It was Day Five of the Olympics yesterday, 08 12 08, and Michael Phelps is again the story of the day.  The American swimmer is on target to sweep all of his swim events and has broken 3 Olympic records already.  He is now the most bemedalled athlete in the history of the Olympic Games after he won his 10th and 11th gold medals today (his 5th gold of Beijing 2008) moving him much further from his tied status two days ago with four other athletes who have won 9 overall Olympic gold medals each.  What’s amazing is that he not only won 11 overall gold medals as of today, but he also obliterated World records in the events that he swam in.

It was definitely the day of the Frenchmen!  The 3rd round of Tennis saw only 2 upsets, all in the Men’s side, while all seeded players in the Women’s bracket moved on to the 4th round rather easily.  The first casualty of the day was 7th seeded David Nalbandian of Argentina who lost to the red hot Gael Monfils of France 6-4, 6-4.  The second upset came when 15th seeded Nicolas Kiefer of Germany fell to another Frenchman Paul-Henri Mathieu 7-5, 6-3.  On the Women’s side, there were no upsets as all the seeded players beat their respective opponents rather handily in the 3rd round of competition.

The Quarterfinals of Badminton started today for the women’s event with four matches, and four other matches for the men’s doubles event.  Women’s doubles had only 2 games but they are already at the Semifinals stage.  As expected, 2nd seeded Zhang Ning of China beat out 5th seed Pi Hongyan of France in a very exciting match that went 3 sets, with Zhang winning by the skin of her teeth on the last set 21-19.  The final match score 21-8, 19-21, 21-19 for China   Top seeded Xie Xingfang of China beat out 7th seeded Xu Huaiwen of Germany in a very tight match 21-19, 22-20, while the 3rd seed Lu Lan beat the 8th seeded Wong Mew Choo of Malaysia 21-7, 29-27.  All the other matches of the day saw no upsets with all seeded pairs advancing.

Highlights: DAY 6: Wednesday 08 13 08 (697MB)
Tennis Day Five: Round 3 Results Summary
Tennis Event: Complete Schedule and Match Stats
Badminton Event: Olympic Seedings List
Badminton Day Five: Quarterfinals Results Summary
Badminton Event: Complete Schedule and Match Stats

It was Day Four of the Olympics yesterday, 08 11 08, with almost no upsets compared to the day before in men’s basketball and badminton, but with a few tennis seeds dropping out.  The current medal standings saw China improving its lead over the USA by 6 golds, but with the USA taking the lead in total medal count while moving firmly into 2nd place over Korea with 7 total golds. Most of that success is credited to Michael Phelps who now looks to make Olympic history by going for a record number of golds today (10) in the 200m butterfly and the 4 x 200m freestyle relay.  Phelps has tied the Olympic record for number of golds won with NINE already, shared only by four other athletes in history, and looks to break it with his 2 opportunties today.  Korea improved to one more gold but dropped to 3rd place, while Germany moved to 4th place with 4 golds, and Italy rounds up the Top 5 with 3 golds.

On Day 2 of Men’s basketball, Croatia continued its strong play as it beat Russia by 7 points and improved to 2-0 in Group A.  Lithuania are likewise at 2-0 as it continued its success by crushing Iran by 32 points behind yet another huge game from Linas Kleiza who scored 22 points on 8/11 shooting. The last game of the night saw Argentina recovering from its opening night loss by dumping Australia to go 1-1 rounding up Group A. Four of the five Argentinians playing in the NBA (Ginobili, Scola, Delfino, Oberto) all scored in double figures and shot over 50% each to ensure the victory.

In Group B, Germany lost by 23 points to Greece who were led by Spanoulis with 23 points while playing great team defense shutting down Nowitzi and Kaman, who were held to 13 points and 4 points, respectively.  Wow.  The USA also breezed through their match against Angola with yet another great display of stifling defense and moved to 2-0 to lead Group B.  And in the most exciting game of Day 2, Spain needed overtime to beat China, on a come from behind victory.  China led by as much as 14 points when the 4th quarter started and even had the lead with a minute remaining.  Gasol led Spain with 29 points, while Yao Ming had a disappointing 11 points, and his compatriot Yi Jinlian playing yet another horrible game scoring just 4 points in 37 minutes of action.  That is a shame.  Greece moves to 1-1 along with Germany in Group B, while China drops to 0-2 alongside Angola, and the USA is on top with an expected 2-0 card along with Spain.

