After last week’s left turn into the world of NASCAR, we return to regular ranting on The Humanoids. At least, for the most part. I have a small correction from last week that I need to make thanks to my own first-hand research. Anyway, I’d like to say that there is one big over-arching theme to this week’s column but I don’t think there is. Maybe shooting yourself in the foot is the theme of this week’s column. I think you can thread that through most of the victims of my occasionally comic rantings. Some more literally than others.

By the way, no new news on the radio show front. It’s coming back soon, though. I hope. Still no word from CHRW about keeping us in their lineup. I’m a little concerned but I’m not going to lose any sleep. After all, a good internet podcast can help make the blog better. However, I doubt it could get us as many page views as Gina Carano has over the last week. Good news is that we’re now being followed by Fanshawe and UWO on Twitter. That’s gotta count for something.

Brett Favre
Are you getting tired of hearing about this guy? And our poll results are 6,706,993,149 answering YES while three answer no. I can only assume that the three dissenters are Peter King, Chris Mortensen, and John Madden. I can’t think of anyone else that still gives a shit about Brett Favre. He’s retired twice now only to come back. That’s not counting a few years of the “will he or won’t he” speculation. It’s nice to see that the NFL has their own version of Mats Sundin (except with a championship and MVP trophies). Anyway, after struggling last season, does anyone think that Favre can help this team make the playoffs? He had the Jets looking reasonably good until he fell apart. He’s not working with a much better team here though he has a better running back and is playing indoors. It can’t hurt to have those things protect him. After all, Madden isn’t here to carry the torch for Favre lovers and to keep telling the public that he’s the be all and end all of quarterbacks. So, this move does nothing for Minnesota and will only tarnish Favre’s legacy. But gosh darnit, Brett will have some fun out there…

Women’s MMA
I read somewhere that one MMA pundit isn’t willing to put dirt on the grave of women’s mixed martial arts after Gina Carano’s loss to Cris Cyborg. I’m not sure that’s it was ever relevant enough to deserve a burial and I’m not just saying that because I only remembered about the fight because I saw a poster at a bar. Anyway, not only am I planning on pouring dirt on the grave of Women’s MMA, I’m planning on eulogizing it. Like women’s boxing, it is only relevant as long as its one mainstream star is fighting and winning. When Layla Ali isn’t fighting, we forget all about women’s boxing. Gina Carano was the biggest star in women’s MMA. Her loss will likely do to women’s MMA what Kimbo Slice’s loss did to EliteXC and Josh Barnett’s drug test failure did to Affliction. That’s what happens when the fate of a promotion (or in this case, a division) is tied to one fighter. Sure, Cyborg is a dominant fighter and Carano/Cyborg was a good fight even with the slightly sketchy finish. However, women’s MMA likely won’t gain traction with many potential female viewers and men won’t watch since Carano didn’t win the battle of “The Beauty and The Beast.” Cyborg may be female MMA’s answer to Anderson Silva but when you’re trying to sell this to men, you don’t want the star of the show to be only slightly more attractive than Anderson Silva. So, farewell Women’s Mixed Martial Arts. You will be missed by some. You will be missed by many more if Gina Carano disappears with you.

Plaxico Burress
What’s worse that shooting yourself in the leg? Shooting yourself in the leg and effectively ending your career. Last year, Burress was illegally carrying a handgun in his sweatpants when it went off while he was in a nightclub. So not only was he injured but he was suspended by his team for the final four games of the regular season and the playoffs. The whole criminal aspect of shooting himself just added insult to injury. He pled guilty to one count of criminal possession of a firearm which earns him two years up river. Better than the 3.5 minimum that he faced if he went to trial. It’s safe to say that Roger Goodell is planning on tacking on his own punishment to the jail time. So let’s suppose that Roger takes pity on Burress and only gives him an extra year off for being stupid. By the time a team can sign him, he’ll have been out of football (with the exception of the New York State Penal League) for three years. At that time he’ll be 35-years-old and well past his prime. You think that Pacman Jones’ various legal follies would have taught NFL stars the dangers of being around people with handguns tucked into the waistbands of their pants. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot… You know what I mean.

