This show and Big Brother have been the highlights of reality TV this summer. If you haven’t seen it yet, this is bad TV at its best.

Even the prize is campy – the winning superhero will be immortalized in a Stan Lee comic book! They’ll also be featured in an upcoming Sci Fi Channel movie and an action figure will be made of their superhero.

The second season is nearing its end with only three contestants remaining…

• Hyper-Strike: A circus performer & martial arts expert. One of his superpowers is he can use his sweat as a weapon. I’m sure he’s going to win as he’s like a cartoon come to life.
• Hygena: She fights grime and crime. She actually carries a feather duster around with her at all times. My guess is she’ll be second place – she’s a fun superhero and seems like a nice person, but I can’t see a comic book about her doing well.
• The Defuser: A cop turned superhero. Reminds me of a less robotic android. The world doesn’t need another robot-like superhero.

Hearing those descriptions, I know you just can’t wait to see the show. The second season finale for Who Wants To Be A Superhero is Thursday (September 6th) on the Sci-Fi Channel.

Just the thought of it is terrifying to me.

My cousin, Sharyn, passed along the link to the story. She’s about to have her third kid, so this story hits close to home for her.

I visited Sharyn on my recent vacation. At one point, we went to the grocery store with her kids (Ian & Bryn). I was expecting a disaster, but it wasn’t bad – Sharyn & Mat have made sure the kids are well behaved.

Not so for the mom who sold a box of Pokemon cards on eBay. Just standard, ordinary Pokemon cards – they weren’t worth much more than what she paid at the grocery store. But they sold for over $140 based on her description of how she ended up buying them without knowing it.

See the eBay page for the hysterical story and a link to her blog.

Last year, Connor met Brooke in line at the “Caterpillar” roller coaster, and they rode a few rides together, before tearfully saying goodbye when we ran out of ride tickets. THIS year at the Fair, as we made our way to the “Caterpillar” again, Heather and I wondered, “whatever happened to cute little Brooke?”

Lo and behold, there she was – again – standing in line with her family. Brooke’s parents said before they got to the coaster, that they too were wondering “whatever happened to little Connor!” Heather and I decided that if these two little lovebirds should meet again next year, the third consecutive unplanned meeting between them, we’ll just arrange their marriage right then and there. Fate is obviously playing a part, here.

Click to see a slideshow of our Fair adventure!

–Brian

This season’s cast was announced earlier this morning on ABC’s Good Morning America and it’s the largest group of celebrities yet for the show.

And I’ve actually heard of half of them this time – Scary Spice (Melanie Brown), Jennie Garth, Marie Osmond, Jane Seymour, Mark Cuban, and Wayne Newton.

TMZ.com’s predictions were close yesterday. Some of their guesses that didn’t make the final list – Tori Spelling, Aaron Carter, Lou “The Incredible Hulk” Ferrigno, and singer Nia Peeples. TMZ is now claiming that ABC had put together the bogus list in case it was leaked (which it was).

See ABC’s official announcement here. The 5th season of Dancing With The Stars premieres September 24th.

Get ready for a world class roller coaster at Canada’s Wonderland!

A height of 230-feet, an 85-degree drop, over 5000 feet of track, a speed of 77 mph, and a ride length over three minutes – the $26-million dollar Behemoth is scheduled to debut May 2008. It’ll be Canada’s Wonderland’s 15th roller coaster and Canada’s biggest, tallest and fastest roller coaster!

The ride was designed by Bolliger & Mabillard of Switzerland. B&M roller coasters are typically very smooth and fun rides – they’re always favorites of mine.

Other B&M coasters…

• Raptor (inverted coaster) at Cedar Point
• Mantis (stand-up coaster) at Cedar Point
• Dominator (floorless) at Geauga Lake
• Great Bear (inverted) at Hersheypark
• Alpengeist (inverted) at Busch Gardens Europe in Virginia
• Apollo’s Chariot (mega coaster) at Busch Gardens Europe
• Griffon (floorless diving) at Busch Gardens Europe

Check out Behemoth’s unique seating, track layout, videos, and all the other ride details here.

Get ready to take on Behemoth at Canada’s Wonderland next year!

After Friday’s game at the RALPH it looks like the BILLS still have a lot of “work to do” to get
ready for the DENVER BRONCOS and the NFL Season Opener on September 9th. Few bright spots during Friday’s loss to TENNESSEE, and much like last year tough to RUN and tougher still to STOP the RUN. It appears to me the only way the Team will have success is to rely on AIR LOSMAN, some of his long BOMBS (like to Lee Evans) were the only BRIGHT spots in
pre-season game #3. The LAST pre-season game happens on THURSDAY in Detroit (7pm on Channel 7) and usually the last pre-season game doesn’t have the “1st Team” in for long. We’ll break it down on Friday…GO BILLS

At the beginning of the game, I thought she was crazy. But as the game went on, I realized she was actually a really good player and I was hoping she’d win. Especially since she was always aggravating Dick, one of the most annoying Big Brother players ever.

Unfortunately, she was evicted from the Big Brother house last night.

And it turns out she really wasn’t playing for the money after all. It appears she received the best prize of all from the show – free publicity. She’s a model & actress and this turned into almost two months of free publicity for her. Check out her website / resume.

And if you’re doubting how smart she was, watch this 40-second YouTube clip – it seems like Jen figured out that Eric is America’s Player.

When I was a kid I could always tell when school was about to start. There was a nip in the air, and a different smell that I could never quite place – but it was uniquely Autumn.

“It smells like school again,” I’d say to my parents. My Dad, a teacher at the time, would joke that it was the chalk I was smelling. (At this I pictured teachers everywhere beating their blackboard erasers together in preparation for the new school year!)

