Oning

Brazilian Adriano de Souza (above) is all smiles because he moves on to round 4 against Fred Patacchia.

Crap! Andy Irons makes an early exit and loses in round 3 to fellow Hawaiian Fred Patacchia. I was hoping for Andy to make it out of the quarter finals this time because he finished equal 5th in the first 3 events. Andy is the only upset so far. Big guns like Kelly, Parko, Taj, Mick, Damien, Bobby & CJ have all advanced to round 4. Heat no. 4 will be a good one to watch. Its between 8x World Champ Kelly Slater and defending event champion Damien Hobgood. Here are the rest of the upcoming match ups.. Watch it LIVE! on the web. Round 3 results here.

Globe Pro Fiji 2008 - ASP Systems
Men / Round 4 - Last Update : 27/May/2008
2ND:9Th place, 600Pts, US6,300

Heat # 1
Round 4
singlet name from
White Bede Durbidge AUS
Black Luke Stedman AUS

Heat # 2
Round 4
singlet name from
White Tim Reyes USA
Black Taj Burrow AUS

Heat # 3
Round 4
singlet name from
White Bobby Martinez USA
Black Adrian Buchan AUS

Heat # 4
Round 4
singlet name from
White Damien Hobgood USA
Black Kelly Slater USA

Heat # 5
Round 4
singlet name from
White Mick Fanning AUS
Black Dayyan Neve AUS

Heat # 6
Round 4
singlet name from
White Chris Ward USA
Black CJ Hobgood USA

Heat # 7
Round 4
singlet name from
White Joel Parkinson AUS
Black Pancho Sullivan HAW

Heat # 8
Round 4
singlet name from
White Fredrick Patacchia HAW
Black Adriano de Souza BRA

The Lakers are now clearly in the driver seat when they beat the defending champs San Antonio Spurs last night in their home court. The Spurs were down by as much as 14 points early in the game but managed to tie it up by the second quarter. The Spurs were down by six at half time. After that, the game was a sea saw. Momentum swinging back and forth -- but not the score lead because the Spurs never led this game. The closest they got was wen they tied at about midway the second quarter. Tim Duncan leads all scorers with 29 points and a game high 17 rebounds but was not enough to beat the Lakers who won 93-91. I think its going to be really tough for the Spurs to come back and win this series because they have to win their remaining 3 games which also means they have to win twice in L.A. and I don't see that happening. The best the Spurs can do is probably win game 5 in L.A. then win game 6 at home but lose game 7 back in L.A. With that being said, who knows!! As they say, "Never count out the heart of a champion".

In this Eastern Conference finals against the Detroit Pistons, the Celtics had a couple of firsts. They lost a home game for the first time in this 2008 NBA Playoffs, which analysts would say the Celtics are now in trouble because they have not won a road game in the playoffs. The Celtics managed to get through the first and second round by winning all home games but losing all road games. They lost all three road games against the feisty Atlanta Hawks and also lost all three road games against King James and the Cavs. If the Celtics can't win on the road, they are in big trouble against the Pistons because they are a hell of a lot better team than those Hawks and a better team than the Cavs. But no, the Celtics got their first road win in The Palace to take a 2-1 series lead. Chauncey Billups is just playing through his nagging hamstring injury he suffered against the Hornets which means Celtics have a better chance of winning this series due to the fact that Chauncey is what makes the Pistons go. Game 4 will be crucial for the Pistons to win if they want to win this series because if the Celtics take a 3-1 series lead, its going to be a deep hole to climb out of for the Pistons.

ANDY IRONS getting barreled in Restaurants in FIJI..

First of all, Globe and Wetsand.com did us no favors by being ill-prepared for their LIVE web cast. There was no Live feed almost all event long. People were complaining and getting pissed, that included me of course. The predicted surf forecast was perfect six feet conditions. It was going to be pumping. That just made the whole thing upsetting. Perfect conditions, perfect spot, best surfers on the water..but "BS" web cast...you get the idea. Globe and Wetsand.com Sucks!!

Now adding insult to injury, My fantasy surf team didn't do so well in round 1. Only my man Andy Irons went through to round 3. Others on my team were relegated to round 2 where the loser of a heat will be eliminated. I hope Bobby, Adrian, Kai, CJ, Damien, Timmy and Ben B. will win their heats in round 2 or else I will drop down the ratings after this event. To view results click here.

