Summer can really suck at times. I mean, there’s so little new stuff on TV right now that I’ve taken to watching baseball again, almost watched Big Brother and I get overjoyed at seeing taped poker matches that I’ve seen 20 times already. Anyways, onto the Report…
Non-TV related stuff
A fine example of media overhype
As you probably, there was an incident at the airport here in The Big Smoke. What I can’t stand is the media labeling the fact that everyone survived is “a miracle”. Fortunately, us regular folk aren’t buying the hyperbole and are focusing on how the flight and emergency crews did a magnificent job in handling things on Tuesday. Good on ya.
Speaking of airplanes…
Well, in his latest Weekly Pulse Brendan Campbell discusses his lovely time in Cincinnati, OH – well, the airport, anyways. It could be worse, though – they could’ve lost his luggage, as my brother discovered after his AA flight from LAX to Buffalo.
Speaking of American Airlines, I forgot to mention this last week, but for the largest airline in the US, their planes are pretty crappy. On a 7-hour flight from Dallas to Maui, they didn’t serve any food – but they sold sandwiches for the “bargain” price of $5. The rationale for this is because despite Hawaii being known as one of the more remote locations in the world, it’s still one of the 50 states, and AA does not serve food on domestic or North American flights. The lesson learned – always check the airline website to see if you’re getting something to eat. I should mention that the 767 we were on looked and felt like one of the oldest ever built – a real shock to someone who has almost exclusively used Continental for the last 3 years – and the staff was, shall we say, not particularly friendly. The lesson learned – never, ever fly American Airlines.
The NHL
They used to call Alberta “Death Valley” because Edmonton and Calgary had such strong teams. Then the era of expansion came and the two teams struggled to create competitive teams with limited financial resources. Now, in this new salary cap era, there’s reason to fear going to Alberta again. Edmonton has got some top notch players in Chris Pronger and Michael Peca, while Calgary has kept Jarome Iginla and added veterans Darren McCarty and Tony Amonte. These guys don’t guarantee a Stanley Cup, but it’s good to see that the good players aren’t all heading south anymore.
Speaking of heading south, the Leafs are looking to sign Eric Lindros. Hey, this would’ve been great – ten years ago. Then again, the Leafs have been known to get players for fan-pleasing purposes (see Clark, Wendel and Gilmour, Doug). Still, does anyone care about Lindros anymore? And of course, they resigned Tie Domi, who is kind of like the Buffalo Bills in Toronto – you love him or you hate him, with no grey area between the two.
TV-related stuff
Well, if it weren’t dead before…
Big fan of The Inside? I guess you can mourn, as Rachel Nichols is joining the cast of Alias, and Peter Coyote is signed up as a recurring character on Commander In Chief. For me, it’s no big loss, as after a couple of episodes it fell into the “I don’t give a shit” category.
Musical thoughts that don’t involve MTV or MuchMusic
Well, I was actually right for once, as Amber Fleury was sent home on Canadian Idol. No real surprise there – not even to Amber, who seemed resigned to leaving. More shocking was the fact that Suzi was bottom two, and chances are that her fans have taken notice and will be voting like mad in the weeks to come. Josh, again, was bottom three, and you can bet that the judges will again be pushing to keep him in the competition, which turns its attention to the Standards next week.
Speaking of which, Murtz has issued the Josh Palmer Challenge, where he invites Josh’s fans to email him and explain what it is that makes him Canadian Idol material. Feel free to email me as well, as I wouldn’t mind knowing either.
Meanwhile, over on Rock Star: INXS, Tara Sloan was eliminated, and I’m sure that we Canadians will be seeing her in a week or two on Off The Record, talking about her experience there. I’m not entirely sure why Brandon was bottom three, but the voters obviously punished Ty for having never heard of “Everlong”. In the end though, Ty’s version of “Kick” kicked (pardon the pun), and Tara’s version of “Beautiful Girl” didn’t, and she’s gone.
More season premieres
CBS unveiled their season premiere dates, and I’m marking down Tuesday, Sept 27 as the day I probably go insane – I’ll be trying to keep track of 44 people for 2 hours in The Amazing Race: Family. I love The Amazing Race, and I like doing the live recaps, but this one might kill me. Sept 16 sees the 2-hour debut of Threshold, and the next week sees the debut of Ghost Whisperer. I’m interested to see how these two match up with sophomore show Numb3rs, as that’s one of my favourite procedurals right now.
Plugging the UFC
At the risk of sounding like Dave Meltzer…
Don’t forget that UFC Fight Night is on LIVE tonight at 9pm on Spike TV. I’ll probably enjoy this on tape because I’m heading out to Toronto’s annual Taste of the Danforth celebration. Once again, here’s the rundown of the card:
Welterweight Bout: Pete Spratt vs. Josh Koscheck
Middleweight Bout: Pete Sell vs. Nate “Rock” Quarry
Light Heavyweight Bout: Sam “Sticky Fingers” Hoger vs. Stephan Bonnar
Middleweight Bout: Patrick Cote vs. Chris “Catsmasher” Leben
Main Event Middleweight Bout: Nathan Marquardt vs. Ivan Salaverry
UFC: Unleashed on Monday showed a couple of matches with Salaverry and he looks to be pretty good at locking in the triangle. Marquardt is pushed as the “King of Pancrase” which means he knows how to wrestle, so it’ll be interesting to see how things go on the ground. Next week’s UFC: Unleashed, btw, promises to give us a couple of Matt Hughes/Frank Trigg matches, and that should be fun to watch.
Also, check out Spike TV‘s UFC area to get some match predictions from Bonnar and TUF winner Forrest Griffen.
And that’s it from here. See you next week.
