while one part of the world’s television audience watched the 2006 Emmys, admired or critiqued red carpet fashions and argued or agreed with the awards, a brilliant opening night for tennis was witnessed by a capacity crowd in the newly renamed USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in New York. the largest public tennis court in the world, also home to the U.S. Open , is the first major sports facility named in honor of a woman athlete, and one who was a pioneer in the sport, womens and gay rights.

however, for me, and part of the other television audience who are his fans, the highlight of the evening was the match of the andres in the Arthur Ashe Stadium. andre agassi faced the younger andrei pavel, who had remembered winning against him years before.

known for his flamboyance on the court, he has never missed an Open for 21 years. he is also known for giving back to his own community, even more flamboyant las vegas. as his wife, wimbledon champ steffi graf, and family members looked on, agassi overcame long-term back pain and, nearly matched ace for ace and fighting through three tiebreakers, gave the
crowd an exciting ending to the first evening of his last US Open in the style of a true, legendary court champion.

Technorati Tags: US Open, agassi, billie jean king, emmys, gay rights, womens rights, steffi graf, arthur ashe

sometimes it takes me a while to get around to writing about a subject i intended to address, largely either because i get sidetracked by my day job, suffer a brain freeze moment or the cable goes down…as it has been several times since this time last week! i hate what progress is doing to our once quite, semi-rural neighborhood!

a few birthdays, historic milestones and other fun stuff:

this year

the World Wide Web - 06 Aug 1991

Gidget turns 60 - Kathy Kohner, the original inspiration for popular surfer girl from the 1960’s, is 66 this year, while Sally Field, the actress who played Gidget, turned 60

this month

25 Aug

• 1940 - 1st parachute wedding
• and 26, 1944 - Paris liberated - the US 4th Infantry and the French 2nd Armored
  divisions marched down the Champs d’Elysees after the Germans
  surrendered the city
• 1945 - Jewish immigrants are permitted to leave Mauritius for Palestine
• 1963 - Paul McCartney is fined œ31 & 1 yr suspended license for speeding

do you have some favorite milestones to note?

Technorati Tags: milestones, birthdays, history, WWW, web, paul mcCartney

is nothing safe from downsizing? apparently not, as scientists have decided that pluto isn’t really a planet after all. this follows the recent discovery of additional heavenly bodies in our solar system. so, pluto is ‘dead,’ leaving us with only 8 of the 9 original planetary lineup we learned about as kids. read the story

i don’t care; i really loved astronomy and gazing at the stars from the college observatory, and i’m still going to watch the night skies with awe.

Technorati Tags: Pluto, downsizing, solar system

my college economics courses were enough to put anyone to sleep, to say nothing of the monotonous droning of our very esteemed and much sought after professor, focusing back in those predictable days upon supply and demand. my, how times have changed, especially since the first gulf war. today’s offering is my short collection of reality checks:

Freakonomics takes a controversial, realistic look at today’s economy, the authors choosing to weigh the effects of Roe v. Wade upon lower crime rates, or how reading to your children makes them better learners.

a year ago, the gulf coast suffered the worst hurricane disaster in a century and spike lee takes us inside the devastation of new orleans with his 4-part HBO documentary, “When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts.”

president bush iterates that iraq had nothing to do with 9/11/01. that’s actually correct; the events of 9/11 had everything to do with waging war on the very real threat of terrorism against this country and anyone who happens to want to live here. frankly, i think the second gulf war has been a matter of previously unfinished business and putting the sadistic madman, saddam hussein, out of business. can you spell ‘oil?’

it will cost you more in time and expense to travel, at least for the immediate term, while airport security in the u.s. and u.k. is increased. have you ever wondered why it takes a number of deaths or being within a hair’s breath of disaster before officials take preventive action? it’s like taking the attitude of waiting until your teeth fall out to floss them.

Technorati Tags: economics, freakonomics, bush, iraq, war, hurricane katrina, spike lee, 9-11, travel, airport security

as we defined the web by how we share information, so has the web defined how we share that information through the efforts of, as my colleague refers to them, ‘magic web fairies’ working in the background to provide the delivery methods named by jumbles of consonants and mysterious monikers.

web2 - veni, vidi, vici: but, has it become so 2005 that we’re ready for the next transmutation? maybe, maybe not. at some astronomical rate, we’re still in the discovery phase of social media. at the same time, there are those among us geek freaks who are freaking us out at how freakin’ fast they’re pushing toward web3.

meanwhile, here’s another one of my random collections of hot topics on the web: social media, mostly, but not entirely, by non-freakin-geeks:

apophenia
:: making connections where none previously existed

the nextnet25: the vanguards of a new web revolution

social bookmarking tool comparison: the landscape of tools (for non-profits)

7 things you should know about…Social Bookmarking (html version)

a list apart: web 3.0 (where web2 is so 2005)

and on the right: ma.gnolia: building and sharing my social bookmarks

Technorati Tags: social media, social web, web2.0, web3.0, social bookmarking