Well, hey guys it's Whetu here as the Olympic Games in Paris is officially underway but first, the Black Ferns sevens (Who are farewelling players such as co-captain Sarah Hirini, Portia Woodman-Wickliffe (The NRLW bound player who is the female equivalent of the late great men's New Zealand rugby legend Jonah Lomu compared to Spanish footballer Aitana Bonmati (The one who appears in the EA Sports FC 25 ultimate edition alongside cover star Jude Bellingham of both the England national team & the Spanish club he plays for of Real Madrid, & the 3 football legends of England's David 'Becks' Beckham (Current owner of Major League Soccer club Inter Miami led by the incredible Argentinian Lionel Messi) & a pair of Football World Cup winning players such as France's Zinedine 'Zizou' Zidane & Italy's Gianluigi 'Gigi' Buffon) & she has the same age as me) who is dubbed as the Andres Iniesta of women's football in Spain), Stacey Waaka (Who bids farewell to all forms of rugby before going to league next year with the Brisbane Broncos women in the NRLW competition, but I saw her in an New Zealand Beef + Lamb advert before on TV just before the Olympics had started where the Black Ferns sevens went on to claim the gold once again in Paris) & Tyla King (Who will play for the St George Illawarra Dragons women competing in the NRLW) are Olympic champions again after a hard fought victory in the gold medal match against Canada who finished silver in one of by far, the most incredible rugby sevens matches, man or woman, that I have ever seen on TV of all time (And watching the 2nd half of the gold medal match was my best 7 minutes of my life when I told Pops about it), then in the rowing department such as the Kiwi women's double sculls duo of mothers Brooke Francis (Who was once known as Brooke Donoghue prior to her marriage) & Lucy Spoors (Who took over from Hannah Osbourne following Tokyo but the duo of Francis & Spoors were the first New Zealanders to win the women's double sculls gold since the Evers-Swindell twins of both Caroline Meyer & Georgina Earl in Beijing 2008) went on to claim our country's 2nd ever gold medal in Paris 2024 after they had a slow start but they've managed to have a good comeback at the 1500m mark to ease past the Romanians of Ancuta Bodnar & Simona Radis who won gold 3 years ago at the delayed Tokyo 2020.
And news straight out of Belgium in F1 such as the former multiple world champion Sir Lewis Hamilton (The Scuderia Ferrari bound driver) who originally finished 2nd in the Grand Prix, has been declared the winner (And that is win number 105 for Sir LH during his decorated & illustrious F1 career, as he is 14 ahead of another multiple world champion of Schumi (Michael Schumacher) in terms of the all-time active grand prix victories list) which was marred by his Mercedes-AMG teammate George Russell who got himself disqualified for an underweight car in the aftermath of him who originally won the race (Charles Leclerc in the Ferrari had nabbed the pole after Red Bull's Max Verstappen got penalized 10 grid places (His first of the season) after originally posting the fastest lap time in the wet during qualifying), but I wonder the headlines would say: RUSSELL SHELLSHOCKED OF DQ, SIR LH DECLARED WINNER, but the last time a driver won a Grand Prix before it was overturned by DQ was Michael Schumacher back in 1994 in Belgium when Schumi originally won the race but his win had been annulled due to disqualification for an illegal skid block wear which resulted in victory to Britain's Damon Hill (The most famous examples was in 1985 were Alain Prost had stripped of his race win in San Marino for an underweight car (The late Italian Elio de Angelis was declared the winner despite not leading a lap during the Grand Prix) the same as Russell did most recently in Belgium this year, just like Brazilian Nelson Piquet (The one who got suspended from the F1 paddock for life, but got fined nearly $1 million for racially related comments regarding to Sir Lewis Hamilton back in 2022) in 1982 at his home GP in Brazil which was won by Prost & the late James Hunt in his home race in Britain at Brands Hatch who was the first to win then get a DQ for it as he failed to complete the whole lap in the aftermath of a red flag with the late great Niki Lauda in the Ferrari, being declared the winner & Ayrton Senna in 1989 in Japan for illegally rejoining the track via a push start from marshals which resulted in a win for the Italian in the Benetton of Alessandro Nannini & the championship going in the way of Prost (Senna got fined $100K & had recieved a suspended 6 month ban for his actions that he recieved), while the next race takes place in Zandvoort in the Netherlands for the Dutch GP which is the home race for the 3 time defending Formula One world champion of Max Verstappen who dominated the last 3 Grands Prix in front of his adoring home crowd in which Verstappen (Who hasn't won in Formula One since Spain this year before Russell won in Austria then Hamilton in his home race in Britain for his first win in Formula One since Saudi Arabia in 2021 followed by Aussie Oscar Piastri who took the victory for the first time in F1 in Hungary & Sir LH once more at the next Grand Prix in Belgium in the aftermath of his teammate Russell who had his win thrown out as a result of a disqualification) is having his emotional homecoming since the Dutch GP had been welcomed back to the F1 calendar in 2021 (It was originally going to be held in 2020, but it never happened due to COVID).
