- Running your mouth only works if you go out and perform once the lights go on. In the weeks and months leading up to Saturday night’s UFC middleweight title bout against champion Anderson Silva, challenger Chael Sonnen fired off all manner of great smack and sound bites, ridiculing Silva as a “nice little fighter,” boasting about how confident he was that he would win and making moronic statements simply to generate buzz for the fight - comments like saying during a radio interview that Lance Armstrong gave himself cancer by taking steroids and then denying in a subsequent radio interview that it was he who gave that interview and made those idiotic comments. Sonnen did succeed in drumming up a lot of buzz and interest in a fight that ordinarily might not have received a ton of attention, not more than any other title bout anyhow. And for four-plus rounds, it appeared that Sonnen would back up his words with a thorough, dominating win. Sonnen clearly won the first four rounds and started with a bang, stunning Silva with a crushing left hand just minutes into the match. He then seized control of the match by staying on top and mixing in punches, hammerfists, elbows and slaps to the ears. The skills that made him an All-American wrestler at the University of Oregon helped Sonnen score takedowns in three of the five rounds and end up in top position in all five. Still, you had to figure that the champion would have a little something up his sleeve at some point and as the two entered the fifth and final round, Silva landed an elbow that cut Sonnen substantially above his left eye. Yet as the bout entered its final few minutes, Sonnen was on top and pummeling Silva, looking very much like he was headed to a win by decision. That’s when Silva locked in a textbook triangle choke and submitted the challenger 3 minutes, 10 seconds into the fifth. It was an epic bout to cap UFC 117, a main event that very much lived up to the hype at the Oracle Arena in Oakland, Calif. Immediately after the bout, Sonnen and his team denied that he had tapped out, but video showed that he did indeed tap once - and only once. That was enough to earn the attention of referee Josh Rosenthal, who moved in and halted the bout. "I don't have any excuses. Chael had a hell of a fight tonight," said Silva. "I knew that I was losing the first four rounds, but, you know, not to make any excuses, about a week and a half ago, I hurt my ribs. The doctor asked me not to come in and fight, but for you guys and for the UFC, I came in here and put it all out on the line." Oh, you didn’t want to make any excuses, but you went ahead and did it anyhow? Regardless, Silva improved to 12-0 in UFC, retaining his title but giving everyone ample reason to demand a rematch between he and his worthy challenger sooner rather than later………
- Never do you want to say that a person who died in tragic and unexpected fashion had it coming, but any time morons lock themselves inside a steam-filled box and compete with other morons to see how long they can stay inside said box, then they have whatever happens coming to them. That means I’m having a hard time mustering much sympathy or emotion at all for Russian Vladimir Ladyzhenskiy, who died Saturday at the World Sauna Championships in southern Finland. Ladyzhenskiy died after cramming into a sweltering sauna with other competitors and seeing who could withstand rising temperatures for as long as possible. Fellow competitor and Finnish finalist Timo Kaukonen was also taken to hospital for treatment and is currently listed in serious condition. In photographs taken at the event, the two men can be seen sitting side by side in the sauna. In pictures taken moments later, both contestants can then be seen lying on the ground, apparently doused in water, and Ladyzhenskiy appears to be suffering from severe skin burns. "The event was interrupted immediately after the accident. Competition organization grieves these sad events," organizer Ossi Avela said. Finnish police are also involved, investigating the incident to see if anything criminal took place. Avela insists that first aid personnel had been in place and all competitors taking part in the contest had provided doctor's certificates. "All the rules were followed," he said. Whatever you say, O. I just can’t feel all that bad for anyone who travels to Heinola, Finland with the goal of locking themselves into a small wooden box pumped full of heat and steam to see if they can outlast other similarly-minded tools for the title of World Sauna Champion. Maybe this will clue participants and organizers into how asinine this event is and convince them to stop having it at all…………
- Will Ferrell rises again and his wacky, refuse-to-grow-up comedy persona was enough to land he and his new cop comedy The Other Guys at the top of the movie heap for the weekend. Starring as a bumbling, clueless cop alongside Mark Wahlberg, Ferrell was able to guide the film to a $35.6 million take for his second-highest grossing opener ever. Other Guys managed something that all other films hadn’t been able to do for the past month, namely to knock Inception out of the top spot. Of course, Inception’s fall was minimal and it continued an impressive run by declining a mere 32 percent for $18.6 million and a second place finish. The psychological thriller has now reached $228 million in four weeks of release. In third place was another of the weekend’s new releases, Step Up 3D. The 3-D advantage that has boosted so many other movies of late didn’t help the dance/chick flick