This past Tuesday was a sad day for CFL fans across the country: J.I. Albrecht, a legendary football executive in our country, passed away in his Toronto nursing home at the age of 77.

In the past two years, Albrecht's deteriorating health had confined him to his nursing home, but most of us remember him as a man who breathed life into the CFL and as the man who hired Pinball Clemons to be the coach of the Toronto Argonauts.

Do you have a "thing" for robots? There's at least one person in my circle of peeps who gets off entirely too much from our battery-powered friends (pun intended- tee hee). If you too like watching motorized scrap traipse around the floor via remote, you need to head to OCAD this Saturday for the annual SUMO Robot Challenge.

Think Robot Wars, but with a more traditional, sumo style, competition format. Homemade robots will compete in six different classes. These classes include a Dancer/Painter challenge (where the robot must demonstrate it's creative abilities), Autonomous and Lightweight Autonomous (robots fight each other without help from their remote-holding creators), and the Sumo Classic Heavyweight brawl (no holds barred, except this year they've outlawed any scarring of the playing surface- no saw blade wheels or other sharp, scary, cutting devices that might hurt the spectators!)

While reading about the slow, steady death of Toronto's video game arcades today on CityNews, I couldn't help thinking of the hours I spent in my own childhood pumping coins into those sleek machines, my eyes transfixed by glorious destruction in that flickering gloom. I never frequented arcades myself, but remember vividly going to birthday parties at some of the cleaner ones, and having to be literally dragged away from games like Terminator 2 and The Simpsons. The joys of all that candy-coloured, marvelously addictive fantasy still linger.

Yes, arcades are on the way out. Why go to Yonge Street to a dingy place that smells like BO and ramen noodles when you can stay home and play Halo in the privacy of your own room while your mom makes you sandwiches?

I wonder, though, if CityNews' Michael Talbot has been to Pacific Mall's Playscape recently, or any of the other, newer arcades that dot the outer suburbs. On a recent trip there I was amazed at the popularity of games like DanceDance Revolution, GuitarFreaks, and DrumMania. While the shooting things games and driving around games were mostly empty, there was a steady parade of Asian teenagers dropping tokens into these music and dance-type machines, and pulling out the most insane moves you've ever seen.

Team Ryouko are a Toronto-based extreme martial arts group that practice insanely good acrobatic stunts or "tricking". Their talents grabbed the attention of ad creators, who sent members Chris Mark, Carl Fortin, and Brent Jones down to Mexico to join some footballers and put together this hugely internet-popular trailer for the latest EA Sports soccer video game release FIFA Street 3.



Check out our previously featured video and interview with another great Toronto-area stuntster, Alex Chung.

If you're like me then you're eagerly anticipating the North American launch of Super Smash Bros. Brawl for the Nintendo Wii. Nothing is quite as satisfying as having Mario face off against the Princess after spending years saving her. And having Sonic the Hedgehog involved this time? I don't think I'll be seeing any light outside of the warm blue glow of the Wii's optical drive for a very long time.

Well, there's no need to stay locked inside, waving your arms around in a desperate attempt to fend off Link and Samus. No, now you can show off your skills in public! And that's not all! You'll also be able to embarrass and humiliate fellow Smash Bros. fans at the same time! The best part? There's a grand prize that you can rub in your fellow gamers' faces while you gloat about being the best Super Smash Bros. player in Canada!

Come on, Toronto. We know you're online, and that you like voting. Surely you don't want us to end up being the not-so-proud owners of one of the cheapest and least visited properties in the world.

The toy company Hasbro is running a worldwide, online campaign to elect 22 cities for inclusion on the board of their upcoming world edition of Monopoly, and our fine city is in the running - just barely.