And on to the political stuff in America such as on the 21st of July that US President Joe Biden announced that he's stepping down of challenging Trump for re-election therefore allowing the US Vice President Kamala Harris to take over from Biden (Who had been the Preisdent of the United States since 2021) as the main Democratic presidental nominee according to the previous blogs that I did, & then all of a sudden that Harris has jumped into the lead as she is ahead of the former US president Donald Trump (Who survived from an assassination attempt in July) according to the polls (And I was like: Wow! When Harris had taken over, but I'm now a pro-Harris supporter just like pro-left wing & pro-Liberal compared to me still being anti-Trump as well as anti-Conservative & anti-right wing) 3 months in the leadup to the US general election which is due to be held on November as Harris bids to become the first female US president in history (And they already had Barack Obama as the first African American president way back, but Harris is gunning to become the 2nd ever black president of the United States).
And onto the rock music related news where Incubus (Well, the first time I started to remember listening to the band was way back in 1999 when one of their tracks of Pardon Me came out, while Drive was my 2nd song that I've heard from the band a year later in 2000) have revealed a new band member to replace bassist Ben Kenney (The guy who took over from Alex 'Dirk Lance' Katunich in 2003 before departing last year when he recovered from a terminal illness) who decided to move on last year when he announced his retirement after being 20 years being as a band member with female bass player Nicole Row (Who once played bass for both American pop singer & former actress Miley Cyrus & Panic! At the Disco (Who are now retired as of today after their lead singer Brendon Urie became a father when his wife Sarah gave birth to a baby last year) & has the same age as me (And I had the opportunity to be born in the millennial generation in 1991 which is during the 90's decade & it was during the grunge music era as the most popular form of rock) & both female New Zealand rugby players of Ruby Tui (The ever popular New Zealand female rugby player who decided to become a fifteens player in the aftermath of her success with the Black Ferns 7's in Tokyo 3 years ago, just like Mils Muliaina did when he made the decision to transition to 15 a side rugby in order of becoming an All Black in light of the success at Manchester, England during the Commonwealth Games in 2002 when New Zealand won the gold medal in rugby sevens) & Portia Woodman-Wickliffe (Niece of former All Black Fred Woodman & was once a netball player before she took up rugby as her main sport of choice (And she's married to a fellow rugby player of Renee Woodman-Wickliffe via a same sex marriage as of today) taking over from him permanently just before the band had re-recorded the Morning View album from 2001 called Morning View XXIII which came out in May this year (The band thought that they originally going to release it in 2021 to coincide with the 20th anniversary of the album release, but it got delayed as a result of the COVID pandemic so they pushed it to May 10th this year), & when I first heard one of the tracks of the re-recorded album that the lead singer Brandon Boyd's singing voice is drastically changed (From the chest that he once had in then to nasal as of today trying to sound like Brian Molko who is the Placebo frontman) mainly although not only he is getting older, wiser & mature now (He is 48 as of today compared to 25 at the time when the original version of the album that I got in my bedroom came out in 2001), compared to the original in which his singing voice was youthful back in the day which was just incredible, but he was trying to sound like Tom DeLonge from Blink-182 while the re-recorded songs sounded like an incomplete polished album that had to start with, but the men of our generation are always into Linkin Park (The band members that I remember were the late great Chester Bennington (Before being replaced by new co-lead singer Emily Armstrong (Whose singing voice is trying to sound like Lzzy Hale from Halestorm) from Dead Sara in which Linkin Park are very similar to both American pop-punk band Blink-182 & Armenian American rockers System of a Down having the dual vocalists in the band), Mike Shinoda (Who is the co-lead singer alongside the late Chester Bennington's replacement of Armstrong), Brad Delson, Dave 'Phoenix' Farrell, Rob Bourdon (The original drummer who left the band therefore allowing Colin Brittain to be his replacement as the band's new drummer) & Joe Hahn) these days compared to the fathers who are always fanatics of Metallica (Which features the likes of James Hetfield, Kirk Hammett, Rob Trujillo (Who took over from Jason Newsted since 2003) & Lars Ulrich) & the grandfathers who are always hooked into Black Sabbath (Which includes Ozzy Osbourne, Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler & the late Bill Ward) as part of the generations of rock & metal according to the YouTube comment that I saw in one of the rock related songs that I heard it from (And I've got a total of 64 songs that I downloaded straight from the internet such as MP3 downloader ranging from alternative rock (AKA alt rock where it is the most popular genre in rock since 2004), to grunge (When it took over from glam metal as the most popular genre form of rock from 1990 until 1993), Britpop (The genre that took over from grunge from 1994 until 1997) & nu metal (The most popular form of rock/metal music as they took over from Britpop beginning in 1998 until 2004).
So that is my 564th blog of the year 2024 (MMXXIV) & my 40th of this year, viva Ukraine & Palestine.
P.S. Because maybe
You're gonna be the one that saves me
And after all
You're my wonderwall
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