WHEN YOU really think about it, the only victory we achieved in these elections was in automating our vote. It was in conquering our fears of massive fraud, technical malfunctions and electronic manipulations on the way to ensuring a swift-counting and relatively cheat-free polls.
Beyond that, the battle has just started.
In a couple of days, you are about to pick this country’s next leader. You are going to vote for your next president.
Now here’s what concerns me. Your president could end up being mine, too. So yeah, I give a damn. And this is where my little pitch comes in. This is where I try to egg you ever so gently but as persuasively as I can: Vote wisely.
You may have an open mind up until this point. Or, you may have your slate already filled but are having second thoughts. Or, you may have your choices made but are still willing to listen to an earnest plea.
As long as you’re not marching to polling centers wearing all orange and singing wowowee or carrying a picture of James Yap with you, spare a minute to hear me out.
Consider the person who has shown he can lead this country out of its doldrums.
Consider Richard Gordon.
BOXING is fast turning into a party that’s serving up appetizers in bunches.
Manny Pacquiao going up against Joshua Clottey was a farce. It was those little half-toasted sandwich squares topped with tuna dressing. Floyd Mayweather Jr pummeling Shane Mosley? Same sandwich squares, with a little grilled cheese thrown in. And don’t even go into Mayweather-Juan Manuel Marquez. Bit-sized hotdogs skewered by toothpicks.
Heck, Pacquiao-Cotto had its appeal, but only because it cemented the Filipino icon’s place in history books. After all the hoopla, it was just quiches.
Top Rank and Golden Boy Promotions better get the real party started by whipping out the main course. And in boxing, unless, as one now-forgotten boxing writer put it, the Klitschko brothers decide to finally mix it up in the ring, there’s only one relevant fight left in the horizon.
ANYBODY who isn’t getting excited about this year’s PBA All-Stars in Palawan isn’t a basketball fan.
It’s not so much the All-Star game, which really isn’t much of a break from the ennui of elimination round matches. I mean, it’s basically like someone dreamed up a quadrupleheader crammed into a single playdate that would spare us from having to watch Barako Coffee play.
FREDDIE Roach thinks the fight of the century can still happen.
And the renowned trainer has a valid reason to back his firm belief, as he says in an interview with an ESPN reporter.
The thing is, Mayweather is a good fighter and I just believe he came up with these [testing demands] because he wasn’t ready for Pacquiao yet. He only had one fight in two years and I think he needed more time — Freddie Roach
Believe, boxing fans. Believe.
Both fighters have $40-million reasons to make sure that this fight happens.
This is where Tiger Woods allegedly asks for a threesome as casually as asking a three wood from hos caddie.
I know moralists will probably chew me up for this. But whatever scandal the guy’s involved in right now, it still desn’t change the fact that he’s the best damn golfer in the whole world.
Same reason why I don’t care much about the affairs and the gambling that Manny Pacquiao’s supposedly involved in. He’s still the best boxer in the planet right now.
Anyway, here’s the copyof Tiger’s supposedly steamy sex text messages to a porn star.
(Except for Floyd photo and KFC/Floyd artwork, all images in this ports are the property of the blog owner)
I MUST have put in a lot of work into the previous post because as soon as I hit the sack, which was a quick shower after signing off WordPress, my id or neocortex or whatever part of the brain is responsible for pot-sleep neural processes started kicking my subconscious into hyperdrive.
And all of a sudden, I was Floyd Mayweather Jr., standing on a podium and saying sorry to the boxing fans of the world and no longer blaming Manny Pacquiao for the collapse of this year’s megafight.
But I don't look like that. I look a hell lot worse.
This isn’t a word-for-word recollection because you have to understand that when you wake up, you only recall a few snatches of your dream. But this is how it went:
(All images in this blog post culled from various boxing sites)
IMPT. UPDATE: Manny Pacquiao weighed in at 145 3/4 while Joshua Clottey came it at an even 147
THIS is actually the unabridged version of amy supplement article that’s coming out on the day that Manny Pacquiao and Joshua Clottey collide in Arlington, Texas, for the WBO welterweight crown.
Pacquiao will be defending the title he won from Miguel Cotto last year at the spanking $1.2-billion Cowboys Stadium.
Two things about the American football arena:
1. It is located in Arlington, not Dallas. It is the home of the Dallas Cowboys in the NFL, so that’s probably where the confusion stems from.
2. The domed stadium, which features a retractable roof is not–and I hope the local television crews finally get this one right–a 45,000-seater venue. The stadium seats at least 80,000 people (the NBA set a basketball attendance world record with 108,713 fans watching this year’s All-Star match) but was reconfigured for The Event to seat just 45,000.
Tickets have been snapped up like crazy and it looks like Pacquiao will be fighting before a record-of-sorts crowd, most of whom will be betting on the number of rounds Clottey can last.
He’s that much of an underdog. And Pacquiao’s a -800 favorite among bookies. To be less-than-technical about it, that’s the casinos’ way of telling you that you’re better off putting your money on Tiger Woods being cheered on by a group of feminists if he returns, as reported, to action in this year’s Masters than wagering on Joshua Clottey.
The way bookies have made it out, they’re practically telling Clottey to give up. Now.
But quitting the fight isn’t exactly something you’d like to serve to fans who were jilted by the promise of a Mayweather-Pacquiao. So if you were trainer Lenny DeJesus, how do you know if your man is doing okay against the most frenetic, relentless and highly-charged boxing machine of this generation, and perhaps of all time?
And how do you know if it’s time to pull the plug?
OF COURSE it has a lot to do with balls. This is, after all, sports.
And what would sports be without balls?
Don’t let the calm between the Philippine Sports Commission and the Philippine Olympic Committee right now fool you. There is no agreed truce between both camps. There is no temporary, makeshift bridge that spans the gulf between both sports agencies.
What they’re doing right now is simply waiting for that big date that will help tip the scales to their favor: May 10, 2010.
Yup, this isn’t just the at-the-crossroads presidential elections. It’s also the elections that could decide the next sporting overlord.
Just don’t mention that to Harry Angping.
I USED to think that electoral reforms will have to start with serious inculcation from the grassroots. Like, for instance, teachers bombarding students as young as 7 or 8 about the sanctity of one’s vote and how it is a powerful tool in nation building.
Tuesday night, however, I realized that electoral forms can begin from such a jologs source (I love the way this video–12 seconds in–asks, “Can I tell you a story?”).
Like this:
Yup, believe it or not, memorizing the lyrics to that much-maligned video by the Sex Bomb Dancers may actually be the key to changing the way politics is played in the country.
The Daily Smallville 