We continue our look at the over saturated entertainment industry with some new examples such as superhero movies, musicians, makeover shows and brand marketing and blockbuster films.

-Superheroes are everywhere. We have always had comics, cartoons and the sporadic movie or TV show, but we are experiencing a huge boom lately. There’s’ Man of Steel’, ‘Iron Man 3’, ‘Thor 2’, ‘The Wolverin’e and ‘Kick Ass 2′, then’ Captain America 2′, ‘The Amazing Spider-Man 2’, ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’, ‘Ant Man’, ‘X-Men: Days of Future Past’, ‘Justice League’ and, of course, The ‘Avengers 2’ set for 2014 and 2015 respectively. Marvel has been leading the charge on this front. The company realized that the Marvel Universe is much large than simple superhero movies with linear plots. Instead, each Marvel film franchise is connected to the other in one way or another that forces audiences to want to watch each film so that they don’t get left out in the cold and miss unresolved issues from the previous flicks. Soon, Marvel will be taking that formula to TV with a new Netflix deal that will bring us TV shows based on their heroes. D.C. Comics is beginning to catch on as they’re branching out with the ‘Justice League’ and expanding their own universe rather than relying only on Batman and Superman films.

You have to wonder if people will grow tired of seeing so many superhero movies being shown at their local theater. Will one film simply be made as a marketing tool where people watching the film are told to stay tuned for another film coming out soon? And, will comic book nerds finally get fed up of seeing film directors ruin their beloved characters? One thing that we do know for sure is that comic book fans go nuts if you try to change main story line plots in a film that aren’t a faithful adaptation of what goes on in the comics. Another problem is that not all superhero characters are created equally. Some are darker characters who might not necessarily fit well if they were grouped together with a superhero who is funny and outrageous. As it is now, the superhero film could easily be called its own genre. As long as they keep making money, the answer is yes. And making money is something superhero films will most likely continue to do, at least for the foreseeable future.

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Our next article on lazy athletes looks at the sport of professional hockey. There isn’t a tougher sport than the National Hockey League. Players routinely get smashed into the boards, lose a couple of teeth, get a cut that requires stitches and then head right back to the bench to continue playing. Some fans have called hockey players ‘Modern day gladiators’. When you have a lazy hockey player, you know that this athlete isn’t going to be well-liked in the locker room when so many other players are losing blood and having bruises and scars all over their bodies in order to win the game for their team. Let’s take a look at some of these lazy athletes…

-It’s never a good sign for a professional athlete when reporters at training camp make bets with each other on how many pounds you gained in the off season. Even though Dustin Byflugien has always been a big heavy set, the weight issue really became a problem when he became a member of the Winnipeg Jets franchise. He was a decent role player for the Chicago Blackhawks and had a great playoffs which helped the Blackhawks win their first Stanley Cup in over 50 years. Unfortunately, cap considerations made it difficult for the team to retain key players and many role players were traded in order to be below the league’s cap ceiling. Byflugien was traded and went from a new hockey powerhouse to a new franchise that had just been bought and moved from Atlanta, Georgia where he barely even played a season. It’s pretty hard to get motivated going from a cup favorite to an expansion franchise.

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We admit that we’re a bit lazy in not coming up with the idea to write about the laziest professional athletes in sports. One single article could do no justice on just how many athletes exist in sports that get paid millions of dollars to entertain the public and do poorly at their job on a yearly basis. We define laziness as a chronic illness where victims lack the willpower to do anything. We would also include the terms slow-moving and sluggish to help round out our definition of the world. The first group of lazy athletes to be profiled are professional basketball players. Most owners and/or GMs refuse to view lazy stars as employees. We put these players on a pedestal and treat them like royalty when there’s a greater chance of them taking a night off and not giving all of their effort despite their insane skills or talent. Basketball players have a smaller talent pool compared to other professional sports. You have 5 starters who make a difference on the court and a bunch of bench players who usually don’t make a difference on the scoreboard in most games. An NBA star is going to get the ball of often and he’s going to get a high percentage of quality shooting chances. If he screws up, fans will notice on the scoreboard but also on the player’s stats sheet. Let’s take a look at some of the lazier players in the league.

