STARTING FIVE

1. President Barack Obama and GOP nominee Mitt Romney: Officially, it’s on! While a Floyd Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao fight continues to elude us.

2. The American League East, with 25 games remaining, has come down to Buck versus Big Bucks.

If there’s a movie, does Philip Seymour Hoffman play his second A.L. skipper in the past two years?

3. Help us out here: We missed the MTV VMAs, but did anyone give a shout -out to the recently deceased astronaut Neil Armstrong whilst holding their award?

4. Amy Poehler and Will Arnett are going on hiatus have separated after nine years of marriage. Arrested Development > Parks & Recreation >>> Up All Night.

5. Oscar Pistorius finished fourth in the men’s 100 meter final at the Paralympic Games in London. Has the Blade Runner become the Paralympics’ Lolo Jones?

The Bench

Former Chicago policeman Drew Peterson, 58, was convicted of the first-degree murder of his third wife, Kathleen Salvio, in Joliet, Ill. Peterson, two of whose four former ex-wives were not murdered or found to have mysteriously vanished, could face charges in the future concerning the 2007 disappearance of his fourth wife, Stacy Peterson. The couple wed when he was 49 and she was 19.

Given his longtime Seattle environs, we thought ESPN’s John Clayton would be more into grunge than death metal. (notice also that Neil “I’m in the top ten, Roger” Everett includes at least two visual homages to his former home of Hawaii).

More Video Music Awards: Taylor Swift’s “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” wins VMA for “Best Song To Destroy a Pint of Ben & Jerry’s To”. Todd Martens of the Los Angeles Times is even more disappointed by Green Day’s refusal to take up the banner it first waved in 2004 than I am in Swift’s pandering to the iCarly contingent. Even at his advanced age –and despite the fact that he is married to what must be the most beautiful woman ever to be raised on Staten Island — Keith Richards should still date T-Swizzle just to teach her a thing or two.

“When you’re 15…” you can get away with writing that drivel. Not now. Please go listen to Pink’s “Blow Me (One Last Kiss)”

Can’t DeMatha’s football players just behave like normal high school students and have affairs with their teachers?

Two different teenage girls sent out tweets yesterday concerning their hope that someone will assassinate (to be fair, one pledged to  “assinate” him herself) the president. Can’t angry adolescent females confine their hostility to singling out the homely classmate who shops at Dress Barn? Sounds like two young women are having a “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” week.

Bar Tab: Settle up. Marriage: Settle down. Divorce: Settle in court. (We made this up ourselves!)

Tom Petty reportedly “got chills” when he heard his classic “I Won’t Back Down” played as President Obama appeared onstage at the DNC. You will recall that after Obama won the 2008 election the Donkeys blasted “Even The Losers.”  Meanwhile, does California’s crackdown on medical marijuana mean that this could be Mary Jane’s Last Dance?

Admit it: You’d be more concerned about the three dead in Yosemite National Park due to a hantavirus outbreak if you know what a hantavirus is. It’s scarier than it looks, apparently.

Never mind Greece and Spain (and Italy). Here’s your real European crisis.

So, if you’re scoring at home, on the Peterson Scale of Husband-ry (worst to least worst), it goes Drew (one wife murdered, another vanished) = Scott (wife and unborn child murdered) > Fritz (one wife swapped). Stay tuned for more Peterson entries.

When they perfect the odor accuracy on this doll, put us down for five of them.

What USC quarterback, whose first name starts with an M and is four letters and whose second name is seven letters, and who grew up in Orange County, will have a better game this weekend at Met Life Stadium against an opponent from upstate New York: Matt Barkley, whose Trojans face Syracuse, or Mark Sanchez, whose Jets take on Buffalo? Hint: Barkley turns 22 on Saturday.

It’s Precocious Blond(e) Pic Day in It’s All Happening!

Ryan Lochte will not serve as “The Bachelor”  but he is working as a fashion reporter for E! this week in New York City.

In marching band parlance, this is known as “pulling a tromboner”. (“Wrong instrument, stupid!”). Our bad. Ashlee Simpson applauded this effort, by the way.

There’s no crying in football.