&gt; &gt; US Open diary: The charge of the Black brigade
234087
Venus Williams&#39; victory on Thursday night made history at the US Open. For the first time at the tournament, four Black women advanced to the third round.
670171
Rain can't dull the palpable electricity at this year's U.S. Open. AP sportswriters Ben Walker and Howard Fendrich will be filing periodic dispatches from one tennis' greatest annual spectacles:
81435
I&#39;m mad at people who think it&#39;s funny to taunt black soccer players. I&#39;m saddened that a small group - I hope it&#39;s just a small group but I have my doubts â-f stupid fans are ruining, what
216675
Gabe: I've gotten some mail about the Sony Defense Force site we mentioned in the strip today. Most people seem to want to know if it's a joke or not. I am of the opinion that it is. I'm not sure about Tycho but I think it's 100% fake. Stuff like the Lair review and their spin on the video of Halo 3 running on a PS3 demo station just can't be real. I think the guy running the site and making the articles is a genius. He's pulling in all kinds of traffic with an incredible parody and best of all, he even has people in his forums who think the whole thing is real. My guess is, in a couple weeks or maybe a month he'll drop the charade and reveal the whole thing was a gag. Maybe he can keep it going longer than that but I doubt it. I hope he can though because honestly it's fucking hilarious.   128016001920  Also Kiko made you this cool wallpaper based on one of his PAX photos. He has also posted two more sets including the final round of the Omegathon and general PAX culture.  -Gabe out
579556
So the last major of 2004 is in the books. Herewith 50 random ruminations on the US Open that was. ... 1. Imagine how good Roger Federer will be once he learns to move around the court a little.
365371
The Uefa president gets up to a lot more than we thought according to your efforts. This week's lucky winner is David Squires, who wins a Â£100 bet with BlueSquare. Second prize, Carlton Books's The England Cricket Miscellany, goes to John O'Reilly. Next week we want to see your takes on Lord Coe's Olympic logo shenanigans. Send them to gallery@guardian.co.uk by 6pm on Tuesday June 12 as a jpeg or gif, complete with a TITLE and CAPTION. Anybody who forgets will be made to listen to Sir Alex Ferguson's iPod.
764960
If Andre Agassi keeps this up, it's going to be absolutely exhausting. For him, for his opponent, for his fans, for everyone at the U.S. Open.
124297
Tycho:  I can really do without a lot of the corporate sniping that happens in this industry.  Plus, as a licensed demagogue, they're horning in on my territory when they say ridiculous things or make baseless verbal assaults!  I mean, I have mouths to feed.  Seriously, I have more than one mouth.
474560
Tycho:  Having played collectible card games since the original printing of Magic - taking my dishwasher's tips across the street to Dragon Tails to secure boosters for the coveted Arabian Nights - seeing Gabriel take up the pastime has warmed (but not thawed) my black heart.  It's always a portion of myself I've bridled in his presence, kept hidden, suppressed may be the word.  To have him take it up so freely makes me wonder which perversion of mine he'll take up next.    When he started talking about his "Firestarter" deck, whose dancing fires were stoked by a mysterious device known as "The Holon Engine," I began to worry.  The dangers of Netdecking are fairly substantial when it comes to friendly play, a corrosive force that turns friendly pick-up games into ostentatious displays of wealth on par with rap videos.  If you're playing in a competitive venue, building on prior art and making loads of precision purchases is probably your only recourse.  But if you're just playing at lunch, let me be clear:  you are consorting with devils.    I took time over the weekend to hit the level cap in Call of Duty 4, and then just to be sure that I understood what was going on I played for several more hours.  I'm not the most skilled player you will encounter, with a roughly equal number of kills and deaths, but I prefer to think of my work in an assassinative context - the removal of key players at key moments.  Please let me have this.  In the absence of the game's deeply integrated progression scheme, Infinity Ward would merely have created one of the best shooters available today.  It would have staunch proponents, and they would be right to praise it.  Is there a substance within cream that can rise to the top of itself?  This substance has been discovered.  As a distillation of the Infantry FPS, this is right down to it.  