So the other day I caught one of those maudlin Sarah McLachlan ASPCA commercials that everyone hates seeing because they are just so depressing. No one wants to see that shit, because really, who doesn’t love dogs? No one, that’s who. That’s an awfully depressing way to start an article. But it got me to thinking about all the cool dogs in pop culture that everyone loves.

Last night was the start of the 10 week, 16 person Tournament of Valor, with each match being scheduled for 2 falls. The 2 falls format means no squash matches (hooray for no more Claxton/Pikard matches for a while!). There were a lot of new faces this week who put on a good show. The tournament hasn’t really been settled down into brackets yet, so we’ll just have to play by ear week to week to see which winners advance against who. I’m gonna try a bit of a different formula this week, because of the tournament for one, and secondly, I finally realized my camera has a sports setting, so more pictures that aren’t rest holds and less yakking.

This weekend I’ll be attending three days of 3 on 3 tag team wrestling at Chikara’s King of Trios. That’s a whole lot of threes, so I figured I’d run down a list of some of my favorite three man teams that weren’t all entirely wrestling related.

So today is my 33rd birthday. I don’t plan anything special for it, besides sleeping late and watching wrestling all day. Anything special, that is, beside this list things with the number 33.

This week’s event was pretty sparsely attended, only about 15 people, which I assume is because it’s no longer summer and school is back in session, so a bunch of regulars and families couldn’t make it. But just because there were only a few of us there, doesn’t mean they didn’t put on one hell of a show. In fact, they went above and beyond, putting on some of the most entertaining matches yet. There were two qualifying matches with the winners meeting in a match at weekend’s “Down with the Sickness” event, a fun six man tag, an epic main event, and some news about the future of Dojo Wars.

I was never really into Joan Rivers. I guess I’m just too young. I vaguely remember her failed show on Fox, but I certainly was never allowed up late enough to see her in her prime on Carson. I’d see her in her most recent special, or her guest spot on Louie, or Fashion Police after I forget to change the channel when The Soup was over, and always found her funny. But to me, she was always the lady that worked with Miss Piggy at the perfume counter in The Muppets Take Manhattan.

So while she may be gone now, it made me reflect on the other people I find funny. I like to think I’m at least a little bit humorous. So this week, I run down the albums or specials that influenced my own sense of humor the most and that I find the most funny.

Unfortunately, I already own almost all the comics in the bundle in physical copies. But if you don’t, I highly recommend picking it up if only for the two movie prequel stories, Countdown and Countdown To Darkness, which flesh out the backstory to the films. I may pick this up anyway, because The Hero Initiative is an awesome cause, and 66 comics at name your own prices is always a deal, doubly so if they are all Star Trek.