Evans Above

Wizard World brought their popular Comic Con to Toronto this year and I attended the inaugural event this weekend.

Attendees visiting the event at the Direct Energy Centre were greeted with a cornucopia of comic book and memorabilia dealers and artist as well as celebrities from the worlds of sci-fi, wrestling and reality TV.

On the artist side, there were guests like Ty Templeton, Phil Jimenez, Dale Keown, Gail Simone, Cameron Stewart, and Adi Granov. Cast members from Saw and Caprica held Q&A’s, while the autograph alley allowed fans to get up close and personal with Magda Apanowicz, David Richmond-Peck, Adrianne Curry, Christopher Knight, Kevin Nash, Jewel Staite, Jim Duggan, Gil Gerard, Erin Gray, Larissa Gomes, Ernie Hudson, Tara-Jean Popowich and on and on.

It was our first time covering any sort of convention or fan gathering, so we spent our time getting to understand the event and we hope that next year our time will allow us to provide you with bigger and more complete coverage of this sure to be a must-see event in Toronto. If you want to learn more about the Toronto Comic Con, join their Facebook Fan page.

Don’t forget to check out our Toronto Comic Con 2010 photo gallery.

Okay, for those of you who have a) an interest in Dancing with the Stars (or DWTS to those in the know) and b) think Kate Gosselin is a terrible reality TV harpy that should be sent packing, it’s time to think of the proper voting strategy before heading over to ABC.com.

Astronaut and all-around legend Buzz Aldrin and soap actor Aiden Turner are currently below the C-section C-lister in the judge’s standings. So it’s important to vote for them as much as you can to ensure that the extension-wearing emasculator gets to spend some quality time with her brood by kicking her off next week.

When Procul Harum’s A Whiter Shade of Pale was featured on an episode of House Monday night, it showed off the power of the internet.

In the ol’ days (yes kids, there wasn’t always a Web), people hearing a song on a TV show might talk about it with someone they were watching the episode with. Now, people head off to Facebook and Twitter and post “Did ya hear A Whiter Shade of Pale on House last night? Man, I loved that song!”

Maybe they’d think about replacing that long lost Procul Harum album. But they’d realize the record store was out of the way and abandon the idea. Now it’s a quick click over to Amazon or iTunes and suddenly they own the song.

The ability to remember, reminisce and, yes, purchase an old familiar song must make a lot of composers very, very happy.

Like a dog that just won’t let go of a bone, billionaire real estate developer Donald Trump once again fired a shot in his feud with Rosie O’Donnell during Sunday night’s premiere of The Celebrity Apprentice.

The two teams of celebs, headed by project managers Brett Michaels and Cyndi Lauper, had to run diners for three hours. Whichever team brought in the most cash in sales and tips would be declared the winner. Lauper’s team of women were trounced by the male celebrities’ team. When talking about heavy hitters they could have invited, Cyndi mentioned that she was unable to get O’Donnell and that promptly set Trump off. He repeatedly called her “disgusting” and once again brought up the fact that she “somehow” ended up at his wedding to former wife Marla Maples. The man just can’t let this one go. It’ll be interesting to see if O’Donnell decides to fire back on her blog.

Actress, musician and environmental activist Jaclyn A. Smith, a.k.a. Jax, dazzled us a while back with her Earth Hour video Flicking the Lights Off. With energy and humour, Jax showed us how a simple gesture can go a long way in helping the planet.

She’s back with a vengeance. She’s released four new videos in association with the WWF that once again amuse and entertain us while showing viewers just how easy it is to make simple changes in one’s life that will keep the Earth humming along.

These videos deserve to be viral hits, so please forward them on to your friends. And if your an environmental group who wants to get your message across with humour, passion and intelligence, give Jax a call.

Check out “Jax’s Earth Hour videos”:

• Piggyback Bus
• Cold Water
• Thrift Store
• It’s Simple Summary

The 82nd Academy Awards seemed to have multiple opportunities for stories the day after.

Kathryn Bigelow was the first woman to win Best Director.

The Hurt Locker not only beat the box office champ Avatar but it also won a bunch of the technical awards you thought would be shoo-ins for the sci-fi epic.

Were two hosts — Baldwin and Martin — better than one?

Who did they forget in the In Memoriam tribute?

So it was quite a surprise that the biggest shock of the night occurred when director Roger Ross Williams went up to accept the Oscar for the Documentary Short Subject winner Music By Prudence. As he made his speech, Elinor Burkett ran up on the stage and pushed her way to the mic saying “…Let the woman talk. Isn’t that the classic thing?”

Burkett, the film’s producer, made her speech while Williams stood there dumbfounded. Williams says that Burkett is the film’s producer “in name only” and that the pair have had legal wranglings over disagreements in the film’s direction. They obviously don’t like each other, so the moment on stage defined “awkward.”

Who would of thought that the Documentary Short would be the thing we’d be talking about the day after? What did you think of the incident? The show? The winners?

For weeks now, teenybopper singing sensation Justin Bieber has been a trending topic on Twitter, which means that he’s one of the most talked about people on the micro-blogging site.

He, or his people, obviously know how to tap into social media. In fact, he was signed by R&B singer Usher after posting videos of him singing on YouTube.

So this 16-year-old, who just opened the new version of We Are The World for Haitian relief is huge. But I’ve hardly been exposed to his music. I think I saw a few seconds of one of his videos when I was passing by MuchMusic. Even that was a fluke, because when the hell does Much even play music these days? (Don’t get me started…)

I’d love to hear from the Justin Bieber fans out there. Where do you hear his music? How has he become so popular when he seems to be flying under a lot of people’s radars? Please drop me a comment below.

Why do I have a nagging suspicion that “Kristen Stewart playing guitar in her panties” will become a top Google search?

The screaming Twihards who think Bella, and by extension Kristen Stewart, is their goddess will soon be going nuts again when the actress plays rock legend Joan Jett in The Runaways which opens on March 19th, 2010.

The film, directed by Floria Sigismondi, also stars Dakota Fanning as one of Jett’s bandmates in the ’70s all-girl rock band The Runaways. You can learn more about the film at runawaysmovie.com or check out the TV spot on YouTube.

The biggest shock of Super Bowl XLIV wasn’t the New Orleans Saints’ come from behind win but a commercial that starred David Letterman, Oprah Winfrey…and Jay Leno. The 15-second spot opens with Letterman saying “this is the worst Super Bowl party ever.” The camera pulls back to reveal Winfrey who admonishes Dave to “be nice.” The punchline? The camera pulls back again to reveal Leno, who says that “he’s just saying that because I’m here” and ends with Dave mimicking him.

How did Letterman manage to get Leno on a commercial for his show? Let’s face it the two haven’t exactly been close since Jay bumped Dave out of winning The Tonight Show 17 years ago. When the whole brouhaha with NBC, Conan and Jay exploded last month, Letterman had fun making tough jabs at Jay’s ambitions and behind the scenes maneuvering and Leno shot back with some stinging barbs about Letterman’s affairs with interns. Part of the reason that Leno and NBC would have agreed to this is that Jay, starting on Oprah’s show, is sort of engaging in an image rehab tour that’s designed to make the audience forget the showbiz ugliness that went down.

When you get right down to it, Letterman and Leno are comedians and the thought of the two arch-rivals watching the big game together is just a damn funny idea. The New York Times has a good story on how the commercial came together.

Now that a judge has signed off on the divorce of Jon and Kate Gosselin can we officially declare their fifteen minutes up and say goodbye to the idiot father and narcissistic harpy mother of the Gosselin 8?