First I went to the Grandstand Court and watched the start of Gael Monfils vs Pablo Cuevas. Monfils would go on to win in straight sets.

Then I moved along to the Armstrong Stadium to watch a set and a bit of David Ferrer vs Martin Vassallo Arguello. Ferrer took the first set on a tiebreak but then won the next two easily.

I was really just biding my time until a particular match that I wanted to see. One of my favourite female players is 19 year old Belarusian, Vika Azarenka, and she was playing in the second match on one of the outside courts so I made my way there. However the first match was still in play on that court - Robin Soderling vs Evgeny Korolev. One line judge gave quite a few bad line calls and had Soderling majorly pissed off.

After Korolev won that match in straight sets, I waited for Victoria Azarenka vs Klara Zakopalova. Vika looked very well in an all blue outfit and had it pretty easy in the match, wrapping up a 6-2 6-1 win in under an hour. Something I hadn’t noticed before when watching her on television was that when she’s receiving serve and starts moving her feet, she does this little hop that she probably doesn’t even realise she’s doing. It’s so cute and adorable!

Next I went back to the Armstrong Stadium and got there for the start of Andy Murray vs Sergio Roitman. Roitman played well and gave him a good game but the Muzza was always too strong and ran away with it in the end. His winning shot on match point was pretty special.

Now I had a choice to make between another two of my favourite women players. Caroline Wozniacki, the young Dane, was starting her match and I knew that Lucie Safarova would be starting soon too. I decided to just catch a couple of games from Caroline Wozniacki vs Ahsha Rolle before moving on to see Lucie. I knew Wozniacki would win and that I could get to see her in full in the next round. With Lucie I wasn’t so sure.

And that’s the way it turned out. Wozniacki won easily while the Lucie Safarova vs Sorana Cirstea match was a very close one which went to three sets but ultimately Sorana was a worthy winner. This was a particularly painful loss for me as Safarova was the fifth and final part of a bet I had put on the night before. The first four had all won easily and I was just waiting for Lucie to finish the job. It was tough to watch, being just a few feet away from her. I felt like hopping over the siderail to give her a few slaps and tell her to get moving. But that probably wouldn’t have been a wise move on my part.

As we moved into the evening I was feeling pretty tired and sunburned so decided to grab one more match before leaving, Tamira Paszek vs Maria Kirilenko. Neither played too well but it was a tight match that in the end went to Paszek, 6-4 in the third.

And that was that. A very enjoyable day all around and I’m looking forward to heading back tomorrow. A few not so good things: 1) mediocre overpriced food, 2) sunburn, 3) me forgetting to charge my camera battery the night before so I only had it working for half the day.

Oh no wait, that last bit was from ‘The Matrix’, which is all I could think of in the first half hour of this rubbish. ‘Wanted’ is adapted from a recent graphic novel but apparently has quite a few changes. Maybe it would have been better if it had stuck more rigidly to the source material. Overall it’s just a big pile of fluffy nonsense. But it is quite a lot of fun too. There are some great set pieces and well used special effects. However it’s worth no more than 3 crumbs out of 10.

The bus was going from Edmonton to Winnipeg and the attack happened somewhere in the province of Manitoba. I don’t know anything about the loony who did this but having lived in Canada for the last nine months it’s obvious that the biggest problem in this country is the cyclical triumvirate of homelessness, mental illness and substance abuse. It wouldn’t be a surprise to anyone if we learned over the next few days that the killer was afflicted with any or all of these conditions.

It must’ve been a horrible sight for the other passengers and something that will stick with them forever. I watched a couple of Al-Qaeda’s decapitation videos a few years ago and it’s not anything I’d like to see again.

Instead what we got was a very simple story barely worthy of an X-Files TV episode and a subplot with only a tenuous link to the main plot. There was some stuff to like about it though. The film didn’t get bogged down in trying to fill in the gap of the last six years, the Mulder & Scully relationship was kept understated and it adequately dealt with issues of belief, faith, morals, etc. among the main characters. Some of the outdoor scenes in the snow were nicely shot and there were a lot of night scenes, reminiscent of the television episodes. I also loved all the little nods to the ardent fan. Since seeing the film I’ve even read about a couple more injokes that I hadn’t noticed. It was also fun to recognise some of downtown Vancouver in one scene.