A wet start for the Monaco Grand Prix but that's not to say it was boring because of slower lap times, instead, it was an eventful race. A lot of strategy being played during the race. Which tires to use? "wet" tires? "intermediate" tires? "dry" tires? During those weather transitions, tires were the main concern. When the rain let up, and as the race track started to dry, It was Fernando Alonso who the first to change from "wet" tires to "dry" tires even though the track was still a bit damp. He then started to set fastest lap times of the race. His Renault teammate Nelson Piquet followed and changed to dry tires but he had different results. He crashed his car. Probably inexperienced. But Kimi Raikkonen, the defending world champ, who is more experienced than Nelson Piquet, was also involved in an incident where he lost control of his car and ran into the back of Force India-Ferrari's Adrian Sutil who was running the best race of his life so far. Sutil was running in 4th and Kimi was in 5th. Maybe it was the conditions afterall because it wasn't just Sutil and Raikkonen who had incidents in the race, it was almost everbody. Unfortunately, that incident put Sutil's best race to an end. Kimi however, continued and finished in 9th. But congrats to Lewis and McClaren Mercedes! Congrats Robert Kubica for finishing 2nd....again...Hope you will start to win races soon!!! enough of this second place finish crap!

Kasey Kahne is the first ever driver to win the All Star Race who was voted in by the fans. At the beginning of the first segment, the now most hated driver in NASCAR, Kyle Busch was running away from the field. He had a strong car and no one even came come to challenging him for the lead. But the second segment for him was a different story. To the delight of the fans at LOWE'S Motor Speedway and I'm sure that also means fans watching on TV, including me, were happy to see that Kyle's car had engine problems and at the end of the second segment, had to take his car to the garage because his day was over! Carl Edwards was great in that second segment taking over Kyle's misfortune. On the third segment, Dale Jr was the car to beat. But when the race went to the fourth segment and counting down the final laps, it was Kasey Kahne who had the strong car. He started from dead last and worked his way up to win it. And by the way his prize money? a cool 1 million...I guess he owes this win to the fans for voting him in in the first place. Results here.

For the first time since 1998, the world tour had two wild cards in the finals. Manoa Drollet, a local surfer from Tahiti and Bruno Santos from Brazil. As I have said in my previous entry, Bruno took out defending world champion Mick Fanning in round 3. But the on fire Brazilian upsetting the big guns did not stop there. In round 3 he faced another top seeded surfer in Taj Burrow and you guessed it, he sent him packing too.

Manoa, the other wild card, did the top seeds no favor either. He ended 8x world champion Kelly Slater's hope of winning all 3 events this year. He took down Kelly and is out in the 3rd round just like Fanning. He then ousted the in-form Adrian Buchan and got rid of the "lucky" Joel Parkinson in the Semi Finals.

This event wasn't short of controversy too. Kelly Slater was handed an interference after he tried to pull off, what some would say one of Kelly's "tricks". Usually the other surfers get bitten on the ass by Kelly's tricks and mind games but this time his "tricks" bit his own ass. It backfired and blew up in his face. Another was Joel Parkinson. He was getting smoked in his heat against Tiago Pires but "lucky" for him, the rookie didn't see or know that the wave priority had changed and was handed an interference because he went on a wave that he thought belonged to him and thought that Parko was supposed to back off, wrong!

Bruno Santos won the event over Manoa Drollet in a not so great finals due to declining swells. It was still a good event. Lots of drama. Lots of great surfing. And did I mention that I moved up in the fantasy surfing standings? Prior to this event I was ranked 315 out of 17624. Now I'm tied for 6Th in the "Men's" standings not the overall.

Up next, the Globe Pro in FIJI with the waiting period starting on 05/23/2008 and ends on 06/06/2008. For those who missed the event and want to see the heats, see the scores or see the highlights, you can get it here.

