Stream-Of-Consciousness Thoughts On the Olympics TV Coverage

verdosing on the first weekend is bad and dangerous stuf

Then I guess it's good I was offline and without access to a tv all weekend.

What events are your favorite to watch, Firsty? BTW I just emailed the Springsteen questions.

Thanks for the link. How about writing up a story on the Olympics coverage of rowing and/or 10 reasons why rowing should get more coverage and/or attention? Right now it seems relegated to the outskirts.

The strength (and weakness) about lists is that they don't require much thought or depth.

Currently on tv - synchronized diving.

You know I've never understood why synchronized diving is considered a sport. Does someone want to defend it? Isn't it about as much a sport as, say, karaoke in that it's all about copying someone?

Time to hit mute and do some reading.

Ah, yes, I left out the "artistry" argument - or in this case "grace" - but if we're including factors like grace in whether something is a sport than what about gardeners or those people who turn bushes into animals?

I'll have to watch for Gao.

Remind me what pwn means? Yes I AM clueless.

Good to hear. I told someone "I could do that but I doubt anyone could copy me." Yeah, I know - i'm a schmuck.

Amazing, Just made a joke about his hair in my new article

Why do you like that? Because it's modelling that crying is ok for men? If so I agree

How's everyone's weekend going? Any fun plans? Watching anything good?
I've been working at different houses yesterday and today. Didn't expect and didn't have wifi access last nite so ended up debating politics with another staff member (he's anti-obama) for a few hours and then watched Olympics at night. Is anyone else starting to wish Phelps would lose so that his ego won't become the size of China?

Right now I'm at a house with verrrrrrrrrrry slow wifi access so my time on here will be limited and I'm only seeding 3 stories. We're watching ESPN as for the first time in 40 years the local (Williamsport, MD) little league team is in the national championships. I'm hoping to watch the Olympics later. This is the house where, the last time I was here, the resident I'm working with the four Jaws back to back. Oy.
Tonite my church is having a trivia game nite so I'll stop working overtime and and go to that. Should be fun.

I ask because men crying has been a fascination of mine. See this piece for some prior musings on the topic Slate has a fun piece today asking "Why are beach-volleyball players always patting each other on the butt?
excerpt:"

The U.S. women's team of Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh, foisted as sex symbols upon a complacent republic, compete in two-pieces with translucent panels—hardly sportsladylike. Nor do the sartorial choices of the U.S. volleyboys inspire confidence in the seriousness of their endeavor. A nighttime match saw Todd Rogers and Phil Dalhausser wearing sunglasses with the lenses popped out, sporting the hideous frames for the sake of the sponsors. "It's a different kind of look," one NBC commentator commentated. His partner agreed, "It's a different kind of look, that's for sure." Conspicuously, Olympic beach volleyball involves cheerleaders. At first blush, this might seem to argue in favor of its worthiness, but you must understand that these are nonpartisan cheerleaders. To quote NBCOlympics.com, the young ladies simply "use a variety of dances to make sure the fans stay rowdy." Beach volleyball seems to be alone in Beijing in employing such bikini-clad rabble-rousers. Please correct me if I'm wrong and, in fact, the gals will be prancing over to the track for the triple jump or out to the shooting range for the skeet final. Though there should be no need to demonstrate the frivolity of the "sport" any further, its real proof is in the way that beach-volleyball players touch each other, almost without exception, after every point. In general, a point won, no matter how mundane, necessitates either a double high-five accompanied by a celebratory hoot or a congratulatory ass slap of the type that George W. Bush demurred from planting on May-Treanor. A point lost might call for a consoling ass slap and a murmur of encouragement, perhaps after pulling one's partner up out of the sand. You'd think that these people, being Olympic athletes, might have learned how to stand up all by themselves, but that's teamwork in action.

I never saw Flubber. Slate has a good piece wondering what it means that the sprinter who won was so dang tall. I didn't seed it so feel free to do so:
Taking Sprinting to New HeightsThe 6-foot-5 Usain Bolt set a world record in the 100-meter dash. Short sprinters, beware.
an excerpt:"
Usain Bolt, the 21-year-old Jamaican who set a world record in winning the Olympic 100-meter dash this weekend, is the most extraordinary sprinter in track-and-field history. Not because he's so fast, but because he's so big. At six-foot-five, Bolt has been called by Sports Illustrated "the tallest world-class sprinter in history." He's easy to spot on the track, Goliath-ing over his human-scale opponents. The starting blocks cramp his frame. As he kneels for the gun, his rump rises high above his competitors'. Once the race starts, he looks like a high schooler who lied about his age to win a Field Day ribbon. Bolt takes 40 to 41 strides in a 100-meter race. Walter Dix, the 5-foot-9 bronze medalist, takes 47.

The New York times has a

The New York times has a good piece on post-medal life which is not as glorious as one might think.
it's titled After Glory of a Lifetime, Asking 'What Now?'

Well done, Jack:)

Here's another good one from Slate:
Why are Jamaicans so good at sprinting?

Jamaicans dominated the Olympic 100-meter sprint this weekend, with Usain Bolt setting a world record and his teammates taking all three medals in the women's event. Jamaica is a poor, tiny nation about half the size of New Jersey. What makes its people such champion sprinters?

A combination of nature and nurture. Runners of West African descent—which includes Jamaicans as well as most African-Americans—seem to be built for speed: In 2004, they held all but five of the 500 best times in the 100-meter dash. (East Africans, such as Kenyans and Ethiopians, rule the long-distance field.) Several biological factors may be coming into play here. One study conducted in Quebec in the 1980s found that black West African students had significantly higher amounts of "fast-twitch" muscle fibers—the kind that are responsible for short, explosive bursts of action—than white French Canadians did. (So far, there is no evidence that even extensive training can turn slow-twitch muscles into fast-twitch ones, though moving in the other direction is possible.)

The New York Times has a similar type of story today- In Sea of Similar Body Types, Nonconformists Can Succeed