Oh its the middle of summer time alright.

Hello, we all live on this planet. Have you seen what has been going on the past few days? When you soak it all in, it kinda turns that switch on in your brain saying, WTF? First I have been watching all the news coverage of the Israel vs Lebanon fighting that has been going on. Now this is really nothing new, the middle east has been a powder keg for the past century and beyond. Though it is just sad to see all these innocent people being caught in the crossfire of the conflict going on. What did these people ever do in both countries to deserve to get bombs drop on their neighborhoods? Just day after day of each side getting pounded by all sorts of artillery. I mean when will it stop? How many dead people will it take? I think after day 2 something could have been done to stop the constant bombing. Its just no one wants to touch it for fear that the middle east is on code yellow which stands for, "Things might start going south."
What else? Lets try our great country of Iraq. Oh its just a paradise over there. A UN human rights group published a report. Summary of it? Oh since the US invaded Iraq that the total now of dead Iraqi citizens is now around the amount of 50,000 people. 50k. Get 50k in pennies together (one for each dead person) and put that in a big jar. Think thats enough? All for what? Diplomatic policy? WMD? Stop the War on Terror? Good job Dubya. When I see people driving with their 2004 Dubya bumper stickers still on their vehicle I already know this person is obviously missing a few pieces of common sense. OMG, and I live in a Red state?

Bill O'reilly another loveable carebear had a poll on his show. You should know I do try to watch his show for about 60 sec just to see what the grass is like on the other side of the field. Obviously somebody is watching it since Bill always proclaims about his great raitings. His poll question today was this. "Do Americans understand the reason why we are fighting the war on terror? (Answer Yes/No) Wow. Brillant. You have possibly created the worst poll for the year. The real terror is having you Mr. O'reilly to remain on the air. I try to flip the remote over to see how long I can sit there and listen to him talk without doing one of two things: 1. Smashing my tv. 2. Not having my head explode.

So lets go down a check list of the recent events that have happened in the past few weeks.

• Israel/Lebanon conflict
• Dubya uses first EVER (5.5 years in office) veto to kill certain stem cell research. Hey if you are diagnosed with some serious illness, guess you just have to get a few more of the same pills, instead of science working to possibly find a cure. I think it was a senator from Iowa who had the best quote of this. "If Bush's HS science teacher is watching this, he has to be shaking his head." Priceless.
  
• Congress has no clue on how the internet works with the Net Nutrality act and with them also trying to pass the Anti Gambling law making banks deny any EFTs to gambling sites. Thank you freedom. Funny I remember reading in the constitution how Americans gambling was unethical. Its somewhere down on the bottom.
  
• Iraq keeps getting worse.
  
• A Federal judge has to rule on a lawsuit by people living in the Gulf Coast on how the insurance company would not cover people's home damages because the water flooding was seawater instead of from rainfall. That decision could impact thousands of people trying to rebuild their homes and lives that were all destroyed when the two Hurricanes from 2005 hit.
  
• Barry Bonds is still defending himself and his federal indicment was postponed. All I can say is the hit TV show Bonds on Bonds got ended wayyyyyyyyyy to early.
  
• Lastly, hottest year so far on record. At least 25 U.S. States recorded their highest temperature readings ever. As much as we laugh at it global warming is really starting to become a poor reality. I watched 60 min a while back and they were interviewing a scientist showing how the Greenland ice mass is melting at an incredible rate. This was the quote that stuck with me the most. "If we stopped all the refineries, every single car and anything that adds to greenhouse gas, the effects would still be felt for decades onward." Uhhhh, yikes. The western states along with Texas are in severe drought (plenty of wildfires), power grids nationwide can not keep up with the power demand for this hot summer, and the earth's climate is having noticeable effects from this. If you have not gone outside and given some type of verbal appreciation directly to your home air conditioner, you obviously are overlooking one of man's greatest ever inventions.
  

Have I done enough ranting? Obviously you could say I have a odd outlook on our society as a whole. I know, turn off your TV and just stop listening. The problem is I might be in my quiet safe Texas city, but when you look at it a lot of people in this nation and around the world are suffering. I might not ever come across it, but I constantly realize there are people out there that just simply need help. That is the reason why I just had to type all this out.