Mick Fanning, the defending world champ finds himself surfing on round 2 after losing his round 1 heat. Now he faces Brazilian Bruno Santos in round 2. In a low scoring heat, nobody really had their rhythm probably due to lack of good waves rolling through. All heat long, the only highest score didn't go higher than 6. Minutes left, Bruno Santos only needed a 3.43 to take over the lead. He got on a few waves during those crucial minutes but never got the score he needed. All of a sudden here comes a pretty good looking wave and Mick was on it, he was in and deep in the barrel and I thought to myself "It's over", but Mick couldn't finish the wave and get out of the barrel. So the situation stayed the same, But now time is running out for Bruno to win the heat. With only a few SECONDS left, Bruno gets a wave. Not the wave that would surely win the heat but tries to make it work. And he did!! That last second wave gets him a 4.17 and takes out Mick Fanning! Huge UPSET!!! For those who missed the opening day, you obviously missed a lot. Check out the results and upcoming heats.

Here are some upcoming round 2 match ups:

Heat # 6
Round 2
Dane Reynolds USA VS Travis Logie ZAF
Heat # 7
Round 2
Neco Padaratz BRA VS Royden Bryson ZAF
Heat # 8
Round 2
CJ Hobgood USA VS Ricky Basnett ZAF
Heat # 9
Round 2
Tom Whitaker AUS VS Daniel Ross AUS
Heat #10
Round 2
Ben Dunn AUS VS Mikael Picon FRA
Heat #11
Round 2
Tim Reyes USA VS Jihad Khodr BRA
Heat #12
Round 2
Roy Powers HAW VS Ben Bourgeois USA
Heat #13
Round 2
Leonardo Neves BRA VS Bruce Irons HAW
Heat #14
Round 2
Luke Munro AUS VS Fredrick Patacchia HAW
Heat #15
Round 2
Jordy Smith ZAF VS Rodrigo Dornelles BRA
Heat #16
Round 2
Jay Thompson AUS VS Kieren Perrow AUS

Felipe Massa wins his third straight Turkish Grand Prix from the pole. His 7Th career win, 6 of which came from starting on the pole. He is now tied for second along side Lewis Hamilton in the drivers standings. Lewis Hamilton with the 3 pit stop strategy finishes in 2ND while reigning and defending Formula 1 world champ Kimi Raikkonen finishes in 3rd. Raikkonen now leads the drivers standing by 7 points. Massa had almost a smooth and flawless race. Hamilton passed Massa in the middle part of the race but when all the pit stops were done and the dust settled during the later part of the race, Hamilton could not pass Massa to win the race. In two weeks they will be on the streets of Monaco. Who will win? we'll obviously wait and see....

Tomorrow May 8, is the start of a 11 day waiting period for the Billabong Pro Tahiti. Stop no. 3 on the ASP World Tour on this scary and heavy wave. According to contest director and a former ASP surfer Luke Egan, the action could start right away at 8 AM Tahiti time. Definitely watch on the LIVE WEB CAST at BillabongPro.com or go to the ASP World Tour website and access the web cast from there.

3x ASP World Champion Andy Irons, one of my favorite surfers off all time is ready for this left hand reef break, which can produce very sick barrels or sick pits when the swell is huge. After losing to 8x World Champion Kelly Slater in the first two events, knowing the kind of surfer Andy is, he would probably use that as a great motivation for the rest of the season. Aside from the usual suspects at Teahupo'o, one of the early favorites is defending event champion Damien Hobgood, who defeated reigning world champion Mick Fanning in the finals last year. Definately don't count the wildcards out. I can't wait for this thing to get started!! See you guys on the webcast..!

For those who watched the movie Iron Man, did you stay after the credits?? For those who did, you know what I'm talking about. Those who stayed got the whole story. You see, when the credits roll and audiences started filing out, those who stayed were treated to a surprise. Well, for those who left early here it is..

After the credits, Colonel Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) asks Iron Man if he thinks he's the only super hero. Nick Fury then says he needs to talk to Iron Man about "the Avenger Initiative." hhmmmmmmmmm..right?? Iron Man 2, to me is obviously in the making, hopefully we won't have to wait long. Hopefully it will be better than the this one. Maybe more characters??

Could the Atlanta Hawks do the unthinkable..?? The Hawks, who had the worst record (37-45) that made the playoffs just won game 6 against the team that had the best record in the NBA this season, the Boston Celtics(66-16). No one else thought that would happen. Everybody thought the Celtics would walk over, thump and sweep the Hawks. Everybody was dead wrong, including me. I thought the best these Hawks can do was maybe win 1 game but I'm not even close because they won 3. They might win 4 games this series which would mean eliminating the Celtics from the playoffs! Yikes!!!! Anything can happen. Remember the once undefeated New England Patriots??