And on the cool check in. Center stage on the mic. And we're puttin' it on wax. It's the new style.

Quick Hitters and Random Thoughts

--Aw sonuvabitch! It’s official. Starz is cancelling Party Down. Terrible, just terrible. If you’ve never watched do yourself a favor and check it out On Demand or on Netflix Watch Instantly.
How does a show get cancelled after it parties with Steve Guttenberg, introduces the F*** Room, and makes a Cody Carlson reference all in the same season?


--Eminem must want some tough guy street cred because he’s going on Entourage and clearly Entourage is the destination for real men after Vince did his own stunt last week. OMFG!

--The Office has been more miss than hit the last couple of seasons, but it’s going to soldier on despite the loss of Steve Carell after next season. The Office is a great ensemble, but Michael Scott is the head of that ensemble and it makes more sense to me to give this show a proper send off with a season the writers, actors and audience will all be motivated for and NBC can promo the hell out of. But no. And I feel sorry for whoever they bring in because it’s not going to be easy. The lone positive is that maybe this will get the writers out of whatever funk they’ve been in.
The most brilliant, frustrating thing series in the UK do is end after two or three seasons. Thankfully our draw against England wasn’t decided on the which-country-has-the-better-Office tiebreaker.

--I can’t remember where I heard, but never thought I’d see Hakeem Olajuwon in Pros vs. Joes. He’ll be teaming up with Kenny Smith and Eliza Dushku’s man Rick something or other. They’ll face Donovan McNabb, T.O. and Antonio Gates in a game of basketball. Comes our way July 14th.

--I like smoked salmon. I like vodka. Thankfully Alaska Distillery is rolling out smoked salmon vodka because clearly those two things need to be combined.


--Somehow I’ve gotten sucked into watching Last Comic Standing. I haven’t seen everyone because Sunny is on at the same time and has a higher priority. Anyway, these people are making me laugh...Jonathan Thymius, Mike DiStefano, Adrienne Iapalucci and Chip Pope. When Jonathan makes contact on a joke that joke is going a long, long way...


--The South shall rise again…just a little more slowly and maybe with the aid of a friend, perhaps taking a break halfway up, or you know what let’s just sit a little longer and rethink this whole “rise” thing. Ten of the eleven most obese states in the U.S. are not surprisingly in the Paula Deen region of the world. As for Texas…We’re #13! We’re #13! This despite always having several cities make that fattest list so I was thinking top 5 for sure. Colorado is the skinniest state which is odd considering its amount of marijuana use. Mississippi remains the most obese state in both the adult and children categories. So sad that 38 states have adult obesity rates of over 25% considering zero states were that big-boned back in 1991. If you would like to be further depressed by our blubber statistics here ya go.

--Ummm, that was a little much True Blood. Just waiting for the story from some failed attempt by idiots at the whole neck turning 180 degrees a.k.a. the ol’ twisteroo as someone tweeted the other day.
In the meantime we have a woman in Colorado who crashed into a canal. Why? Because a vampire was in the middle of the dirt road of course. Oddly enough police ruled out drugs or alcohol.

--Why does Esquire UK get all the good covers?


--Finally we get Brock Lesnar and Shane Carwin this weekend. I like both guys and I wouldn’t pick either guy to lose to another heavyweight including Fedor before Fedor was Fabricio’d. Surely Brock has some rust and Shane just needs an opening to knock all of that rust off and then some. Yet I’m gonna go with Brock to take down Shane and control him on the ground on the way to a TKO.
I’ll take Yoshiro Akiyama to beat Chris Leben who I assume is going to be on the Juan Diaz/JMM PPV later this month as well.
I always like watching Matt Brown and I’ll take that tough SOB to beat Chris Lytle.
Really looking forward to seeing George Sotiropoulos again after that huge win over Joe Stevenson several months ago. George tangles with Kurt Pellegrino and I’ll take George.

--Kobayashi not in the hot dog eating contest this year?! WTF do I wake up early on the 4th for now?

--Apparently the Kardashians will have a guest spot as themselves on 90210 next season. In other news Party Down was cancelled and there’s a “next” season of 90210.

--If you were wondering of course Spike has you covered on the 4th with a Band of Brothers marathon. And miracle of miracles I believe History Channel is going to show all the episodes of America The Story Of Us.

--Larissa Riquelme is going to run through the streets nekkid if Paraguay wins the World Cup?! This just got a lot more interesting.

Luckiest cell phone ever.

--It’s the Summer of Erin. Where will she end up? Oh geez, I don’t know. If I had to guess I’d say ESPN, but there are so many choices for her like, well like ESPN and then there’s ESPN. She could always go to ESPN. You know who’d offer her big money? Yeah, ESPN.

--Who knew that nearly 20 years ago David Silver would go from Donna to marrying one of the hottest chicks period in Megan Fox. Quite a leap who has only had two good roles in that time frame (Domino, Sarah Connor Chronicles).

--Finally caught up on Burn Notice and it’s been the pleasantly entertaining summer fill-in television it is. Always like seeing who they bring in week to week and loved seeing Frank Whaley. He had a nice run in the late 80’s early 90’s with Field of Dreams, Pulp Fiction, Career Opportunities, and my two personal favorites Swimming with Sharks and The Doors.


--I’m about midway through Firefly and really enjoying it. A couple episodes ago was when Christina Hendricks was introduced and trying to seduce everyone from Mal to Inara with the latter of those seductions being some damn fine television.

Also weird seeing Zac Efron as young Simon in his first role.
I wasn’t sure I’d like the whole wild west in outer space thing, but I didn’t need to worry. If you’re bored this summer you could do a helluva lot worse than checking out this entirely too short series on Netflix Watch Instantly.

--I was hoping I would find amusement somewhere in The Kilborn File. Not yet. Of course it might be different if I was watching a continuous show on television and not clips online.

--I hope you’re sitting down because the next sentence will shock you.
FDA: Airline food nationwide fails to meet health standards.

--Pau Gasol and Silvia Lopez Castro?! The Silvia Lopez Castro of Dream Cheers?! Yeah, I don’t know who she is either, but I’m guessing she’s hot.

Lucky guess.

--I don’t know whether I’m liking forward to or dreading watching The Tillman Story.

--How sorry are the Cubs? 2-4 against the Astros and 3-8 against the Pirates through Tuesday so make it 3-9 with another Chicago loss Wednesday. Pittsburgh is a special kind of suck. Through Tuesday’s games it had been outscored by 182 runs. Houston, Chicago and Milwaukee have combined to only be outscored by 177 runs. Pirates are also 2-13 in interleague play and I know what you’re thinking. How the hell did they win two?

--It’s July and the Padres have the 2nd biggest division lead in baseball just like we all predicted.

--Jimmy Garvin and Sunny as David Von Erich's personal valets. Nothing brings a tear to an eye like thinking about the Von Erich family.


--Whoa, they’re renting white guys out in China?! Apparently a foreigner’s face impresses a lot of people so yeah, rentals. Gotta love the names they’ve given this practice from “White Guy Window Dressing” to “The Token White Guy Gig.” Sounds like a great deal. You get paid, you get to work on your acting and as one guy can attest you may be able to hang with Russian models.

--In World Cup or Die news…Nigeria managed only a point in group play so the government has suspended the team from international competition for two years, which doesn’t seem like a good way to improve. And Japanese media managed to make a mother apologize for her son’s PK miss in Japan’s loss to Paraguay.

Questions, comments or if you’re starting to think about looking at some fantasy football rankings for the upcoming season…