Hoser update: The heat is ridiculous.

I miss my igloo. I miss riding my snowmobile to the beer store to pick up a two-four of Molson. I miss moose meat and its stringy goodness. The summer heat is absolutely unbearable, so much so that it would dry the tears off the face of everybody in Ohio this morning.

Today was the big day, when Joey Votto got a chance to stare down dinosaur Charlie Manuel for keeping him off the NL All-Star team. Not only did Votto win the 'Final Vote' to earn him a spot on the team (although his numbers, though better than Pujols' is, apparently aren't enough to give him a starting spot) but on his first at-bat he went yard to deep right. What with Votto leading the NL in home runs, and the Blue Jays' Jose Bautista leading the AL, if chicks dig the long ball, then Toronto would be Kim Kardashian right now.

Ryder Hesjedal is still 4th in the Tour de France. I'm starting to think that nobody really changes places in this. All I know is I was too much of a pussy to bike up a hill to work in the heat yesterday. These riders have more stones than Palestinians.

Finally, Bruce Arthur of the National Post explains how wrong the Lebron special was. I was going to do a post like this and how athletes string along fans and the media, and how Lebron is American, Kovalchuk is Russian and Mats Sundin is Swedish, but then I remembered Scott Niedermayer. I guess we weren't above all this after all.

We have football tomorrow, gang. Sure, it's the Argos, but I'm always looking for an excuse to drink to excess to tune out Glen Suitor.

Required reading: Burke Keeps His Promise

This is a piece from Bruce Arthur of the National Post. It's about Brian Burke's promise to his late gay son Brendan to march in the Toronto Pride Parade with him. It's meant to tug at your heartstrings.

[Burke Keeps His Promise - National Post]

This week is going to be pretty good. TSN and the Globe have been pumping up a series that focuses on why there aren't more Canadian NHL teams. And it'll be a good week here on the 'Eh' Factor too. On Monday we're going to debut our 'Excitement' rankings for CFL teams. We'll be following Joey Votto's All-Star Game push. On Thursday we'll rank how the Canadian teams did in the first week of free agency, and a bit of hoserism as we look at the outrageous free-agency demands of a prima donna Russian.