In a troubled and "failed" country as Colombia, any sports or entertainment victory outside our borders gives a lot of distraction and happiness.

In 1999, Colombians became fans of car racing, a sport for wealthy people, because of Juan Pablo Montoya, who won the CART season being a rookie. The victory was watched live on national television. Two years later, we become fans of Formula 1, so we had to stay awake overnight at the beginning, get up early in the European summer and have lunch when Canadian, US and Brazil GP were held. Cable channels PSN (Panamerican Sports Network, now defunct) and later Fox Sports earned a lot of rating in Colombia, since broadcast television didn’t show the races live (they were broadcasted a few hours later).

Despite Montoya’s temper, a lot of people in Colombia, even those who didn’t like him as a person, celebrated when he won a GP, something that happened 7 times. Some of us simply loved the confrontation between and Michael Schumacher, specially because JP, unlike the other pilots, didn’t "respect" him at all. Unfortunately, the bad results in McLaren has made interest on F1 to drop so much that the network which has the rights to broadcast F1 racings didn’t show this year’s Monaco and British GP, and moved Canada and US GP to a late night slot.

The announcement of Montoya to race NASCAR next year was a shock for a lot of people, even though Juan Pablo had decided it some time ago. He even told F1 was quite boring:

How hard is it to pass a car in Formula One? You pass ‘em and you touch wheels and you’re an animal. I don’t think you’re going to be happy getting more money and being miserable all day.

But even more shocking was the McLaren decision to release Juan Pablo, preventing him to run the rest of the 2006 F1 season. What a shame, but it seems they agreed to. And everyone is happy: Montoya, Chip Ganassi, Danica Patrick (such a doll!). But what about us? Sunday afternoons will be again for racing, this time the NASCAR racing. Most Colombian Montoya fans will leave F1, because it’s not the same without Juan Pablo there. No matter if you’d like to cheer Alonso, De la Rosa, even Schumacher. You may choose to watch the news instead of getting up early on Sunday. Anyway, hope Montoya finally does well.

In other stuff: What did Materazzi tell Zidane? 

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A quite unique voice and a very peculiar looks. Two features which describe very well the Japanese singer, model and actress Mika Nakashima (1983.03.19, Kagoshima), one of the most successful J-Pop stars. Far away from the standarized, high-pitched, corny voices of most of them, specially the otaku favourites, Nakashima charms with her "intermediate", warm, melodious voice. Her songs, which my appear simplistic pop at first sight, have positive and sweet lyrics, even the cheerful ones (as the song you may hear at the end of this post).

Nakashima is a woman who was sure from her childhood she wanted to be a singer. So much she dared to refuse to go to senior high school. She was lucky, because her first demo allowed to become the main theme singer of a TV drama, something that guarantees a temporary but intense fame in Japan. Everything else came as a product of her huge talent and, of course, her charm.

Otakus should know her better for some soft songs (Find the way, Sakurairo Maukoro, and Yuki no Hana) and for her participation at a movie based on one of the most successful shōjo manga at the moment, acting and performing the main theme song.

So you can delight with her splendid voice, I’ll share with you One Survive (album version), one of those retro songs I really like. Have a nice weekend.

Everything France needed today was a penalty kick. Nice goal, because it was the only way France could win. It’s true, they looked quite organized in the second half (nice catenaccio, by the way), so the prize was their victory, but, if we see the overall performance, France shouldn’t be on the final.

On the other hand, Portugal lacked of ambition, organization and collective play. What a disappointment. It was not a team, actually. And those guys, Cristiano Ronaldo and Postiga, throwing themselves to the grass, pretending fouls… Come on!

Although the worst was Barthez, actually. What a mediocre goalkeeper! He was so lucky Figo headed the rebound so badly… maybe next time you won’t, Fabien.

The decency of football is lost. The final it should be, Germany v. Portugal, will be the match for the third place instead. The cheaters of yesterday or the cheaters of 8 years ago will be 2006 World Champions. It stinks. Don’t know what team I hate most. Let’s say good-bye to the farce. Our hope is at 4 years from now, in South Africa.