This is brutal, unrepentant, bathtub fucking hooch.  It is tight and smooth, it is lethal.  Unrelenting in its intensity, your first rounds - indeed, your first few levels - will be spent without the succor of CoD4's rich rewards for continued play.  But you'll see them on the killcam, every time you go down:  this one has increased health, of course that would help.  This one does more damage.  This one, after he's killed, pulls his sidearm and takes a few final shots.  This one's shots retain more of their damage after they pass through a wall.        You earn these for leveling up, with the experience you gain for every kill, for every round.  You also earn experience for Challenges, which are (collectively) "awesome things that you did."  I completed X-Ray challenges last night for killing people behind walls, which dished up bonus XP - this is displayed with exultant audio and video cues at the very moment of success.  Killing while crouched, killing while prone, taking down an enemy helicopter, this is all gravy.  There are challenges specific to your weapon, as well:  for kills and headshots with that firearm, you travel down an upgrade path unique to that weapon that reveals sights, camouflage patterns, and other tools to customize your equipment.    Watching videos of multiplayer play online, you'll get the impression that it looks better than it does.  It looks fantastic, don't get me wrong, but it's not completely photorealistic.  What it does have is an extremely reliable framerate and excellent level design, so that during the experience of play these fantastic visuals are transmuted into something sublime.  Here's what I mean:  if a friend is over, and they are watching you play, they'll be able to detect flaws here and there.  Level geometry isn't especially fanciful, and blown paper or leaves look a little strange.  But for the player, movement is just right, player models are just right, and the environments are right so that moment to moment everything gels.      As I said on Friday, to bring this thing into the house of Halo is pretty ballsy - but it'll carve out its proper due.  On the Playstation 3, what force could stand against it?  I have a high opinion of Haze, but I've never played it - that's based mostly on my gut.  Call of Duty 4 will fall hard on that system, like shrieking artillery.
310736
It&#8217;s a beautiful day in Queens, the lines to enter the United States Open grounds are moving faster and today&#8217;s spectator freebie is a bar of soap. Lest one thinks the Open fans are cleaning up their act, the bar was already nicely crowded before the matches started at 11 a.m. A crowd has gathered [...].
596366
Our position is: Politics trumped ethics in the House GOP vote to drop its no-indictment rule for the majority leader. When he was admonished by the House ethics committee last month for holding a golf fund
758000
Tycho: Keek directed me to a radical (and potentially even "badical") article on BioShock over at Gamers Wif Jobs. I've been wondering about the recent PR shift the game has gone through, because I don't just keep hearing that it is a "shooter first," but I keep hearing specifically that it is a "kick-ass shooter," even though it's a game where you learn about Objectivism underwater while helping jealous composers get revenge. I've never doubted that the game will be great, by whatever road it reaches that greatness. The recent WWE slant just had me curious about whether I'll be able to perform a suplex in-game. You may not think that is important, but it is totally important.(CW)TB
204575
Still in the afterglow, and feeling the aftereffects of her gold-medal victory in Athens last week, Justine Henin-Hardenne began the defence of her US Open title yesterday with a
669711
Defending champion Andy Roddick finally met a seeded veteran in the third round of the US Open. Something of a challenge, right? Coming close to a perfect serving day, the American star rolled into the round of 16 by overwhelming No.
369502
Clinton says she has to respond to jabs from Obama ... Cash-strapped Huckabee pulls together enough money for ad Â in limited fashion ... Democrat Dennis Kucinich quits presidential race ... Obama navigates racial minefield in South Carolina
338548
Lleyton Hewitt has always been his own man. While the rest of the world has spent the summer glued to the Olympics, Australia&#39;s little firebrand has had but one thought in mind - the US Open.
367887
Andre Agassi tried to get this over in a hurry. He wanted a fast day at the US Open, just like Roger Federer. Agassi made short work of marathon man Sargis Sargsian on Labor Day, sweeping out his longtime