Pure comedy

If ever you want to be entertained, and I mean really entertained, you'd do well to find yourself at the bar of a restaurant full of old curmudgeonly locals, that's showing not just any, old, regular Olympic sport, but rhythmic gymnastics.

The comments that came from these gentleman as they nursed their microbrews were priceless. Half of them didn't even know what we were looking at. One mentioned (to his credit) how closely rhythmic gymnastics resembled the Cirque du Soleil. The bartender exclaimed that the hoop competition was the most amazing and exciting thing he had seen since the Games started. I believe he was genuinely impressed.

But the best comment came from a guy who was sitting amongst several college kids behind us. All were fairly athletic looking and were also totally unimpressed by the events on the big screens.

"Baseball gets the axe and you can still win an Olympic medal for this crap. What is happening in the world?"

So upset, he was. And to be honest, as much as I love dance and artistry and all the frivolity of rhythmic gymnastics, I kind of agree. Shoot me.

P.S. I am SOOO sad that the Olympics are over. Watching the NBC closing wrap-up at 11-ish, I teared up a little. Laugh if you must, but I've loved watching every minute of the Games. And I've watched plenty of minutes, trust me. I'd just be cool with the competitions going on for like another, say, month or so. ;)

Olympics Overload?

This weekend, I've watched bits and pieces of:

- Rowing
- Volleyball (Men's and women's indoor and beach)
- Softball
- Basketball (Men's and women's...and oddly, I didn't hate it! I KNOW!!)
- Gymnastics (Speak your mind, Bela! Tell it like it is!! The women's vault finals were bullshit!! You got robbed, Alicia!!)
- Trampoline (tramampampoline!)
- LOTS of boxing
- Women's marathon
- Swimming (MICHAEL PHELPS, MICHAEL PHELPS' MOTHER, MICHAEL PHELPS' LIFE STORY, and countless interviews. I swear, they could give this guy his own channel and never run out of material. NBC LOVES talking about him! ALL PHELPS, ALL THE TIME!)
- Diving
- Men's and women's track and field (Usain Bolt! Damn, I'd love to see that guy *finish* a race at 100% instead of pulling up with 15 meters to go because he was smoking the hell out of everyone)
- Fencing
- HANDBALL (Are you kidding me?!?! It's like water polo...on land...and not nearly as cool. I'm still amazed that they hand out medals for this. Laaaaame.)
- Men's field hockey (???? Seriously.)
- Men's water polo
- Weightlifting

Perhaps I need to get off of the couch. Ya think? ;)

Dear NBC,

I'm tired. So very, very tired. Why must you show the premier Olympic events (read: anything involving Michael Phelps and swimming in general or gymnastics) SO LATE AT NIGHT?!!? Seriously, what's with the tape delay? Do you really think that us west coast folk need to see re-runs of Friends instead of showing the Games at the same time that the east coast gets to see them? C'mon...

A coworker made a great point today: We live in the OMG-I-need-to-know-NOWNOWNOW age, and thanks to the wondrous power of the interwebs, we can know now. Hell, it's 11:31pm and I already know who won the women's all-around and it HASN'T AIRED YET on the west coast.

Listen up for a sec, okay. Here's the deal. Thanks to all the media hype, people want to see gymnastics. You need to, and I can't stress this enough, air it EARLIER. So help me god, if I have to see Kerri Walsh in a tiny white bikini playing beach volleyball and taking up precious primetime television space on one more night, I think I might lose it. And the funny thing is that I actually like volleyball.

But you know what I like more than volleyball, NBC? Sleep. And thanks to your fucked up Olympics broadcasting schedule, I ain't gettin' a whole lot of it these days.

I would like to say a huge thank you for the extended tight shots of Ryan Lochte during his gold medal ceremony earlier, though. That almost made up for everything. Almost.

I'm also pretty happy that all of the diving events have aired early in the evenings. Exposing the American public to a less popular, less publicized sport is always a good thing.

Seeing as that I know who wins pretty much everything you're airing at obscene hours, and I have tonight's broadcast DVRd, I'm going to bed. I hope your ratings on the west coast suck, because you suck.

Word.

Cultural Sensitivity FAIL

OOOPS. Nice one, Spain. Dumbasses.

Respect.

I should be sleeping. I have to get up early tomorrow for work. And yet, I don't really care how tired I will be in the morning...the Olympics are on and I cannot turn them off.

Can I just say that I am SO blown away by the USA swim team?! My god, they are so dominant at these games. So many medals. So many world records broken. So many reasons to piss off my neighbors with my cheers.

I am 100% convinced that Michael Phelps is not human. A gold medal-winning MACHINE, he is. The 4x100m free relay damn near brought me to tears. And I LOVED watching ex-Cal superstar Natalie Coughlin bust some ass in the 100m backstroke earlier tonight. And don't even get me started on Aaron Piersol and Matt Grevers. Simply. Amazing.

There are only two words that describe how I feel: MAD. RESPECT.

GO USA!! =)