By Peter Covino
Entertainment Editor

Okay, so let me see if I've got this straight.

The city of Kissimmee has cancelled this year's July 4th fireworks event because of concerns of public safety because of the ongoing construction at Kissimmee Lakefront Park.

I guess that may be true but I did hear from one Kissimmee insider that the city was just being “cheap” and trying to save money.

Looks like me and my dog Chester will be reduced to sitting on the front steps of the house again this year. You will recognize Chester from myself. He will be the one with the sparkler nestled firmly between his teeth.

There are other options for the patriotic minded and those who like to see bombs bursting in air, as Francis Scott Key might have put it.

St. Cloud and Celebration both have big July 4th events scheduled for the holiday.

In addition to fireworks, Celebration will have A Flock of  Seagulls. No, they are not unveiling a giant statue to the delight of birds everywhere within a 50-mile radius, but  that British band that Ran (So Far Away) back in the early 1980's will be performing.

Meanwhile, St. Cloud  will not only have fireworks but their annual Wife Carrying Race, All American Baby Pageant  and a bed race, something else Kissimmee was supposed to have this weekend, but is not.  Kissimmee's bed race, which was to be part of Saturday's Rhythm and Blues Festival, was cancelled because of a lack of participants. How hard is it to push someone around in a bed?

Maybe it is just too darn hot.

Speaking of hot, it will be time to heat up the kitchen as well Monday when St. Cloud resident Joseph Jayne appears as a finalist  on the Fox Network (locally Fox 35 in Orlando) on the first episode of season two of  MasterChef.

He is one of 100 finalists on the show. He won a regional competition in Orlando earlier this year to be selected to appear before judges chef Gordon Ramsey, restaurateur and wine maker Joe Bastianich and four-star chef,  Graham Eliot.

I talked to him last week about being on the show, and of course, the contestants have been sworn to secrecy about whether or not they move on to the next round let alone win the $250,000 first prize.

I am pretty sure Jayne was not the big winner. He just didn't sound like a man who was $250,000 richer. But I will be watching (Monday night at 8 p.m.) too to see how well he did.

If he survives Monday night, the next round of the competition is  Tuesday on Fox.

Jayne's favorite dishes: stuff made with alligator or squirrel.

Ummm...I am not thinking that much outside the bun and will stick with Taco Bell. But good luck, Joe.

Moving on to something better than a rotisserie squirrel (now there is something you won't find at the deli in Publix), next week's big movie, well at least I think it is the big movie, is Super 8.

I really liked Cloverfield (and Star Trek and Fringe too) so anything by JJ Abrams (Steven Spielberg is involved as well) is a welcome addition to a movie schedule full of sequels.

Strange he chose to do a movie about a Super 8 as opposed to a La Quinta or Holiday Inn.

Okay. Okay. It's not my fault Abrams is deliberately vague about his film projects. I thought Cloverfield was going to be an animated musical about singing bees in Indiana until that monster showed up.

Super 8 (referring to making a super 8 movie) is about as secretive, but from the trailers we know it takes place in 1979, involves a train crash in Ohio and soon terrifying events start happening.

The press screening is Tuesday night and it opens Friday, June 10.

If you can't go to a movie this week, you should at least tune in Thursday as Turner Classic Movies presents another edition of the Drive-In Double Feature. Last week was a blast (literally) as monsters Godzilla and friends invaded Japan. It was lots of fun making comments to the large Twitter community of sci-fi fans. This week the giant insects get their turn with Them!, Tarantula and more.  I think we will be needing that really large can of Raid.

Moving on, for those that voted in the Osceola News-Gazette's Best of Osceola competition (restaurant, dog groomer, dentist etc.) those votes are still being tabulated and counted by hand. We use the same team that counted the votes after the 2000 Bush/Gore election in Florida. And we are just as impartial.

Actually, I think I heard there was something like 2,700 total voter participants so it does take a while.

And I have finally run out of things to say, but thanks for making it this far.

As always, you can comment on any old thing here on the website or find me wasting time on Twitter (ICmovies).