MEN’S BASKETBALL DAY TWO RESULTS:

Group A
CROATIA 85 (2-0) – RUSSIA 78 (1-1)
LITHUANIA 99 (2-0) – IRAN 67 (0-2)
ARGENTINA 85 (1-1) – AUSTRALIA 68 (0-2)

Group B
GREECE 87 (1-1) – GERMANY 64 (1-1)
SPAIN 85 (2-0) – CHINA 75 (0-2)
USA 97 (2-0) – ANGOLA 76 (0-2)

The 2nd Round of Tennis began on Day Four, there were a few upsets yet again.  On the men’s side, 2nd seeded Spaniard Rafael Nadal pounded Lleyton Hewitt of Australia on what was an unexpected drubbing.  It was slated to be a tough baseline match but Nadal proved to be far too superior for Hewitt closing the match at 6-1, 6-2.  3rd seeded Novak Djokovic of Serbia easily beat Rainer Schuettler of Germany 6-4, 6-2.  There were 2 upsets though, as 9th seeded Stanislas Wawrinka of Switzerland was thrashed by Austria’s Jurgen Melzer 6-4, 6-0 in a little less than an hour.  And 4th seeded Nikolay Davydenko of Russia fell to Paul-Henri Mathieu of France 7-5, 6-3.

And on the women’s side, a few disappointing seeds lost, especially Daniela Hantuchova of Slovakia who waved goodbye to the Olympics as she was beaten by Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark 6-1, 6-3.  Other seeded casualties included 8th seed Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland who lost to Francesca Schiavone of France 6-3, 7-6 (6) and 13th seed Patty Schnyder of Switzerland losing to Sybille Bammer of Austria 6-4, 6-4.  And the Williams sisters again crushed their respective opponents in both their singles matches as well as their women’s doubles match and look very strong in winning gold for each of those events.

On to the Round of 16 in Badminton, as the expected seeds to pull through to the Quarterfinals did not disappoint.  Peter Gade of Denmark was pushed to 3 sets and almost lost the match on the second, but still managed to beat Shoji Sato of Japan 19-21, 22-20, 21-15 to set up a duel with World’s number 1 Lin Dan of China.  Whew, that was close!  Lin Dan destroyed Park Sunghwan of Korea 21-8, 21-11 and continued his great form moving towards his match against Gade.  In other matches, Korea’s Lee Hyun-il continued his strong play and beat Marc Zwiebler of Germany very easily 21-13, 21-11 and set up that expected matchup with Bao Chunlai of China who beat Wacha Przemyslaw of Poland in 3 sets 21-11, 19-21, 21-13.  And to round out the men’s results, 2nd seeded Malaysian Lee Chong Wei totally overpowered Lithuania’s Navickas Kestutis 21-5, 21-7.  The women’s singles Quarterfinals will start today and the results will be posted on tomorrow’s highlights.

Highlights: DAY 5: Tuesday 08 12 08 (697MB)
Basketball Day Four: Day 2 Results Summary
Tennis Day Four: Round 2 Results Summary
Tennis Event: Complete Schedule and Match Stats
Badminton Event: Olympic Seedings List
Badminton Day Four: Round of 16 Results Summary
Badminton Event: Complete Schedule and Match Stats

It was Day Three of the Olympics yesterday, 08 10 08, and there were already quite a few shockers in both tennis and badminton events.  But before those results, here’s an update on the current medal standings. China is comfortably on top of the heap with 9 golds (Diving (2); Weightlifting (4); Judo (1); Shooting (2)) while Korea has 4 golds, and the USA rounds up the Top Three with 3 golds, 2 coming from the swimming competitions with Michael Phelps garnering 2 of the 3. Italy is tied with the USA with the same number of gold medals at 3, and Australia rounds up the Top 5 with 2 golds.