that much and it could only muster $15 million, making it the worst opening of the three movies in the Step Up franchise. Fourth place went to Angelina Jolie’s spy thriller Salt, which declined 44 percent, yet managed to make $10.9 million in three weeks of release. That tally pushes the film within striking distance of the $100 million mark at $91.8 million. Close on its heels was Dinner for Schmucks, which saw a 55-percent drop-off, making $10.5 million for fifth place. The rest of the top 10 was filed out by: Despicable Me (sixth for the weekend, losing 39 percent of its value and earning $9.4 million for a cumulative tally of $209 million), Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore (in seventh place and down 44 percent for a take of $6.9 million, bringing its terrible two-week total to only $26.4 million), the Zac Efron drama Charlie St. Cloud (continuing to disappoint with $4.7 million and a total take of only $23.5 million), Toy Story 3 (ninth place and ever closer to the admirable $400-million mark after earning $3 million in its eighth weekend of release for a cumulative total now standing at $396 million) and The Kids Are All Right (wrapping up the top 10 with $2.6 million for a running total of $14 million. Overall box office earnings were down 7 percent from the same weekend last year, when G.I. Joe and Julie and Julia opened. Total box office was down some 7 percent. Next weekend, a man-fest action flick (The Expendables) and an über-chick flick (Eat Pray Love) hit theaters and will try to knock The Other Guys from its perch after just one week……….
- Tired of buying apps from Apple and finding out after you’ve already forked over your money that you don’t really need or want them? Perhaps the company’s new App Store section, called "Try Before You Buy," is the answer. It allows users to try out a limited selection of apps before purchasing them. Now, before you get too excited, know that right now this feature doesn’t apply to all apps, just a limited selection. For the moment, the section only contains the freemium, "lite" or ad-supported versions of apps whose full versions are in the pay-to-play section of the store. That means if the app doesn't have a free version already in the App Store, it won't appear in Try Before You Buy. Oh, and you'll still have to download and pay for the full versions of these apps if you want to test or try the real thing. The free/lite apps tend to be scaled-back versions of the real thing, with less features, bells and whistles. To find the “Try Before You Buy” section, search under the "Free on the App Store" heading. What you’ll find is a largely unimpressive collection of 98 apps, including the "lite" renditions games such as Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown, Metal Gear Solid Touch and Labyrinth 2 and free adaptations of apps such as Moodagent and AccuTerra. Where the concept will go from here, no one is quite sure. Based on the current state of the project, it looks a lot more like a very thin, hollow attempt by Apple to gain positive attention without offering much actual substance. Now, if free trial versions of full, popular apps become available for the free trial period, then we might have something to talk about. Until then, not much has actually changed and the App Store is not all that different than it was prior to this overhyped announcement………
- Never have I hated The Man more than I do right now. While I’m normally not a big fan of kids, the government officials responsible for shutting down the lemonade stand set up on July 29 at an art fair in northeast Portland by 7-year-old Julie Murphy need a steel-toed boot up their asses. Murphy set up her stand and was summarily shut down by county health inspectors because - get this - she needed a temporary restaurant license to operate. Never mind that such a license costs $120 and that the Fifes were threatened with a $500 fine for selling food without a permit. That possible $620 cost would necessitate the selling of 1,240 cups of lemonade at the cost of 50 cents a cup - the price little Julie was charging. When others at the fair suggested working around the inane and just plain stupid regulations the health officials were trying to enforce by offering the lemonade for free and writing “suggested donation” on Julie’s sign with a marker., the health inspectors refused to remove their heads from their backsides. They caused a 7-year-old to leave the fair in tears and the subsequent uproar that arose across the Internet was swift, severe and inspiring. Headlines about fascist government officials persecuting 7-year-old girls sprung up all across the ‘Net and the outrage was enough to inspire Multnomah County chairman Jeff Cogen to Ms. Fife and her daughter Thursday morning to apologize. “My kids sell lemonade, and I sold lemonade as a kid,” Cogen said. He did offer a feeble attempt at justification, saying the health department inspectors were merely doing their job and insisting “there’s a reason those laws exist.” However, even Cogen had to admit that “a 7-year-old selling lemonade isn’t the same as a grown-up selling burritos out of a cart.” He copped to having a conversation with the inspectors about professional discretion, so hopefully this sort of incident won't be repeated. In supporting Julie and her cause, a local tire store and a radio station were sponsoring a lemonade stand for her on Friday night. Good to know that not everyone in Portland has their head up their backside…….
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