Saturday, June 2, 2007

Team Alien, Vol 2 Reggie Miller



I'm selecting the great NBA player Reggie Miller for Team Alien, although he doesn't look like the typical alien. Miller kinda looks like the Ferengis of Star Trek.

Friday, June 1, 2007

Team Alien, Vol 1 Jelena Jankovic


Certain people look kind of like the aliens from science fiction shows. I don't mean this to be personal, this is just a light-hearted bit.

The inaugural member of Team Alien is your Serbian girl Jelena Jankovic, who daughtered Venus Williams today in 3 sets at RG. Something about Jelena's eyes remind me of the aliens from the X-Files.

You can nominate people for Team Alien in the comments. The potential alien must have a wikipedia & photo url lainks.

Thursday, May 31, 2007

Jay-Z "Black Album" Remixes


A few years ago, when the Jay-Z "Black Album" was released, the record company offered a version of the album that was just acapella with the vocals. This was a big event for the "blend" genre, as tons of mostly unknown producers made their own version of the album with their own beats.

I only listened to a few of these
The Grey Album - this was the big one, as Danger Mouse mashed The Beatles with Jay. Many people preferred this over the actual black album. The Beatles threatened to sue, so the album was only available via the P2P sites.
The Brown Album
Paul Nice
The Purple Album - Prince mashed with Jay

I'm not really interested in hearing any other of these, but if you are, this site catalogs them with download links.

Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Roland Garros, May-30 update


It's not only the American men that have been losing from the men's singles draw at Roland Garros. Check on how 3 of the Top10 have lost (in uppercase) as of Wed May-30, with half the 2nd Rd matches still to be played. I haven't seen any matches besides highlights, but still the results so far are surprising with the extent of the upsets. Note that for the Clay Rank, I totalled the points earned during 2007 clay court tournaments, with 51+ meaning be outside of the Clay Top50.

Player Rank Clay Rank
Federer 1 2
Nadal 2 1
RODDICK 3 51+
Davydenko 4 16
GONZALEZ 5 9
Djokovic 6 11
Ljubicic 7 47
BLAKE 8 32
Robredo 9 26

It's to be expected that some of the overall Top10 can't play well on clay (especially American players). However, I was very surprised to see 4 of the Top10 clay guys lose.

Player Rank Clay Rank
Nadal 2 1
Federer 1 2
Ferrero 20 3
CHELA 21 4
ALMAGRO 38 5
Monaco 35 6
BERDYCH 12 7
Canas 22 8
GONZALEZ 5 9
Moya 26 10

What happened to Gonzo? I haven't seen his matches since the Aus Open in Jan 07, but he was playing incredibly there, with a sick winners-to-unforced error ratio. It really looked like Gonzo was the "defacto #2" at the time, better than everyone except Fed. Gonzo has always been good on all surfaces also, including clay.

I'm also shocked to see Almagro lose, the 22 yr old Spanish kid that has been playing great on clay. I thought if Fed & Rafa both somehow lose, Almagro is likely as anyone else to win. RG has a history of young clay players stepping up & winning. I'm suprised to see Almagro lose to Llodra in 5 sets, a serve & volley French player who is actually better at doubles.

I'm not surprised to see Monfils (picture) beat Chela. Monfils, like Safin & Gasquet, is the type of player who can beat or lose to anyone on any given day.

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Terrible Tuesday for American Tennis



Today sucked for my fellow Americans (no John F. Kennedy) in the Men's Singles Draw at Roland Garros.

Out of 9 guys, USA is 0-8, with 1 match suspended (no Don Imus) until tomorrow, my fellow ATLien (no OutKast) #48 Robby Ginepri split the 1st 2 sets 46 61 v 89 Diego Hartfield.

Here's the list of the fallen, including the pictured big dogs A-Rod & J-Block. As you can see, Americans got sonned by both the best (#1 Fed) & the spare (#306 Recouderc)

125 Igor Andreev d 3 Andy Roddick 36 64 63 64
85 Ivo Karlovic d 8 James Blake 46 64 75 75
56 Gilles Simon d 66 "MC" Vince Spadea 26 64 64 63
306 Laurent Recouderc d 67 Samuel Querrey 76(4) 26 60 67(5) 63
1 Roger Federer d 68 Michael Russell 64 62 64
20 Juan Carlos Ferrero d 69 Amer Delic 67(2) 63 63 64
134 Juan Pablo Brzezicki d 86 Robert Kendrick 63 36 62 61
38 Nicolas Almagro d. 150 Justin Gimelstob 64 64 64

At least their is hope for the other draws, as Serena Williams (Women's Singles), Men's & Mixed Doubles (Mike & Bob Bryan) & Women's Doubles (Lisa Raymond with the Aussie Sam Stosur) all have an American who is threat to win the title.

Sunday, May 27, 2007

MovieGo

MovieGo is another movie-streaming website, ala Nabolister