August 30, 2005 : 4:00 p.m.

Sorry for the long time away. Had to move into my new apartment in preparation for my last year of graduate school. Hurricane Katrina hit Southeast Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama regions of the gulf coast yesterday. It could possibly be the most costly natural disaster in U.S. history with hundreds dead and thousands homeless. The clean-up could take months to occur with many refugees of the region in other parts of the country. Many people of this country and other countries care about those who live in poverty in Africa and those displaced and killed by the deadly Tsunami on the other side of the planet. Concerts were held, countries chipped in billions of dollars and egomaniac celebrities pushed for solutions in these parts of the world. It has only been little over a day since the tragedy that hit the gulf coast, but I wonder where these people who care much more about other parts of the world than about the rich and powerful United States will be in the upcoming months. Will they care? Will the celebrities of this country care? Obviously, they may not at all. The ratings for the MTV VMA's were higher than the hurricane coverage and MTV decided to go ahead with the VMA's. Should they have put it off a week and then raised money for the victims of this hurricane? Probably. People need to step up in our country and help those in poverty and take care of our own problems, putting them on equal grounds of occurrences in other countries. We need help down there and until I see any of these very compassionate celebrities and other countries chip in, then I say shame on you. However, it is still too early to tell who will help.

Rafael Nadel, the 2005 French Open tennis champion, is the next Thomas Muster. Nadel, who is a young punk and wears capri pants with sleeveless shirts to play the game, which is not proper attire imo, will never be a good player on hard or grass courts. He does very well on clay because he is a pound-it-out, defensive, hit as many shots as I can tennis player. Those that have not succeeded on clay, e.g. Pete Sampras, were offensive minded individuals, who put the point away in a couple of strokes, unlike Nadel. Nadel is afraid to play on anything but clay for this very reason, as he played his first hard court match today since the early spring and before the French and Wimbledon. At Wimbledon, his vunerability was shown, as mentioned above, when he was beaten in the early rounds at the All-England Club. Nadel is overrated and like Thomas Muster, will play all clay tournaments to stay at the top. Muster, in the early and middle 90's, was highly criticized for doing this sort of thing. He was much older than Nadel, and I guess Nadel will be criticized and not praised when supposed "tennis experts" see Nadel is not the real deal, as proclaimed during the French. On that note, Andy Roddick is not the next savior for the U.S. men. He is a Jean Michael Gambill. However, Roddick has succeeded a little more but has crashed like Michael Chang, who didn't want to change his racquet to fit the times. Roddick is the Mark Philippoussis of our generation, although that could be argued since Philippoussis was a serve and volleyer and not a baseliner like Roddick. However, Roddick does the same thing: hit the ball as hard as I can with no real game plan and hope that the other player will not get to it or get a mishit. This is shown in the matches he loses, as his serving percentage is very low and the other player gets back his 86-90 mph grand strokes. Please, Roddick, stop acting like you are the best. We know who the best is and he has owned you since his arrival on the tour: Roger Federer. This man will be one of the, if not the best to ever play the game. That is if he stays healthy. He can win the French unlike Sampras because he grew up on the surface and has a more complete game. I praise you Federer for being the only tennis player who is unbeatable and turning the men's game into the women's game of old.

August 6 , 2005 : 11:28 a.m.

Recently, I saw that Rita Cosby moved from FoxNews to MSNBC. I did not realize she has a large cult following. In last week's Parade magazine provided in my local newspaper, a woman was all excited about the move and wanted to know the scoop on Cosby. Personally, Cosby is not great. She looks like my Aunt Cathy, who no one in the family likes. Cosby also talks like a man. Don't get me wrong, after about 3 pitchers of beer and she would look pretty good (so would a fat, hairy man, but I'm not a homosexual). Cosby's cult following is like many other things in our society that no one, except those in the cult, understands. For example, another following is that of the Pez dispensers. Who the hell is so infactuated with a little plastic piece of shit that dispenses horrible little candies. The candies are bad people. They have barely any taste, which is bitter, and are hard enough to break a tooth and tiny (sounds like a child molester's penis). However, people love Pez. They find the little head that barely looks like their favorite tweety bird or david letterman to be amusing and cute. People will pay top dollar for them and eat the candy, which can be decades old. More power to them and more power to those in love with Cosby.

Check out my pal, Pedro's, new blog: Link. All blog links will be posted to the left, so if you want your's up, just email me at the address provided below. Pedro and I go back several years. We met six years ago in our first year at Tulane. The guy is going to grad school now. You can see all of his stats on his blog site if you are looking for a quickie in the D.C. area or a good time. I'm full of stories, which would get me in trouble, and one involves Pedro. I took the LSAT with my pal Higgs in Hammond, Louisiana, and we were going to Monroe that night to watch Tulane play Louisiana-Monroe in football. Higgs and I drove up to northern Louisiana to meet Pedro and other Tulane kids, including my then-current partner in crime, the Birdman. We went to the game, and Pedro and I chill a bit in the press box having good eats. After that we went to my ex-girlfriend, Ann Tan's, house to join other Tulane pals. Pedro, Birdman, Higgs, Brooke (girl from high school we brought along and that Higgs was trying bang all night long) and I headed to the grocery. Birdman and I bought some expensive So-Co for the party. We got to Ann's house and Birdman and I drank all of the stuff hot. We were plastered. We then were led to this white trash bar, where the Birdman bought me shots of Grey Goose and my fav: Rum and Coke. At that point, I didn't know what was going on. Brooke was trying to show me how to dance: bump and grind, while I was grinding on Ann and all of her friends in such a drunken stooper that I was knocking them over. Well, the bar was closing around 2 a.m. I went outside with someone, can't remember, vomiting as I sat. Some people came out to tell me that my partner-in-crime had left the building and was no where to be found. The cops then told me if I wasn't removed from the premises, I would be arrested. I saw some kids from high school and I'm sure they were pleasantly surprised to see me vomiting all over myself. Pedro and Brooke got me into the car, after searching and not finding the Birdman. We went cruising back to the hotel. Unfortunately, we got lost, I think, and Pedro was screaming for me to vomit outside the Saab, not inside. We got back to the hotel room, where Brooke held my head up telling me ..."Baby, you need to drink water. Baby,please." Oh yeahhhhh. In the meantime, Higgs prolly had a woodie and was drooling on himself. We all went to bed. I had the bed to myself of course. In the middle of the night (you have to remember all of this story is second-hand. I was out like a light), the Birdman calls Pedro to say he needed a ride. Pedro, pissed because he was sleeping in the same bed as Higgs and Brooke, who were making out, left to get the Birdman. After the Pedro leaves, the Birdman walks in, passing out in Pedro's spot, leaving Pedro to sleep on the floor. Poor Pedro, he was the only one sober. Pedro gets back and was upset because he couldn't find the Birdman, but saw him there. Next morning, I was vomiting neon green nonsense, and the Birdman was sleeping in the bed with me. He had a huge swollen eye. Come to find out the Birdman walked away and passed out in a bed of fire ants in some large field. He walked to a gas station in the hood to call Pedro and then ended up paying an old black guy in the early morning hours to bring him to the hotel, after he called Peter. Anyway, the next morning we headed out. Higgs, Brooke and I went to my hometown, where Higgs and I, with a massive hangover hunted for a bit in the hot weather. That was a miserable trip there, with me vomiting and eating McDonald's chicken nuggets. Pedro and the Birdman left in a seperate vehicle. We got back late that Sunday with 48 hours of excitement. There is a lot more not told or forgotten, but it is about the same material or I would get in trouble for what else occurred.