If all the stupidity so far from FEMA and everyone else involved in this Katrina mess was not enough, now there’s information on a lot of aid being held up due to lack of communication from the Feds.
This Administration has only done wrong in their 1.5 terms and they still are not the laughing stock of the country. Amazing how the publicity engine works and how easily the Bushies are able to twist various ‘facts’ into “local government issues”.
On a sidenote, isn’t it ironic that India has offered aid ($5M in addition to a planeload of supplies waiting for an approval) to the US? This could truly be a turning point in history where US is being given aid from countries it has routinely doled out cash to.
Have been reading about how Sania Mirza is getting so much attention when she is barely on the circuit, whereas Paes and Bhupathi have not got half as much exposure despite winning so many Grand Slam titles.
So here it is - my mention of Bhupathi-Hantuchova winning the US Open Mixed Doubles. Congratulations!
Usually I have seen it start in January or something. But I saw Richard Lewis on Conan last night and I thought I heard Conan saying that Curb is starting sometime in September.
Also taped the new show on Fox - Reunion. Looks interesting. Will definitely watch it for a few more weeks and decide if it is worth continuing or droppping it.
Even though USC has a bye, this week is going to be rough. I am looking forward to watching the Texas-Ohio State game, and hope to catch Notre Dame-Michigan game too.
Also, Cal at Washington and LSU at Arizona State.
Why are Cal and Washington playing a conference game so early in the season?
I saw most of the second half of tonight’s season opener. I think New England played up and down - they had a few three-and-outs, but they were still quite solid. I don’t know which team can beat this Patriots team. I am sure there will be a few teams, but in the grand stage, in playoffs, who will be confident enough to beat them??
I will try to put all my week’s picks on this blog before they start. It was of course a no brainer that NE would beat Oak.
So here go the rest:
Washington beats Chicago Denver beats Miami Carolina beats New Orleans Jacksonville beats Seattle (upset?) Pittsburgh beats Tennessee Cincinnati beats Cleveland Buffalo beats Houston NY Jets beat Kansa City Minnesota beats Tampa Bay San Diego beats Dallas St Louis beats San Francisco (too easy to call?) Arizona beats NY Giants Detroit beats Green Bay (I really want this to happen!) Baltimore beats Indianapolis (upset) Atlanta beats Philadelphia (upset?)
England is once again batting first, and even though they are 7-down and Australia seems to be on top, I would not write England’s first innings off yet. Jones is still there and with some help from the tail, they can put up a large total, at least enough to bat them out of a loss.
And a draw is just good enough for England, and a huge first innings total is halfway to the draw.
Why are season premieres diametrically opposite season finales? The season premiere of The OC was such a drag. There were ten minutes of nonsense songs with the 4 on the beach. There was some sort of recap, and all’s well (sort of) that ends well with Trey going away and Ryan getting justice.
The only variable now is what is Jeri Ryan’s character really up to? What is Kirsten really thinking - or is she thinking at all?
And I am not sure what they are thinking of Jimmy Cooper’s interest in the Nichol empire. He has no morals, looks like. Given what Sandy has done for him in the past, it was quite pathetic that he did not inform him of Julie’s ‘move’.
Today is the last day of the Jain fesitval Paryushan. I would like to ask for forgiveness from everyone who I may have hurt, physically or emotionally, and hope that you forgive me.
Damn. Last night, for no reason, my DVR recorded only the first half hour of Rockstar:INXS. As a result I had to resort to ‘other methods’ to see the second half. I did see it and I will call comcast this morning.
Could this be the best match I have ever seen? Yes, as far as I can remember. I did not see the Federer/Safin match at this year’s Australian Open, but I have not seen more exciting, fast-paced tennis since a long long time.
As I talked about it earlier, this game had a promise of being good, because Blake has been playing flawlessly in the past few weeks. And Agassi has meticulously taken out youngsters in his path.
And what a start it was for Blake. Quick breaks in both sets gave him a 2-0 set lead. Even in the third, Agassi looked clueless and then, out of nowhere, he started getting his rhythm back. He started hitting more balls back, and started getting the corners and the lines. Blake seemed to doubt himself for just that little bit, which gave Agassi the third set.
The fourth set was relatively easier to win for Agassi. But again, Blake was not out. As he showed in the final set after a few breaks were exchanged. He was serving for the match at 5-3, and was broken.
The tie break was also see-saw with mini breaks exchanged multiple times. In the end, it was a fantastic performance from both players that created an exciting match to watch for everyone in the stadium, and everyone at home.
Thank goodness I have cable, because dish network shows the Eastern feed of usa network and usa network had to cut off at about 12.35am Eastern time and they switched to CBS, but on the west coast, it was still on usa network. So if I had dish network, I would not have been able to watch the most exciting part of the match!
It was a great Wednesday show of Rockstar:INXS last night. The first song they performed ‘Us’, was fantastic.
But it was certainly a rehearsed thing, and not a surprise to the final 5 …. because they all had parts of the song to sing by themselves and with others and that could not have just happened on the spot. In any case, it looks like a superb song for INXS.
As for the show itself, it was clear that Jordis had given up. She had said in more than one way that she was done and had accepted that she was the worst of the lot. And she was.
Did not think that this matchup would happen in the first place. But the way Blake played against Nadal, I know that it is going to be a good one. Unless of course either Blake is overawed, or Agassi is tired from his previous round game. Both of those situations could hand off the match to the other.
