What is incredible to watch during the first week of a Slam is the upcoming generation of players. Sure watching Novak Djokovic dispatch an Aljaz Bedene in three clinical sets is fine. And defending champ Stan Wawrinka dispatching Marsel Ilhan in just under an hour and a half is fine also.

But the incredible drama of the first week happens when you leave the confines of the large show courts. Like yesterday in Court 6, the 12-seed Spaniard Feliciano Lopez was not expecting a five-set labor against American wild card Denis Kudla. But Kudla showed that he could make shots, and he even had three match points against Lopez in the fifth set. But thanks to a wicked sliced backhand and his serve-and-volley skills, Lopez was able to survive the scare and win the match 10-8 in the fifth.

Meanwhile despite Sloane Stephens losing meekly to Victoria Azarenka, it’s been quite the first round for American women. The winners:

Serena Williams
Venus Williams
Bethanie Mattek-Sands
Christina McHale
Irina Falconi
Lauren Davis
Madison Keys
Coco Vandeweghe
Varvara Lepchenko
Madison Brengle
Nicole Gibbs

Only five women who competed in the first round did not make it for America. I know this comes off as sounding very jingoistic, but I don’t mean it that way. I’m proud of these ladies, sure, but I’m not saying that America is the best. It’s not like I’m a compulsive liar who made a name of himself by sniping a bunch of people in Iraq for a war that was not justified.

One name that is not in the list above is Taylor Townsend. She played very well at times against Caroline Wozniacki, but nerves seemed to get the better of her. She has so much power in her shots and made 30 winners to Caroline’s 20. But the 34 unforced errors were glaring against Caroline’s clean game.

The first round is completed, and so far everything is going how I saw it. The top men are holding form while no woman is safe from an upset. I just really wish the players would stop it with the highlighter yellow. That is just fucking ugly.

I’m still watching this Gulbis-Kokkinakis match, and I saw that Ernests has the most unfortunate ass sweat. That’s it, really. As someone who sweats like greased up hog at a county fair, I feel bad for him. But c’mon. If you know you have ass sweats, then pick a different color. You’ve got to know better!

The Australian Open is a bit difficult to watch. While their afternoon session fits right into prime time viewing here in the West Coast, their night session of course falls right in the middle of the night. So naturally I fell asleep in the middle of the Roger Federer-Ricky Lu match, but it sounds like I didn’t much of anything besides Roger’s greatness. No surprise there.

So even though it’s Monday morning right as I’m typing this, Monday just happened in Melbourne — yet another idiosyncrasy of the tournament. It’s like time traveling, right?

Ladies seeds falling: It was a manic day on the women’s side. Here are the ladies seeds that fell on Day 1:

5. Ana Ivanovic
9. Angelique Kerber
16. Lucie Safarova
17. Carla Suarez Navarro
23. Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova
27. Svetlana Kuznetsova
28. Sabine Lisicki
32. Belinda Bencic

It probably would have been easier to list the seeds who actually won. I wrote yesterday that the women’s side of the draw is very deep and that it’s a crapshoot. Add to the fact that this is the first slam at the very beginning of the year, you have a perfect breeding ground for these upsets.

Rafael Nadal: I really thought he would have trouble with Mikhail Youzhny in the first round. I thought it would be an entertaining match. Wrong wrong wrong. It was a boring 6-3, 6-2, 6-2 win for Nadal who showed that he could run down damn near anything. Perhaps even more notable was is fashion:

He went against the grain with the pink top, but notably he wore shortish-shorts. They’re not quite short-shorts that I would like to wear, but they were shorter than normal. Sort of a midi-short maybe?

Highlighter yellow: I should have seen this coming since I did watch some of the tuneup tournaments heading into Melbourne, but the men’s fashion color du fortnight is apparently highlighter yellow. It’s like the Baylor men’s basketball team went crazy with the dye. Take the young Aussie lad Thanasi Kokkinakis:

Speaking of Kokkinakis, I am currently watching his five-set win over the 11-seed Ernests Gulbis.

Christina McHale: Talk about a gutty win, McHale overcame an aching shoulder and throwing up twice in the third set to beat the French veteran Stephanie Foretz 12-10 in the third set. Of course, Deadspin grabbed the video.

This is going to be a fun fortnight.

I don’t know what the fuck happened, but early last week I was clamoring for some Aussie tennis. For the first time I watched some of the warmup tourneys leading up to this coming fortnight’s Australian Open.

Yes, I watched Bernard Tomic succumb meekly to Kei Nishikori. I saw that thrilling three-set win by Milos Raonic over Nishikori. I saw Roger Federer get his 1,000th win ever in the Brisbane finals over Raonic. I saw a 20-year old French “lucky loser” Lucas Pouille making it to the semifinals in Auckland.

So when the draw came out on Friday, I just about pissed my pants. Yes, I went through the draws and said ooh and ahh. I could bore everyone by going through the toughest sections, who could be upset in the early rounds, etc. etc. I could make specific points of analyses that will inevitably be wrong. I’ll just keep things general.