It’s after 1am now. A friend asked me recently what I do so late at night. “I enjoy the silence,” I said. It’s too loud during the day to ponder how crazily different the world is now, compared to when I was in high school. The Fall air may smell the same, but I wonder how many actual chalkboards are being used in the classrooms of 2007?

When I was in high school, people still bought vinyl records. CDs were “compact discs,” and we radio folk made a big deal out of them on the air. I typed my papers on a manual typewriter, and used liquid paper to correct my mistakes. Cable meant you got 30 channels, maybe. No internet, no cell phones, computers were made by Texas Instruments, they used cassette decks to store data, and black and white televisions for monitors.

I’m not even 20 years out of college, and I’m staring into a flat computer monitor displaying millions of colors, and I carry all the songs in my entire “record” collection in my pocket, not to mention all my family pictures, and a good number of TV shows and videos. That’s such a wild concept to me, I still can’t quite believe it.

But ultimately, the “real” world isn’t that different. Looking up at the moon tonight during Rocky’s final “outing” of the day, listening to the wind blow through the trees, smelling that unique Fall fragrance, the world hasn’t changed that much. Nature endures. To that end, my latest poem.

Breath Of Autumn
A warm breeze stirs the leaves
As I stand outside, awake
Away from phone and messages urgent

A sweet Fall fragrance
Of moist earth
And passing leaves
A bite, a nip, a hint
of what I’m not ready for
Not yet

But cold, crisp, unbidden
It will come
The night is changed
A breath of Autumn
remains

–Brian

The BILLS have “broken” training camp and now officially get set for pre-season game #3 at
The RALPH on Friday (Kids Night) against the Tennessee Titans. It was sad so see RYAN DENNEY go down last week with a broken left foot during the ATLANTA game, and with Anthony Hargrove out for the first 4 games of the regular season the team was THIN (to say the least) at defensive end (to back up Aaron Schobel and Chris Kelsay). We have learned (just today) that the Team has signed AL WALLACE who was on the Carolina Panthers for the past 5 seasons (and he never missed a game and recorded 17 sacks while with the Panthers)! Friday’s game should see a little more of the “starters” and hopefully the offence will get some more points on the (new) scoreboard. GO BILLS!

The 15th season of Survivor starts September 20th on CBS. Today, the cast was revealed.

There’s a school lunch lady / Karate expert, a grave digger, a chicken farmer, a Christian radio talk show host, a professional poker player, and a WWE wrestler this season. I’m sensing some clashes already. See all sixteen contestants here.

Now after fourteen seasons of Survivor, nothing is really surprising anymore. Big Brother and Amazing Race are definitely the better reality shows, but how could I stop watching now? Especially with this cast?!

Let’s hope this season is as exciting as the contestant’s descriptions.

In the morning I split my time between Rob Lucas on Star, and The Today Show on Channel 2. The thing I’ve noticed about the Today Show: Ann Curry (left) is getting really annoying. She interviewed a woman this morning who was in a plane that almost collided with another plane on the runway – a compelling story, certainly. The problem? Ann never shut up. She kept talking, inserting facts and her own opinions into this interview, when I think everyone wanted to hear what the woman on CAMERA had to say.

It was bizarre – at one point she said “You must have been feeling scared, frightened, maybe stunned – in shock at what had happened.” Now what in the world can the woman say at that point, except “YES”?

We can only hope someone at NBC gives Ann some advice, or they stop letting her do interviews! Meredith Viera can’t come back from vacation soon enough…

–Brian

…and yet, no US radio station that I know of plays anything from it!

It’s Mika’s “Life In Cartoon Motion”. I’ve been a big fan of the songs “Grace Kelly” and “Relax (Take It Easy)” from before the CD even came out. “Love Today” was released a couple months ago overseas and was also a big hit.

And now I’ve noticed “Big Girl (You Are Beautiful)” is being used to promote the ABC series Ugly Betty (a show I’ve never seen, but the promos look funny). See the video for the song here.

If you’re a fan of upbeat pop music, you’ll love this album. But I highly suggest NOT buying the CD. For some insane reason, the record company put a ridiculous copy-protect on it which not only makes it unplayable on my CD player, but also makes it unable to be uploaded to my iPod. And the record companies wonder why CD sales are down?!

Instead, download the album from iTunes or one of the other online stores. By doing that, you’ll also be able to preview the tracks first.

Why are you still reading this? Go get this album…

I was happy to see plenty of positives in the BILLS first preseason game in New Orleans on
national TV the other night! Going in there were plenty of “questions” on the Defence but after all the smoke cleared (and a WIN at that) they didn’t look at all bad. I LOVED new #51 Paul P.’s SACK ( it looked to me like a pro-bowl type play) and Jabari Greer’s interception in the end zone was a big plus. Assistant head coach and Special Team’s wizard BOBBY APRIL’S special teams didn’t miss a beat from last year and it should set up an interesting preseason Game 2 against the Michael Vick-less Atlanta Falcons on Friday night.

It’s opening in five years – make your reservations now before the waiting list gets too long!

It’s only $4 million for three nights and includes Velcro (for when you’re tired of floating around) and eight weeks of training at a space camp in the Caribbean.

And no, this isn’t on the moon. It’ll be rotating the Earth, about 300 miles above the surface. So get ready for some awesome sunrises – there will be fifteen of them a day as the hotel will take only eighty minutes to make it around the Earth.

I don’t know how it happened, but my children – through some freak of genetics – are morning people. At sunrise, without fail, every single morning, they are UP and ready to face the day with huge smiles and boundless energy.

Now I love my children dearly, but Daddy is not like that in the morning. The snooze button and I are very well acquainted, as anyone who knows me will attest. But I haven’t needed an alarm for many moons, thanks to my pounding, knocking, jumping, giggling progeny.