The film had a supposed $30m budget and will need to top that comfortably in box office takings if Fox are to greenlight another film in the franchise. For an opening day release, the theatre I was in had a good crowd but was nowhere near sold out (unlike the myriad Batman showings over the last week).

I really hope we get a third X-Files as it will probably go back to dealing with the overall mythology arc of the show, particularly with 2012 being set as a pivotal year in the show’s storyline some time ago. But that hypothetical film would require a bigger budget and I fear that it might not happen.

Anyway, I give ‘I Want to Believe’ 5 crumbs out of 10.

The 30 minute display was accompanied by some well-chosen orchestral pieces which synchonised with the fireworks. I recorded the following 4 minute segment which uses a track by the great Bernard Herrmann.

I also took a few photographs…

More photos are available in the gallery.

The plot flows along at a fast pace with one great scene after another. The performances are all excellent, particularly Heath Ledger who perfectly encapsulated The Joker. The film has a good score and its running time of two and a half hours just flies by and you’re left wanting more. Easily the best film of the year so far and I’m looking forward to watching it again. 8 crumbs out of 10.

Of course, I knew this film was bad before watching it but I really just wanted to see the roles played by Stephen Colbert and John Oliver, two fine comedians. Unfortunately most of Oliver’s scenes seemed to be with Mike Myers so I couldn’t stand to watch them. Thankfully Colbert’s role as a drug addicted, ice hockey sportscaster provided some redemption. The material was bad but Colbert’s delivery could still crack you up.

The writing as a whole seemed to have been done by a retarded, mongoloid 12 year old and I’d imagine that most retarded, mongoloid 12 year olds would be embarrassed by it. A shockingly atrocious film, although it did give me an excuse to put up a picture of Jessica Alba. Still, 0 crumbs out of 10.

There’s quite a bit of good to the film but a quite a lot of bad too (pretty much like the lead character). The third act in particular is woeful. I did like the whole concept of the alcoholic, inconsiderate superhero and I’ve read that the original screenplay was much darker and so too was the first cut of the film but it suffered a lot of edits to avoid an R rating. That kind of told in the film. I got a real feeling that there was so much more that could have been done with it. I think it would make an interesting television series but that’s probably unlikely. 4 crumbs out of 10.

Even though Roger has beaten him on clay, Rafa is still way ahead on that surface, as shown in the blowout of the French Open final a few weeks ago. On other surfaces, their games are much closer but still Rafa hadn’t beaten Roger on a non-clay surface in quite some time. Of course, last year’s final here at Wimbledon when they served up a classic five-setter was as close as he could get without winning . Who could know that they would surpass that today in terms of quality and excitment?

In winning 6-4 6-4 6-7 6-7 9-7, Nadal ended Federer’s five-year winning streak on grass and showed that he’s ready to take the number 1 spot. It was by far the greatest tennis match I’ve ever seen and definitely one of the greatest sporting events of all time. I was happy to hear this backed up by John McEnroe among many others. I watched the match on NBC where McEnroe was commentating and he was as in awe of what he was seeing as much as any other viewer.

Right after the match when the players had just come off the court, McEnroe had a quick interview with each player which was probably not seen on BBC. In the on-court interviews Nadal and Federer were both as gracious and magnanimous as always but a few minutes later Federer opened up a little bit more and was almost in tears.

But well done to Rafa and let’s hope these two continue to meet in finals for a few more years.

There’s not a whole lot of sex in the film. It’s mostly conversations about sex and relationships. In fact it’s more of a play than a feature film. Oh, and it’s also a comedy. There are quite a few laugh out loud scenes. It’s a well written piece but there isn’t much to take away from the film. There are no lessons learned or life issues dealt with. Plus some of the acting was pretty weak. 4 crumbs out of 10.