My Olympic weekend

For those of my readers who either aren't paying attention or are living under a rock (not being facetious, by the way- 33% of my readership is in either of these two categories), the Olympic Games started this weekend.  You may have heard of them, they're sort of a big deal, only happening every 4 years.  Although, with all the national championships and world championships and world cups...maybe it's not such a big deal.  Side tangent- why are the world championships considered less prestigious than the Olympics?  I mean, you're the champion.  Of the world.  THE WORLD!!!  What can be better than that?  It's the freaking world!!!  Leonardo DiCaprio didn't say "I'm the king of the Olympics!".  Dr. Evil didn't hold the Olympics ransom for one million dollars.  And God didn't send His only son because He loved the Olympics.  Come on!

I'm not really sure what my tangent was about.  But it's out there now, and it's up to the world to take up the gauntlet of my crusade.  Or whatevs.

Back on task, the Olympics.  As I've alluded to before (or perhaps just came right out and said...I can't be bothered to remember such things), living with my in-laws has been awesome because they have, like, a 500-inch Flat Screen Plasma HDMI Future TV.  And they like to watch sports.  So, seeing as I like to watch sports, and they like to watch sports, and the Olympics are the Mecca of sports...this past weekend we watched a lot of the Olympics.

Unfortunately, you haven't been watching them with me.  For about 33% of you, that's because you either live under a rock or simply haven't been paying attention.  The rest of you, sadly, just don't live here.  Or not so sadly if you do, in fact, snore.

Don't sweat it though- I've decided that rather than let that your snoring come between you and the privilege of knowing what I'm thinking as I watch the XXX Olympics, I will bring my Olympic thoughts right to you, hand delivered on a silver platter through the miracle of the internet.  I know you'll probably never get a chance to say thank you- but really, you'll never have to.  I'm that awesome.

But seriously, you should say 'Thank you'.

This isn't going to be any sort of running tabulation or a Bill Simmons-running-diary.  No, this is just me, sitting down at my computer after the fact and typing up some random thoughts about what I've witnessed.  Will it be as epic as what I actually witnessed?  Pfft...please.  Of course it is.  This is the Olympics, brah.

VOLLEYBALL:

I watched the US Mens and Womens team take on Serbia and South Korea, respectively.  Volleyball is one of my favorite Olympic sports.  I'm familiar enough with it to know what's going on, but watching it only once every four years makes it feel fresh and new.  It's not quite as cool as Sepak Takraw, but still- it's pretty awesome.

WARNING- This paragraph is probably going to seem to be veering hard into 'sexist' territory.  But I'm going to navigate it so smoothly and deftly you're going to wonder what the heck just happened.  Either that or I'm going to smack in the middle of Don Imus' forehead.  I enjoy watching women's volleyball just as much as I do the men's game.  It's one of the few sports where I can honestly say that, and it's not because volleyball players are cute.  (Actually, the US Olympic team this year is not very attractive.  The whole game against South Korea, it was painfully obvious who had the more beautiful side.  South Korea was just flat-out drop-unconscious gorgeous though).  The women, while not playing with the same athleticism as their male counterparts, play at a high enough level to where that difference is not noticeable.  Also, the women utilize more lob shots than the men, who seem destined to spike every third hit no matter where they are or how many defenders might be blocking them. 

Last thought on volleyball- the US team has a player named Destinee Hooker.  I just want to say WHAT THE HECK were her parents thinking?  Did they lose a bet?  Were they conducting some sort of sociological experiment?  Did her moms water break as they were driving through the Red Light district?  Literally that is the worst name I have ever heard.  There is no coming back from that name.  Her parents, in one fell swoop, managed to give her a name that evokes images of a prostitute and a stripper.  All I know is that if Shane ever brings home a girl named Destinee Hooker, he is either getting A) Punched in the face, B) Disowned, or C) Punched in the face and then disowned.  

HANDBALL:

France beat Norway in women's handball.  Apparently this is a huge upset, since Norway is like the Chicago Bulls of handball.  See, this is why you watch the Olympics.  Now that I know this, I can't imagine how I lived life without knowing that Norway excels at womens handball.  Anyways, handball is like the America of sports- a melting pot of other games- a lot of basketball mixed with some soccer and hockey- and dodgeball.  Like America, it's awesome. 

Side tangent #2- I'm finding out that the phrase 'World Cup' does not belong to soccer alone.  Apparently every sport has a World Cup.  And I just think, there's already a World Cup-level event.  It's called soccer.  You can have Bowl, or Fondue, or Serving Spoon- but please.  Nobody cares about your sport other than the parents who shelled out thousands of dollars so you could maybe go to the Olympics.  Have some decency and leave the Cup moniker to the real sports.  End tangent.