On the results of the 1st Round of Tennis on Day Three, most of the seeded players were able to move on with two upsets at hand.  On the men’s side, Great Britain’s Andy Murray bowed out of the event against Lu Yen-Hsun of Chinese Taipei.  The 6th seed came into the Olympics fresh from a victory in the Cincinnati Masters which should have given him a very good edge, but lost to the unseeded player from Taipei in straight sets 7-6 (5), 6-4.  The 5th seed David Ferrer of Spain was also taken out early by Serbia’s Janko Tipsarevic in straight sets 7-6 (8), 6-2.  Other results from the Men’s side saw 2nd seed Rafael Nadal of Spain struggling in 3 sets to beat Italy’s Potito Starace 6-2, 3-6, 6-2, while World number 1 Roger Federer of Switzerland cruised past his match against Dmitry Tursunov of Russia 6-4, 6-2.  The 3rd seed, Novak Djokovic of Serbia beat USA’s Robby Ginepri 6-4, 6-4, to round out the top seeds’ First Round matches for the men.

On the women’s side, two unseeded Chinese netters caused two upsets in the draw.  3rd seeded Svetlana Kuznetsova of Russia was defeated by Li Na of China 7-6 (5), 6-4, and then her compatriot Zheng Jie dispatched the 11th seed Agnes Szavay of Hungary in three sets 4-6, 6-3, 7-5.  That’s what home court advantage can do for you! Outside those two upsets, the Williams sisters were their most dominant selves again dispatching their opponents in straight sets without allowing more than 3 game points each.  The highest seed after Kuznetsova is Serena Williams who is the 4th seed.  Her sister Venus Williams is seeded 7th in the tournament.

On to the R32/R16 of Badminton, there were also some significant upsets.  I won’t focus much on the doubles matches until the final stages, but on the singles matches, there were quite a few early seeded exits.  The most glaring was the 9th seed and defending Olympic champion Taufik Hidayat of Indonesia bowing out to the 17th seeded Malaysian Wong Choong Hann 21-19, 21-16, in the Round of 32.  And in an upset I expected to happen, 6th seeded Kenneth Jonassen of Denmark lost to the 10th seed Lee Hyun-il of Korea 15-21, 21-14, 21-19.  That was a very bad draw for Jonassen, as Lee, in my opinion, is the darkhorse to win this event.  He will be up against the German Marc Zwiebler, in a match he should win, to set up an amazing Quarterfinals duel between him and perennial runnerup and 3rd seeded Bao Chunlai of China.  My personal favorite, Peter Gade of Denmark, seeded 8th in the tournament, is also on a Quarterfinals collision course with World’s number 1 Lin Dan of China barring any upsets, which should be the case and will be THE match to watch!

On the women’s side, Round of 16 upsets saw 15th seed Saina Nehwal of India beat the 6th seed Wang Chen of Hong Kong 21-19, 11-21, 21-11.  The 21st seed Maria Yulianti of Indonesia ousted the 4th seed Tine Rasmussen of Denmark to the tune of 18-21, 21-19, 21-14.  All the other top seeds breezed past their matches, but unfortunately for Pi Hongyan of France (another favorite of mine), she will be up against the 2nd seed Zhang Ning of China in the Quarters and that is going to be a very difficult match for her to win   So there will be very exciting matches to look out for in the Quarterfinals for both the Men’s and Women’s matches, and should be a exciting next few days to watch!

Highlights: DAY 4: Monday 08 11 08 (697MB)
Tennis Day Three: Round 1 Results Summary
Tennis Event: Complete Schedule and Match Stats
Badminton Event: Olympic Seedings List
Badminton Day Three: Round of 32/16 Results Summary
Badminton Event: Complete Schedule and Match Stats

With a ‘spectacular’ start to the Beijing Olympic Games three days ago, the games had officially begun around 20 main sport disciplines and numerous sub-events under them. If you were not able to watch the fireworks and opening ceremonies, you can click on the download links below. The main video is huge, HDTV quality 720p, and will be worth watching if you didn’t see the opening of the games. I will also post a video on the daily highlights for those who are interested to see the roundup of games.

As much as there are 20 sport disciplines on hand, I’m actually only interested in 3 of them. These are Men’s Basketball, and the later rounds of the Badminton and Tennis events. I will update the results of these games here, especially those of the USA “Redeem Team” who are expected to bring the Gold home with the dominance of the past and dismiss any speculation that European basketball is quickly creeping up on them.

So without further adieu, these are the results from yesterday’s games for Men’s Basketball. The most exciting game was between Lithuania and Argentina, with Linas Kleiza of Lithuania burying a three pointer with 2.1 seconds left on the clock to break a 75-all tie springing from a spirited comeback by the Argentinians who were down by 10 with around 2 minutes remaining.