-You’re going to get a lot of attention when you’re the very first person selected in the NBA draft. The Toronto Raptors took an unconventional route and drafted the big Italian player out of Europe rather than selecting someone from a USA college basketball program. When GM Bryan Colangelo drafted Bargnani, he thought that Bargnani was going to be a powerhouse up the middle. The team thought that Bargnani could be a dominant center in the league who could play dirty near the rim and get many rebounds and control the front court. It turns out that Bargnani isn’t really a fan of getting his hands dirty near the front of the rim. The 7 ft. ‘Il Mago’ truly is a magician who tricked the team into thinking that he would be a dominant center in the league.

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Tap water is beginning to get boring. You go into your kitchen everyday and the tap is just sitting there and doing nothing but pouring water out of it all of the time. There’s no taste to water. It’s plain, you can see through it and there’s a bunch of minerals in it that I don’t know the name of, but I’m pretty certain most are supposed to be good for you. We wish that a tap existed that could pour hot beverages compared to that other drink that’s supposedly we die from if we don’t drink enough of it. Danish coffee machine inventor Scanomat has gotten the better of us and have invented a device called ‘Top Brewer’ which consists of a tap that can simultaneously dispense up to three types of liquid. The app-controlled tap dispenses coffee from freshly ground beans. Top Brewer shuts off completely when not serving up Java. When a user wants a cup, it can go from being cold and inactive to brewing that cup within 45 seconds. The built-in brewer lets users customize drink settings. You can ask the device for more or less coffee, how much milk to add as well as the type of milk and the type and amount of water to include in the beverage. This can help to make espressos, macchiatos, cappuccinos, lattes, steaming or cold milk, tea-temperature water and even steam for blanching vegetables.

The cool part is that you can control it by iPhone so very soon we expect to see a voice-activated version that will work with Siri’s voice commands. This sounds easy but is there any cleanup involved? The Scanomatic milk clean system of the Top Brewer cleans all hoses with water after each cup. The system costs about $11,000. A version that also makes juices and allows a user to choose between flavored or decaf coffee comes with a $19,000 price tag. This device is a definite winner for any coffee lover and will be a great center piece to any kitchen and a worthy alternative to anybody that wants to spend lots of money on a large gas-range stove or fridge.

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We’re back to discuss some more Canadian television with you all. We’re going to discuss the recent phenomenon of Canadian-American co-productions and also take a look at some recent Canadian television hits that might be familiar with Canadians but probably not so-much for our international audiences.

International co-productions are production companies from different countries (typically two to three) that are working together to produce a television program. There are many benefits to these arrangements. Companies are able to pool financial resources, gain access to a partner’s government incentives and subsidies, learn new techniques from your partner and be able to take advantage of your partner’s shooting locations in another country. Also, there can be some drawbacks. Your partner might be opportunistic and only looking to benefit their own company, you can have government bureaucracy and added costs and a loss of control over the production when it comes to casting,shooting or editing the production. It seems that the benefits outweigh the costs as we’ve noticed several of the big four broadcast networks airing Canadian programming lately.

‘Rookie Blue’ is a Canadian cop drama that airs on both ABC in America and Global Television in Canada. The show has a Canadian cast and the setting takes place in Toronto, Ontario. The show is produced by Shaw Media, Canwest and Thump Inc. and distributed by Entertainment One. Another example is ‘Flashpoint’ which is another Canadian cop drama about a fictional elite tactical unit who are tasked to resolve extreme situations that regular officers are not trained to handle, including hostage-taking, bomb threats, and heavily armed criminals. The show aired on CTV in Canada and Ion network in the USA. Some shows have been less successful. Both ‘The Listener’ and ‘Saving Hope’ have been successful and continue to air on CTV in Canada but weren’t as successful in America and stopped airing on the NBC network due to low ratings.

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