would be a start.