The First Olympic Victory

Canada has won the Olympics before they even started.

And the moral is....

Of all the headlines I read today, one really stood out:
"Tortoise beats rabbit in China Pet Ski-Off"
Guess that Aesop guy was right. And I will take this as a reminder of the lesson that slow and steady wins the race. No need to worry that I'm not moving towards goals as quickly as I wanted. I'll get there. If a turtle can out ski a rabbit, (and the duck, cats, and dogs that were also in the mix) everything is possible.

Also, with the upcoming Olympics, this story makes me think that we should have animals involved in more sporting competitions. Cats on ice. Elephant hockey. Bobcat bobsleds. Monkey gymnastics......think how popular that Puppy Bowl is? Just saying.

All Gold Things Must Come to an End

And with that, the 2012 Olympics come to an end. Was quite the fortnight of events and many new heroes were met and many lessons of sportsmanship in the digital age learned.
The Closing Ceremony on a whole was less of an acid trip than the Opening Ceremony but it was a constant battle between awesome and awful.
For example:
Awesome:
The Spice Girls zigga zig ahhh reunion performance.
Awful:
Having them cruise around on the roofs of sparkly cabs. They looked so nervous with every turn.
Awesome:
Tribute to Freddie Mecury and Queen playing.
Awful:
Jessie J (insisting on wearing sparkly flesh body suits all night) bursting in and destroying "We Will Rock You."

Awesome: Eric Idle's classic quirky comedy.
Awful:
What came across as borderline offensive culture mocking with the weird splicing in of dancers from India.

There was the awesomeness of Prince Ginger Charming watching. He was borrowing his brother's wife as a date for the night. If I had known he didn't have a date I would totally have gone and kept him company......
Anyway, of course there was the completely bizarre: Russell Brand singing, the bus turning into a giant, glowing octopus, and the face sculpture of John Lennon. But overall nothing as haunting as the images I'm still in therapy for from the Opening Ceremony.
But if the preview by Brazil for the 2016 Summer Games to be held in Rio de Janeiro is any indication of what is in store for us there, plan to be confused, bored, and visually overstimulated by what looks like it will be Carnivale on crack.
In the end, London deserves to sit back tomorrow morning, relax, and enjoy a giant cup of tea because they overall pulled of a wonderful Olympics. All the athletes, who I am sure are right now drunk and using the last of those Olympic Village condoms like crazy, should feel proud of themselves-especially Team USA who dominated with a record number of medals. And now NBC will return to their mediocre programming-look they are already attempting to shove a new sitcom down our throats.

Forget the Olympics-I'm Training to Be Texting Champ

 He trained for months, years. His fingers are nimble and his reflexes fast. And now, in this Olympic season, he can call himself a champion yet again. He is 16 year old Austin Weirschke of Wisconsin and he just reclaimed the title of fastest texter in the U.S. National Texting Championship held in Times Square in NYC. His parents must be so proud.
The competition sponsored by LG Electronics tests the skills of speed, accuracy and dexterity through three rounds. First is the challenging texting while blind-folded. Next is texting with hands behind their backs. And of course there is the nail biting final round of "text blitz" where phrases are flashed to the contestants and they must copy them as fast as they can. Wow. These competitors work so hard, risking carpal tunnel syndrome and thumb strain, but in the end it is worth it, Weirschke walked away with $50,000 in prize money. What? That's more money than a gold medal winner in the Olympics would get! Even contestants on Jeopardy who know facts and Latin don't even usually win that much! Where are we going as a nation that texting is what we encourage people to succeed at?
Oh well. He probably will use most of that paying his cell phone bill from all that texting he does. Hopefully he plans on using some for college. I'm sure Harvard will be very impressed with him listing this impressive accomplishment on his application.

As you can see this event is a real exciting competition to watch.