MEN’S BASKETBALL DAY ONE RESULTS:

Group A
RUSSIA 71 – IRAN 49
LITHUANIA 79 – ARGENTINA 75
CROATIA 97 – AUSTRALIA 82

Group B
GERMANY 95 – ANGOLA 66
SPAIN 81 – GREECE 66
USA 101 – CHINA 70

In other games, as if it was written in a story-book-like start, Yao Ming buried a three pointer to start the game 3-0 against the “Redeem Team” and his team fought very valiantly in the 1st half of play. But that was all she wrote as Lebron and Co. destroyed China in the 3rd quarter en route to a 101-70 blowout of the host team. In other games, AK47′s Russia beat Iran handily 71-49, while the German tandem of Nowitzki and Kaman proved too much for Team Angola as they won to the tune of 95-66. Spain proved too solid for Team Greece by beating them 81-66, and Croatia defeated the Aussies 97-82.

Official Site: Olympic Games Beijing 2008
720p: Olympic Games Opening Ceremony 2008 720p (5.59GB)
HDTV: Olympic Games Opening Ceremony 2008 HDTV (1.97GB)
Highlights: DAY 2: Saturday 08 09 08 (698MB)
Highlights: DAY 3: Sunday 08 10 08 (698MB)

I don’t really post Gossip News but this one got me curious. I was listening to RX 93.1 this morning on the way to work and I heard that Mary-Kate Olsen is asking for immunity to shed more light on the untimely death of Heath Ledger to the Feds.  Now that’s pretty weird especially if she has nothing to do with his death, and it definitely isn’t something an innocent person would do, is it?  Since Heath Ledger’s death, Olsen has apparently checked into rehab due to the emotional distress brought about by Heath’s demise.

The story is that the masseuse who discovered Heath in his SoHo apartment apparently called Olsen first.  And instead of Olsen calling 911, she called her bodyguard to try and remedy the situation.  Sources say that Heath was still conscious when the masseuse found him and his life could have been saved if proper medical attention was given to him immediately.  The issue now is Olsen’s hand in this may be that she naughtily slipped Heath the bottle of OxyContin that potentially contributed to his prescription cocktail overdose.  And if this is the case, she should rightly feel very, very bad for herself.

And on separate news yesterday, Morgan Freeman, also of the same movie, has been hospitalized following a car crash near midnight yesterday and was in serious condition.  Emergency crews had to break out the jaws of life to remove Freeman from his car.  I didnt’ even notice, but apparently he’s already 71-years old.  He remained in serious condition after breaking his left arm, elbow, and hand, but is now recovering from surgery done today.  He is expected to make a full recovery from the accident.  Whew.

Not that I’m being a gloombug or anything, but it’s a peculiar coincidence that two people from the same movie have had really bad accidents that resulted in a serious condition or death.  Let’s see what happens on that Olsen case though, as Freeman is now in the clear.

Ahh, the eternal question… how to be truly happy.  Of course, there really isn’t one answer, but depending on your life situation, at least one of these six points might just hit the mark… and that should be enough, right?   This was inspired by an article I read in “Good Housekeeping” (yeah, yeah! hehe), and there were a few points there that were quite applicable and really helped me.  So I hope to be able to do the same thing for the readers here.

Sadly, I’m part of the darker, gloomier side of things, thus the title of the blog.  I guess the situation I’m in now won’t allow me to be happy… just yet.  But I am optimistic that very soon, everything will fall into place.  Here’s what I have in my Happiness Loot Bag: I have a great job that I love, but I’m annoyed at how I need to be hands-on with everything for something good to happen.  I’m my mom and dad’s favorite and they would do anything for me, except support me in the most important event in my life.  My fiancee is the love of my life, but we sometimes argue like crazy about the smallest, most irritating things.

My happiness inhibitor is that I easily get dragged down to that sad state when people who are closest to me are really down.  It indirectly affects my mood because no matter what I do about it, I can’t seem to alleviate the situation.  So even if I try to be happy when I open my eyes every morning, it just won’t work. I’m a pretty optimistic and realistic person, which is the best mix in my opinion.  You don’t sell yourself short but you don’t expect miracles to happen either.  So I think I still have hope in trying to achieve the happiness that I’m longing for.  And there really are strategies that can help you along the happy road to life, and here are six of them:

Read More…