Usain Bolt
I don’t think that we can call him “the world’s fastest man” anymore. Our new choices are “Fastest man in the known universe” or “Fastest bipedal being on the planet.” I would go for the latter because there is no way that any man could be that fast. He has to be a robot or an alien. That has to be the only way that he can go that fast without anyone assuming that he is on steroids. After all, Ben Johnson shattered the 100m world record on steroids. In the last two seasons, Bolt has managed to lower the world record by 0.16s which took around 15 years to do previous to Bolt’s domination. If that isn’t shattering, I don’t know what is. Maybe it’s breaking the world record by 0.11s in the 200m final to win that too. I just don’t understand the whole steroid thing. Bolt doesn’t have to break a sweat to demolish everyone in the 100m and the 200m. If somebody in baseball starts running away in the home run chase, everyone naturally assumes that the guys must be on juice. Of course, I hope that Bolt isn’t on the juice because he seems like a funny guy based on his Top Gear appearance and unlike most track and field types, he actually has charisma. Still, it might just be my cynicism but I can’t help but wonder if Bolt has some extra help we don’t know about.

Shaquille O’Neal
So let’s review his resume first: He’s a 4-time NBA Champion, 3-time NBA Finals MVP, NBA MVP, rapper, Razzie-nominated actor, Monday Night Raw guest host, reality TV personality, and thief. I noticed an unexpected name on the producers list of Shaq’s new show “Shaq Vs.”: Steve Nash. Turns out that in early 2008, Nash told Shaq he was working on a TV show where he takes on pro athletes in their own sports. That fall, Shaq stepped on the team bus and announced that he was going to be making a TV show where he… takes on pro athletes in their own sports. Nash accused Shaq of stealing his idea, got himself a lawyer, and, to keep everything on the down-low, got a credit and paycheque for being one of the show’s executive producers. While Nash says that everything is fine and he’s happy that the show is doing well, I kind of figure that the lack of chemistry in the Suns locker room can be traced back to this specific incident. I also think that if Shaq hadn’t stabbed Nash in the back, he would still be a member of the Suns. Not that he or Cavaliers fans would mind terribly. Now we’ll have to wait to see how Shaq steals a victory from The Big Show on an upcoming episode of Monday Night Raw. You know that’s coming soon.

Cash For Clunkers
A lot has been made recently of the so-called Cash For Clunkers program in the US which is credited for a massive increase in sales of new cars in the States. Basically, you trade in your old car for a new, more fuel efficient model and get up to $4,500 from the government to do so. The Brits and Germans also have popular incentive systems to get people to trade in old cars for more fuel efficient models with about $4,000 in incentives. However, the only problem with these programs is that people are trading in their old cars for cheap Korean shitboxes. Sort of defeats the purpose of stimulating the economy when you’re buying foreign. Anyway, that’s not my point. My point is that there is no incentive system in Canada. Well, there is but $300 isn’t much of an incentive. Why is it taking so long to get any sort of incentive program? The Canadian government was gotten so tied up with wasting away their summer vacations that they can’t be bothered to implement a program to buy Canadian built cars. The automotive dealers put a proposal on the table four months ago suggesting that the government give a $3,000 trade-in incentive. It’s not great but it would be a start. And that’s better than letting Hyundai implement their own scrappage scheme with a $1,000 discount for trade-ins. I know that money doesn’t stay in Canada for very long. So, while Prime Minister Harper goes on his pre-election politicking tour, auto workers remain jobless. Good job, Conservatives. Good job.