Sex Is Apparently The Big Event in The Olympic Village

There has been much talk leading up to and during these Olympics about the athletes and their sex habits. I can understand why. Just watching the Olympics is enough to get you all hot and bothered. Imagine being there in that Olympic Village surrounded by all those virile men with their rippling muscles. And for the boys, those volleyball player chicks are wearing bikinis that don't leave much to he imagination. So it should come as no surprise that it was leaked that the Olympic Village is pretty much a prowling ground for hook ups. 150,000 condoms are provided and it is alleged that 70-75% of the athletes do it like they do on the Discovery Channel. One athlete confidentially told CNN that it's great because you don't even need a pick up line other than "Hey. What sport do you play?" The casual sex games seem to be just a part of the event. Even swimmer Ryan Lochte's mom strangely condoned this behavior saying he only has time for one night stands. (Though she later tried to re-phrase this, I think she knows what's up.)

And apparently the rumors may be true as a mysterious new stock of Kangaroo condoms appeared in the village. One of the athletes tweeted this picture of the reinforcements for "the gland downunder." But the Kangaroo condoms arrival on the scene is odd because these are not Durex, the official brand of the Olympics, and athletes and officials are not supposed to bring other products in. So where did these contraband condoms come from? And did those horny heros already use up 150,000 rubbers? I guess you have to be one of the sexy top athletes in the world to find out what 50 Shades of Gray kind of action is really going on behind closed doors in that Village. My prediction/hope: by the next Olympics we have a reality show taped from the Olympic Village that will be steamier and more ridiculous than Jersey Shore and the Bachelor.

Broadcasting [Not] Live From the Olympics

NBC is working around the clock to make sure that our Olympic viewing experience is as frustrating as possible. From delays, to spoilers, to their bizarre editing of the tribute to lives lost from terrorism, the network has really done a great job at reminding us that facebook, twitter, and the internet have made live TV and news media as dated as MySpace and telephones with cords.

What is the point of watching the Olympics on tv, NBC? The abundant commercials aren't great. And your commentary, especially by smug Matt Lauer, leaves much to be desired. Gone are the days where you gather with friends to cheer on your favorite athlete and event, eagerly sitting on the edge of your bar seat as they approach the finish line. Now thanks to NBC choosing to put prime events during prime time, in many cases by the time you are watching it, you know the outcome. It takes all the excitement out of the sport watching experience to not have it be live. Just think of the lameness of watching the Superbowl the day after when you already know who wins and what all the major plays will be.
Whether social media/internet or NBC is to blame, save a few moments, the Olympics this year is like a beer left open that's gone flat, sure the alcohol and athletes are still in it, but it's just not as much fizzy fun.

Just Saying.....

More of the same with unsurprising developments on last week's headlines.
--Mitt Romney's horrible case of foot-in-mouth continues to cause him trouble abroad in Israel where he managed to make all sorts of controversial statements and get the capital of Israel wrong.
--Another athlete was booted out of Olympic competition for racist tweets.
--And the always sage Sarah Palin chimed in on another hot topic tweeting a picture of her and the hubby enjoying some Chick-fil-A.
It would have been a good week for me to have posed as a psychic-I would have totally nailed all these predictions.

Team US: A Fashion Don't Made in China

Made in China is the American way. Outsource for mass production and keep it cheap. Everything does it. I promise you, pick up anything around you and you'll see it was most likely made in China. In fact, on 4th of July I even noticed that many of the little flags people were drunkenly swaying have a little tag that ironically said "Made in China."

So why is everyone so hot and bothered that the US Olympic team uniform designed by Ralph Lauren are made in China?
The Washington Post quoted Democratic N.Y. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand's letter to US Olympic Committee officials saying “The pride of our Olympic athletics goes hand in hand with the pride of American innovation and manufacturing. We shouldn’t be going to the world stage with anything less. From head to toe, Team U.S.A. must be made in America."
I have to say, this does not seem unreasonable.

But my problem with these uniforms is not just in their foreign manufacturing, I'm concerned about the actual fashion. Is it me, or do these militant uniforms and their little berets look more like we are going to war than to an athletic event?

Actually let's not disrespect America more by comparing this to the Green Berets. I know exactly where I've seen this look before......it was last Halloween when I was internet shopping for that perfect slutty costume:

The sexy "Flight Attendant" costume from www.goodinthebox.com:

And take a look where that is made too! Coincidence.......I think not!