ARCHERY:

I have never watched competitive archery before, and after watching South Korea (another mystery dynasty) defeat China in the women's final, I just have to ask myself- why?  THIS SPORT IS AWESOME!!!  It's like Legolas versus Hawkeye versus Robin Hood, but for reals.  It was amazingly intense, every archer seeming to come up with a clutch shot- if football is a game of inches, then archery has to be a game of centimeters.  Plus, there was a camera placed head-on with the archers.  How big do your stones have to be to be operating a camera face-to-face with an archer? 

ROWING:

I watched some rowing.  Other than hearing that a Grand Valley State graduate was on one of the women's teams, I really don't have much to say about this sport other than I can see why it's so popular among the Ivy League schools.  When you're smarter than everybody else, you get to partake of the frivolities that the rest of us find incredibly boring.

BASKETBALL:

I watched the NBA all-stars US men defeat France by lots, a little bit of Spain/China, and the first quarter trainwreck that was the US women and that European team that they played.  Not much I can say that hasn't been said about the US mens team- they're obviously very talented, but watching blowout basketball is not very compelling.  Indeed, I was washing dishes while this game was on, which should tell you how non-must-see-TV this game was.  I've watched a couple of the US games, and the talking heads of sports, and everybody is talking about our weaknesses while we blow teams away by 20+ points every game.  Sure, this years team is no Dream Team- but at what point do we stop trying to manufacture some drama and just watch the hurricane blow through the opposition?

The US womens game though...that was different.  I was all in for this game, not because it was compelling.  Actually, it was so bad that it became compelling.  Like you were rooting for the US to pitch a shut-out level compelling.  Like you were rooting for the US to win a close game after while scoring less than 40 points.  Seriously, this game set womens basketball back fifty years, easy.  I've never been a huge womens basketball fan- this may sound sexist, and I apologize for that, but I feel that guys just do it better.  They are faster, stronger, and jump higher.  Sure, women may do some of the fundamental things better (which I realize may be a stereotypical/generalist argument), but it's not more exciting.  I enjoy basketball, but I enjoy excitement more.  If I have to choose between basketball and exciting basketball, then it's a no-brainer.  I'm choosing NBA 2k11 on the PS3.

SWIMMING:

Thanks to Michael Phelps, swimming is as trendy as it has ever been and will probably ever be.  Me?  Not buying.  It's still just people swimming fast in a pool.  I will say this, though- as a habitual nose plugger, I'm super impressed with how these swimmers aren't drowning all the time.  Seriously, how do they do that?  If I get a little bit of water through my nose, I'm making a dead sprint to the pool side so I can cough my lungs out.  Did I miss out on the gene that allows you to breathe underwater like a fish? 

One of the downsides of having an Olympics in a different time zone is that the TV coverage does not always match up with the real time.  That means that I knew Michael Phelps did not medal pretty much before I even saw him qualify.  And I went upstairs last night so that I could see the US mens 4X100 relay team win the silver medal that MSN.com had already told me about.  Swimming is already not exciting- but when the drama is completely eliminated, I realize that I really don't care about swimming.  Period. 

Side tangent #3- I love watching these weird, non-familiar sports, and listening to all these commentators who are taking these sports much, much more seriously than I ever will with more insight and knowledge about them than I will ever have (or care to have).  The idea that these sports are happening somewhere in the world even when it's not the Olympics is still slightly mind-blowing for me.  It's like object permanence but with sports.

FIELD HOCKEY:

People playing hockey by running around on a hard floor- should be awesome, right?  WRONG.  I tried to watch the US womens team versus Germany but found that I couldn't.  It was pretty boring.  And I don't think it was because it was women's field hockey- I just don't think the sport is all that compelling.  It's way slower than ice hockey, which seems to negate any potential skill that could make the sport exciting.  Plus, I just kept thinking about their backs, and all that bending over, and I decided that watching field hockey is the poor mans version of watching somebody claw the chalkboard. 

BONUS:

While typing this blog, I watched a little bit of kayaking and found out that if your kayak capsizes and you pass through a gate, you are given a 50 second penalty.  Is that not the biggest d-bag penalty you could give out?  I mean, when a kayak capsizes, there's a legitimate chance that the person could drown, right?  So naturally, the best way to empathize is to dock them almost a minute of penalty time.  Here, you almost drowned AND we're making sure there's no way you can win.  In the kayaking world, is there that much of a concern that somebody would purposefully capsize their kayak in order to manipulate the course more successfully? 

I'm actually asking, I really don't know.  It just seems like an excessively harsh penalty.  But I can't get too hung up on that- US versus Brazil in women's volleyball is on!!!

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