Well I might as well end of a positive note. I finally got to go see Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. Now this film has made huge bank at the box office, and I really thought the first film was exceptionally done. Well after watching this 2h 30min flick I have to say, it was one summer movie that actually delivered. Now lets be key here. Its not the best movie ever. Its not even the best scene I saw this year. Writing/plot was good, enjoyed how all the original characters were back in the movie, excellent action sequences, and just a well produced movie. Its nothing amazing, but overall I thought the film delivered well. Oh yeah, Keira Knightley, if you are reading this, you certainly get a 10.

Hurricane Highway

So we are certainly in the middle of summer. Temperature is always in the 90's, my electric bill hit a staggering $370+ for July (up nearly 1000 KWH from last month, total: 2930 KWH) and sports sucks right now because the only thing really on is Baseball. Well our minds are not even centered about any possible hurricanes in the near future. So far only a minor tropical storm hit the panhandle of Florida. That made the evening news for a day. I already know a big storm will hit again this year. Luckily Texas being in the corner of the gulf will be hard to reach, but that doesn't mean it will not happen. How can anyone not think Global Warming is the real deal? Just because the hottest years recorded ever were in the last 30 years and the ocean temperature keeps jumping a degree and we drive more cars than ever in the history of the planet. But that's not what is important. Immigration reform, thats the hot topic. All I can say come september, right when the NFL season will finally be back, when you see that hurricane get bigger and bigger and go "Hey that thing is as big as our state, maybe I should leave my coastal home and head to where its safe." If you have to debate about that in your head for more than 5 min, all I can say you just might be in trouble.

WSOP circuit event dates have been released

The new World Series of Poker dates haev been released. I hope to at least play in a few events at one of these locations.

The schedule for the WSOP Circuit follows:

• Sept. 7-17, 2006, Harrah’s Tahoe
• Sept. 25-Oct. 4, 2006, Grand Tunica
• Oct. 19-Nov. 2, 2006, Caesars Indiana
• Dec. 9-19, 2006, Harrah’s Atlantic City
• Jan. 8-17, 2007, Grand Tunica
• Jan. 29-Feb. 7, 2007, Horseshoe Council Bluffs
• Feb. 11-21, 2007, Harrah’s Rincon
• Mar. 5-14, 2007, Caesars Atlantic City
• Mar. 26-Apr. 4, 2007, Caesars Indiana
• Apr. 23-May 2, 2007, Caesars Las Vegas
• May 14-23, 2007, Harrah’s New Orleans

World Cup 2006: Italy vs France

So I wake up on Sunday to watch the World Cup final match. I woke up late so naturally I miss both early goals. Great. I still get to see the goals replayed over and over so I don't mind. Even though no more goals were scored after I started watching this was a great final match. Italy's goalie played prob the best game ever. Some of the saves he had were unreal, including the header by Zidane in the 1st OT. Speaking of Zidane... that was one serious head butt. Obviously the Italian player said something that lit a powder keg in Zidane. He just flipped and nailed that guy. I mean look at that, just comes out of nowhere and nails him right in the chest. If you notice, the World Cup trophy sits right on the sidelines as the game as played. When Zidane walked to the tunnel exit he never turned his head to look at the trophy. I mean he is an all star soccer player that will go down in the books, but that single act will always stick with his name from now on. They said over 1 billion people in the world watched the 2002 championship game (basically 1 out of 6 people on the planet). I would assume the raitings for 2006 would be higher and if so, Zidane's act was witness by a staggering amount of people. The big story is still Italy winning it all. I bet people were dancing in the streets all across the country.

"Twenty Twen Twin"

Here is a useless fact. It is very useless but here goes. Recently in June 2006 the D.C. area was slammed with days upon days of heavy rainfall and lots of flooding. Reports were 7in of rainfall within a 24 hour period. Well a century old elm tree fell over on the white house lawn and had to be turned into firewood or maybe a nice chair. Anyways, the right tree you see on the $20 bill is the one that fell. Think they will redesign the bill? Doubt it.

Poor draft by the Houston Rockets

This is Rudy Gay. He was the 8th pick in the NBA draft by the Houston Rockets, a 6'9" 220lb Forward from UConn. This kid was sick all year long and people said the Houston Rockets got one of the best kids in the draft. That was until they decided to pull the trade switch and send him with Stromile Swift to Memphis for the Dukie Shane Battier. SOB! Are you kidding me? What is wrong with the front office. From the years we spent in the 90's as one of the top teams of the NBA league, we are now a freaking joke. We have two amazing allstars yet no supporting cast at all. Our team needs an overhaul and we are trading for players we don't need. I know this will go down as a bad deal.