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Good day of tennis at the US Open, excellent matches. Nadal and Robredo are through, but Ferrer and Verdasco did not make it. Agassi lost as well, to a young Benjamin Becker. It was his last game, he retired as he had announced.
Took a walk earlier, very nice weather out, in the low 70's. Fixin' some dinner, I may go out to the Village for a drink tonight.
Quite an interesting article on the Business section of the UK's Sunday Times.
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Focus: Taking a bite of Apple
Few cynics are as hardened as teenage cynics. Add the experience of growing up in Manhattan, and the “seen-it-all” attitude is delivered with even more scorn.
Music-mad Simon loves American hardcore, Jamaican ska and punk. His computer hard-drive is full of songs, most of them illegally downloaded from websites. What the tech-savvy 15-year-old doesn’t have is an iPod — or any intention of getting one.
“I’m out actually doing stuff, talking to my friends. They don’t have iPods either,” said Simon. “What do I need an iPod for? All those ageing hipsters with those telltale white headphones poking out of their ears are sad.”
Apple Computer’s wildly successful iPod dominates digital music in a way that Sony’s tape-playing Walkman could have only dreamt about. As a result, Apple’s iTunes music store has become the leading music retailer on the internet.
But five years after its launch, the iPod is starting to lose its sheen. According to Zandl Group, a New York-based trend forecaster, the iPod backlash has begun. Zandl conducts regular surveys of 2,000 youngsters aged 8 to 24 on a variety of topics including music tastes, clothes and techno products.
For the first time last month, the iPod started attracting a statistically significant amount of negative comments.
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The article goes on to talk about how the younger you go, the less people care for iPods, how Spiral Frog may be a flawed concept before it's even launched, how Microsoft is stepping in via Zune, frustrated that other hardware manufactures can't dislodge the iPod, and how everybody is trying to do something in music, from MTV's new Urge store, to Amazon's current negotiations with the major labels.
Really nice time last night with Chip. This place they picked was great, Cooper 35 Asian Pub. Good food and service, very nice atmosphere. It started getting really packed after 10 pm, tons of NYU and Cooper Union students in the area.
Looking forward to the US Open games this morning, let's home the rain does not spoil them. Txt'd w Jen some, she was up early this morning. Also got a msg from my brother, he loves his new binoculars 
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I was reading the paper and found this interesting article:
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Boredom in the West Fuels Binge Drinking
Barely five people per square mile live on the high, wind-raked ground of Wyoming; the entire state is a small town with long streets, as they say. The open space means room to roam and a sense of frontier freedom.
It also means that on any given night, an unusually high percentage of young people here are drinking alcohol until they vomit, pass out or do something that lands them in jail or nearly gets them killed.
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And while it may be a mystery to some why the least-populated part of the country leads the nation in the percentage of young people drinking to excess, it is no surprise to many people in Wyoming or Montana. Teenagers, police officers and counselors offer the same reason: the boredom of the big empty.
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You can read on here
Continuing with the sports theme, from the LA Times:
Greece Defeats U.S. in World Basketball Semifinals
SAITAMA, Japan -- A Greek team with names no one on the U.S. team could remember or pronounce but who shot the lights out against a defensively challenged collection of America's best will now play for gold at the world championships, after handing the Americans a stinging 101-95 defeat today.
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The Greeks overwhelmed the Americans with a demonstration of team basketball that will once again have the hounds baying over the NBA's showcasing of one-on-one skills at the expense of old-time fundamentals such as defending the pick-and-roll.
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To lose any game is a shock to us," said a subdued Carmelo Anthony. "We made some adjustments, but by the time we made them it was a little too late."
Anthony led the U.S. with 27 points. But the triumvirate with LeBron James and Dwayne Wade that had been billed as the cornerstone of the next generation of U.S. basketball was not enough to overcome a Greek team that has no players playing in the NBA.
The debate will now begin anew about why the U.S. has not won a top international tournament since the 2000 Olympics. Some will note the poor shooting by this year's team in the knockout stage, and lament the absence of the certified scorers, like the injured Kobe Bryant. The NBA's above-the-rim game and the glorified highlight reels on ESPN's SportsCenter will take some heat.
But to most observers here, the fact is the rest of the basketball world can now play with America. And any country's team is vulnerable in a single-elimination tournament."
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