Manchester United
Glory, glory… Burnley? That’s not how it’s supposed to go. I don’t think anyone expected that the newly promoted Burnley would be able to topple the mighty Manchester United. You can come up with all sorts of excuses for United like they were playing on shorter rest, or it’s still early in the season, or they’re playing on the road at a loud Turf Moor or they didn’t recognize each other with the new uniforms on. I think the right excuse for the loss is that United went to Turf Moor expecting a walk-over and found out that Burnley didn’t get the memo that Man U is supposed to trounce them en route to another league title. Either that or this is one of those famine years in the feast or famine rule of Alex Ferguson at Old Trafford. The loss of Cristiano Ronaldo to a transfer whose amount is more than many countries’ GDP can’t have helped the club out too much. And putting in Englishman Michael Carrick to take a penalty kick wasn’t such a good idea either. Englishmen can’t take penalties. I can only imagine what our old Lowdown radio buddy Graham is doing. He’s our resident football expert and is the only person I’ve ever met who wrote an exam in what I think he called his “Man United hooligan gear.” Actually, this would explain why he seems to have disappeared off the face of the Earth. It would also explain why I can’t analyze soccer worth shit. All I do know is that if you lose even one game you should have won, you can kiss your dream of a Premier League title goodbye. Like I said: Feast… or famine.

Monday Night Raw
Jackie sent me an article earlier in the week with a list of some of the celebrities that Vince McMahon has either signed or is attempting to sign to host upcoming episodes of Monday Night Raw. Well, I’m not entirely sure that “sign” is the right word for it. After all, I’m sure that Vince and the WWE aren’t the only ones getting some rub from having a celeb host Raw. For example, Seth Green hosted Raw while plugging his upcoming season of Robot Chicken. ZZ Top was pitching their tour with Aerosmith. Jeremy Piven was pitching The Goods which bombed as badly as his performance as the Raw host. Upcoming we have Floyd Mayweather (promoting an upcoming fight), the Reverend Al Sharpton, and Bob Barker among other celebrities. What I’d like to know is what happened to wrestling? Sure, different hosts change things up and, if used correctly, can even be entertaining. But what happened to the days when wrestling didn’t need celebrities to be interesting or even good? If the early 90’s, the man that ran the show was a token authority figure that you saw only once or twice a month. The wrestlers sorted things out themselves. They didn’t need some overbearing authority figure to tell them what to do and how to do it. Sure, random matches were made for Superstars or Raw but we didn’t have someone parade out to the ring to announce the card for the night and say “Go to my movie” or “Watch my TV show.” To his credit, three of the first seven hosts were wrestlers. Unfortunately, that seems to be all that appears to be all the quality guest hosts we’re getting. I never thought I’d say this but I miss WCW.

NASCAR Race Lengths
Last week, I said that only the races at Pocono need to be shortened because they’re too long. Of course, I was trying to apply a mathematic formula to something that’s nowhere near scientific so I think I failed miserably. This week, I’m going to try again. After my recent trip to the Carfax 400 at Michigan International Speedway, I found out that the difference between fastest lap and green flag average is around 15 MPH. So I did my calculations again and came up with this spreadsheet. If the fastest lap is within 10 MPH of the ideal speed, that race’s length needs to be changed (indicated in red). If the difference is between 10 and 15 MPH, a race length change is strongly suggested (indicated in orange). Between 15 and 20 MPH, could afford a change but it’s not necessary (indicated in yellow). Mind you, every race track is different so this isn’t a hard and fast rule. Anyway, looking through the technicolour spreadsheet, 9 of the 22 races could conceivably need a length change. The Pocono races need to have at least 100 miles knocked off the end so they aren’t so mind-numbingly long. Darlington used to have a 400 miler but switched back to 500 miles this season so they aren’t averse to switching. Martinsville is such a stop-start race that it will take a while no matter how long it is but the tires don’t fall off as much there as at speedways so the guideline doesn’t really work here. I’m surprised Atlanta is on the list because it seems like such a quick race so it should be fine as is. California is a boring as all hell race and could use 400 miles knocked off. Michigan is a better race and is 400 miles so California could be helped by shortening things up. Texas, Dover, and Infineon are all on the yellow list but I think they’re fine at their current length. Texas could lose 50 or 100 miles just to get us to the finish while Infineon will always be a fuel mileage race because it’s a road course race. At least this is better than Dale Junior’s suggestion that all races need to lose 100 miles so they aren’t just “riding around.” I guess this can also explain his slump this year. If he got up on the wheel instead of ride around, he might be in the Top 20 of the points.