Women’s draw: The women’s side is a crapshoot, to be honest. Anyone who is seeded has as good of a chance to take it — that’s how deep the talent is on the women’s side. It’s not the case of mediocrity. There will be wonderful sublime tennis that will be played here, much more than the men’s side. Of course Serena Williams will be the favorite, but she usually doesn’t play well here. Maria Sharapova, the two-seed, will also be among the favorites, but until she learns how to compose a point rather than just outpower her opponent I won’t completely buy into her. I like Petra Kvitova, Caroline Wozniacki, Agga Radwanska, Ana Ivanovic, Genie Bouchard and even 28-seed Sabine Lisicki. This will be fun.

Heat policy: Last year I thought the tournament directors were inhumane and barbaric by leaving players out there in the 110F+ heat. Ball kids and players alike were collapsing in the heat with seeming apathy by those at the top. As the Associated Press reported in December,

Tournament director Craig Tiley said the decision on implementing the policy will take into account the weather forecast once the temperature exceeds 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) and the Wet Bulb Global Temperature — a measurement that accounts for humidity, wind direction and the temperature — exceeds a reading of 32.5.

Also, matches in progress will be suspended at the end of an even-numbered game or at the end of the tiebreaker. Hopefully that will improve things a little.

Men’s draw: Both Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal have not looked good leading up to the Open. Djokovic even had to cancel a practice session yesterday because of illness. Juan Martin Del Potro just pulled out with a bad wrist. Stan Wawrinka will probably have a lot of pressure on him as the reigning champ. For these reasons, that why I like Roger Federer to win his 18th Grand Slam.

By the way, I really hope we get to see Nishikori-Raonic in the quarterfinals.

6. What is your life’s goal, and what steps have you taken to attain it?

Jeez. This is like those what-do-you-want-to-be-when-you-grow-up compositions you have to write in kindergarten. Look. I know I’m 35 soon-to-be 36, but I still have no fucking clue. I guess I want to write and be happy. Write, well I do that. Be happy? Well, I haven’t been happy in a very long time, so I don’t know how in the hell I’m going to get there.

As for a particular vocation, “shitstarter” would be an apt description.

4. What is your attitude toward animals? If you have any pets describe them. What is your ideal?

I love most animals most of the time. I can’t say that I enjoy seeing a rattlesnake when I’m on a trail. I can’t say that I enjoy seeing a deer jump out on a highway in the middle of the night as I’m driving at 80 mph. But it’s not like I wish them dead. I just wish they would avoid me at those instances.

I don’t have any pets right now since my grandmother is allergic to cats and doesn’t like dogs. I know, a Korean who doesn’t like dogs — ha ha. But I am a cat person. I love they are independent and you have to work for their love. They don’t just give you unconditional love. You have to earn it.

5. Are you satisfied with your sex life? Describe your ideal of a physically attractive sex partner.

No. As a live-in caretaker of my grandmother, I’m limited in what I can do. However even before then it’s not like I had gratifying sex. For the most part it was boring. Hell, I even had one guy tell me to quiet down because I was talking too much. I would have rather he just slapped me across the face.

My ideal physical partner is older than me, 6’5″ or taller, completely burly — or at least burly enough to throw me around on a bed — a nice thick 7 to 8 inch cock and arms I could use as pillows. The guy could be completely hairy or smoother than a baby’s ass. Blonde, brunette, bald, silver — again it doesn’t matter.

Holy shit.

2. What do you expect to accomplish through membership in the Church of Satan?

I honestly have no idea. I’m sort of doing this as a laugh/writing exercise, so I really have no expectations.

3. If you were granted three wishes, what would they be?

1. I would ask for unlimited financial resources. The one thing that causes a lot of stress in people’s lives is money and the lack thereof. So why not eliminate that stress for good? That doesn’t mean I’ll spend my life doing nothing and lazing about. It just means that I won’t have to do something soul-sucking and thankless.

2. Peace in my family. Some people in my family are just cunts. I would like them to be civil and decent to one another so they don’t drive me to my grave earlier than I want.

3. No more bad sex. That’s pretty self-explanatory.

Something compelled me to the Church of Satan’s website today. Looking through I saw if you sent $200 and filled a thorough application, you could become an active member in the Church of Satan. Part I of the application is general information: name, spouse, address, etc. Part II contains 40 questions that the applicant must answer on a separate sheet of paper. I’m not going to apply, but it might be fun to answer these 40 questions. So here it goes, one at a time.

1. What are your impressions of The Satanic Bible?

First of all, just a style note. “The Satanic Bible” should be either underlined or italicized since it does refer to a title of a book. For me, I prefer book titles to be italicized.

As for the book itself, you see, I haven’t read it in over a decade. I would have liked to brush up on it recently, but an aunt of mine just donated the bulk of my book collection to charity mistakenly. So there is that.

But from what I remember of it, it’s basically an extension of Nietzsche’s renunciation of the concept of god. It realizes that god is a human construct, and it forces humans to be self-reliant. There is no divine intervention. There is no fate. It’s just us. Of course, I’m doing this from memory, and that memory has been taxed with fun and party and drugs back in my 20s.

Of course I have questions about it. Like how come there are rituals when it emphasizes man. And without a god, doesn’t that defeat the purpose of creating a “church”? But once I buy the book again, I suppose I’ll find such answers.

I really fucking hated 2014. It’s a miracle I made it to Dec. 31 without offing myself. Let’s just hope 2015 is a little better.