If not for my brother, I wouldn’t know that The Amazing Race Asia Season 4 (TARA4) will start airing on September 23 over at AXN. I cannot contain my excitement. I wish we have a Samsung HDTV to watch the episodes. I just know that it will be so much better to watch the reality show on a nice television set. We have been waiting for this season to start especially that the auditions happened in March of this year. The Philippines will be represented by two teams. Richard Hardin, a basketball player and Richard Herrera, an actor compose the guy team.

The other team is formed between Jacinta James and Lani Pillinger, a tatooist and a model respectively. The girls were born and raised in Australia but have made the Philippines their home.

I really hope one of these teams will bring home the bacon this year!

Bob Arum, the famed Boxing promoter, had to leave the three-city promotional tour in haste after he and his wife received some bad news. Their son John Arum, 49, went hiking in the mountains near Seattle and was reported missing. The older Arum was in Los Angeles for the first stop of the promotional tour for the November 13 fight between Manny Pacquiao and Antonio Margarito.

Let us all pray for the safety of John.

Just this summer, David took home the championship trophy in a Golf tournament for his age group. He also finished middle school with flying colors. His parents thought of rewarding him with something special. When they asked David for ideas, the boy said he wanted to go to an Orlando vacation. He wished to visit The Wizarding World of Harry Potter. Isn’t it obvious that he’s also a Potter head? His parents gladly obliged and off they went before schools opened.

US Open in New York: Victoria Azarenka, WTA rank 11, collapsed during the second round match against Gisela Dulko (#10 seed). She was taken off the court in a wheelchair after a mere 30 minutes within the game. The 21-year old Belarusian was not able to take the heat on the court. The temperature had reached 90 degrees (32 Celsius) with 42 percent humidity by 11:30 a.m. On-court temperatures topped 100 degrees (38 Celsius). This explains the exhaustion! Imagine playing in 100 degrees!

Because of the weather, the tournament officials have allowed the use of extreme-weather policy where women may take a ten minute break if split sets.

My brothers went window-shopping for new rubber shoes yesterday. They have returned to the gym regularly and they feel they need new pairs of shoes. I would have suggested they look at Merrell shoes but I guess that’s not what they’re looking for. They were looking for training or running shoes but realized that pairs these days have become a bit expensive. They really wished to go home with new shoes but they will have to wait I guess until there is a sale or until we are able to visit the outlets down south. We were actually surprised at the prices. Could this be because Running is the current favorite sport of enthusiasts these days?

And Tennis fans are surely going to have sleepless nights again. The matches will run from August 31 to September 12. That’s almost two weeks to satisfy the tennis cravings! All eyes are of course on the biggest rivals of today, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal because in the history of Tennis, they have never fought against each other in the US Open. While it is true that they’ve faced off in 8 Grand Slam Finals, none of it were at the US Open. You know why? Because Nadal has yet to surpass the semi-final round of the Men’s Division. Needless to say, Rafael has yet to win this coveted Grand Slam trophy to add to his all other Grand Slam wins.

I can’t wait to see who goes in the Finals!

When Rafe Bartholomew moved to the Philippines in 2005 (he stayed for three years and successfully imbibed in himself the country’s culture), he did not know anything about the islands. But he got curious and the gravitational pull that did him was his passion for a sport which he share with most Filipinos: Basketball. After immersing himself he now speaks fluent Tagalog/Filipino (the native language) and bookstores now sell books which he authored. He called his book Pacific Rims: Beermen Ballin’ in Flip-Flops and the Philippines’ Unlikely Love Affair with Basketball.

I read in one review that the contents are not really statistical in nature but I am still curious about it. I want to know how a foreigner sees a country and how he satisfied his need to know the reason Filipinos are hooked on a tall man’s game. My brother grabbed a copy at NBS and I plan to borrow from him and read. Should be interesting.

My brothers wanted to be home early from our family day at the mall because they wanted to watch the PBA Draft scheduled today. They were able to catch it. I was hoping to see it too but I chose to sleep instead. So if you are like me who missed it, here are the highlights:

• Noy Baclao was surprisingly the first pick overall. He will join Air21. Everyone was expecting it to be Rabeh Al Hussaini but the former player from the Blue Eagles was just second pick. He will join Baclao in Air 21.
• Alaska got Elmer Espiritu as 4th pick but trades to TNT for Larry Fonacier.
• James Yap and Paul Artadi will be joined by Pari Llagas and Val Acuna in Derby Ace. All four players are UE Alumni.
• Meralco picked Shawn Weinstein after trading Bonbon Custodio at the 10th pick of Alaska.
• Powerade picked Jai Reyes at the 18th pick trade with Air21

I just noticed that most athletes start very young in their careers. It means they have been undergoing training and joining competitions in their home countries and abroad. I wonder how much they value education? Since they are always on the go, how are they coping with the demanding requirements in a traditional school where presence is a must? Or are they homeschooled? It could also be that they take Online Courses and work at their own pace. That’s a possibility, right? This crossed my mind because I am hoping that our DD will get involved in athletics (my other hope is for her to become a spelling bee champion ) and compete when she’s older. But it is imperative that she attends school of course. Oh well, we’ll just cross the bridge when we get there!

At the Gamescon 2010 in Cologne, Microsoft announced that Xbox Live will be available in the mobile platform running on Windows 7. This is good news for certified gamers! If you have been an Xbox Live user, navigating the phone unit will be easy-breezy because the developers made sure that every possible interface is available. Multi-player gaming sessions are also allowed. Some of the launch game titles are as follows: 3D Brick Breaker Revolution (Digital Chocolate), Assassins Creed (Gameloft), Bejeweled LIVE (PopCap), Guitar Hero 5 (Glu Mobile), and Splinter Cell Conviction (Gameloft). Expect new titles to be launched just in time for the Holidays this year.