I am all set for the evening, switched to the usa network :-)
I know, I know. It is not yet time to compare Sania to the world #6. But I happened to catch the last set of the quarter final between Dementieva and Davenport and realized that Dementieva’s second serve was worse than Sania’s. In fact, she was so defensive that sometimes in the third set, her first serve was also looking pathetic. She was just slicing the serve in and wait for Davenport to hit a bad return.
But one big difference between her and Sania is that Sania did not have consistent ground strokes. Dementieva was solid on the ground, irrespective of the first serve, second serve or return of serve. That put Davenport on the backfoot in pretty much every rally, and won the match for Dementieva.
So there is a slight chance that it could be an all-Russian final after all. I was just wondering on the way back home today that from the last year’s 3 Russian winners in 4 Grand Slams, we’ve had 0 so far. The US Open gives the Russian contingent some hope.
I think Jordis was quite bad with her We Are The Champions performance. Her original was ok, but overall I think she has given up.
Marty had a great Everlong and his original was quite alright. I think he may get the encore nod this time.
I did not know the Bonnie Rait song that Suzie sang, so I could not really tell if she was good or bad with the song as such. But the performance was quite alright, though not quite fitting with INXS I thought. But again, this was chosen by the fans who voted, so no one can ding any of the performers for their song choice.
I thought JD’s set was great and I really think he redeemed himself for the past 2-3 weeks.
Mig’s set was so-so and I would not be surprised if he, Jordis and either Suzie or JD end up in the bottom three. Marty is safe.
I just happened to look at some browser stats of visitors to this blog. I now tend to agree with the other well-published stats about IE’s share going down.
Looks like IE is now 77% (ONLY!) of the total visits, whereas Firefox is at 12% as exclusively Firefox and 15% if you include Netscape. Safari is at 7% and I think it is quite a high number! Welcome, mac users! :-)
After some usual straight set victories, the women’s matches became exciting after all. The all-Russian Sharapova/Petrova match was great because of the shots they traded. There were too many errors, but then there were too many great, powerful shots too.
Women’s game is no more lobbing the ball over to the 3/4th of the other court and repeating till an error causes a point to be taken. It is now a powerful serve followed by quite a few powerful strokes in the rallies. This is exciting to watch, but only after the quarter-finals. In earlier rounds, the lower-ranked players are just not good enough for the higher-ranked players.
The second match, which was even more exciting to watch was the Clijsters/Venus match. I have not seen Clijsters play before so I was amazed at the splits that she kept pulling off at the baseline, and even more amazingly, the quickness with which she would get back on her feet and run the ball down on the other corner! I thought she listlessly lost the first set, which was hers to win. She fought hard to win the second set and tightened up her game in the final set to close it out.
Interesting match up next - Sharapova/Clijsters. Will be quite a watch!
From what little they showed us of the shoot, it was clear that JD seems most comfortable in front of the camera and Jordis was on the exact opposite. Marty was a little stiff/angry and Suzie was the same. Mig went too far on the exhibition side :-)
As for the next performance, there’s going to be two songs and one of them is going to be an original. I am not sure what to expect because they didn’t show much of the rehearsals.
And finally, met some people over the weekend who also watch Rockstar:INXS. And surprisingly (to me), they both loved Suzie’s Bohemian Rhapsody. I thought I was in a minority, but looks like Suzie is a favorite to win it all.
This time he was out second ball. LBW. This story of being bowled or lbw does not comfort me because technically correct players are least likely to get out in those ways.
Unless he got a bad decision or the ball skidded or something, I think India has a problem.
After what seemed like a good start, India could not make enough runs to put pressure on NZ in the finals. Sehwag got among the runs … and this time against a full squad. So I hope this innings has at least given some of his confidence back.
Kaif looks solid at #3 or #4.
And Dravid again had a duck. And this time it is lbw. Shucks - what is going on??
Rahul Dravid failed again. And again, he was bowled. Of course I did not see the match, but getting bowled so frequently is a cause for a batsman of such his technical ability.
Did not see the game, but some points worth noting:
1. Top order failed again - and it was against Zimbabwe. They have to face the same attack soon in tests. Better get something done … attitude or otherwise. 2. Dravid failed again…the Wall is crumbling. And again, he got bowled. 3. Yuvraj finally clicked. Hopefully he and Kaif get some confidence back now. 4. Dhoni seems to be the most consistent of the Indian players. He has failed a little bit, but of all the players, he is the one who has scored most consistently. And that is a sad state of affairs. 5. Ajit Agarkar has quietly kept performing - how come no one points that out anymore???
Now, Sehwag and Ganguly desperately need to find their form because if they do and India gets to 80-90 without a wicket, it gives Dravid some breathing room to settle down and pace his innings. Until then, India will have no hope of winning against quality opposition.
Alright then! It was a good weekend, though I did not experience it as I would have liked (watch some parts of College Gameday, watch the entire USC game, and watch SportsCenter in the evening), at least I was able to keep in touch with what’s going on.
Oklahoma and Auburn lost. I hope that clips their wings from last year’s flight.
Texas won big and should be the biggest problem from a rankings standpoint for USC. A lot of writers are in love with Texas and especially with Oklahoma losing, they have to give everything to Texas.
But I won’t get into the rankings nonsense yet. That I have to save for later in the season :-)
The Trojans start well with a rout of Hawaii. Surprisingly, I thought the defense was not that exciting, but looks like reports say otherwise.
Anyway, it was good to see that at least the offense has not slowed down. They were scoring at will and I guess the job for all opposing teams is to keep Matt Leinart and co. away from the field as much as possible.
