Olympic Events I'd Like to See...

Here we are, two-thirds through the long anticipated Beijing Olympics. It's amazing what a country will do in preparation for the games -- the venues they'll construct - The Birds Nest, The Giant Serta Mattress (the 'Water Cube' as it's being called is a pretty cool building -- but I see it from a distance and I wonder if they have a model with pillow top); and The Rowing Venue (do you realize what it took to build a canal in China, several thousand meters long, filled with clean, non-feces riddled water?). Truly remarkable.

So far I've enjoyed watching the wide variety of Olympic events. Sure, there have been controversies. Much has been made of the Chinese women's gymnastics team and the likely cheating by the Chinese in loading the team with twelve year old 'ringers' who can fly and flip and do all things gymnastics better than the young women who meet the age minimum of 16 years, established by some committee a few decades ago.

But aren't the Olympic games about allowing the absolute very best possible competitors in a particular discipline the chance to compete on a grand stage to win Olympic glory? The age limit was supposedly established to keep competitors safe, allowing children a chance to develop, limiting the pounding their bodies take and minimizing the pressures on their young psyches. So how many of these girls on any team do you think wait to start training until they're 14 years old and don't participate in highly pressurized preparations from the time they're 5, 6, or 7; and how many don't travel and compete in meet after meet after national and international meet? They all do this. Their sport requires it. There is no way to keep them safe from world class gymnastics, so I say let them compete, so long as they are good enough to do so.

While most events are exciting and entertaining there are some events that could be introduced or augmented which would spark additional interest. Yesterday, Stephanie Brown Trafton of the United States took the gold medal in Women's Discuss. Fantastic. Unexpected. On her first throw. She even surprised herself. But I think this event, which is skewed toward women of Hurculean stature, would be more interesting if rules included an actual track portion for this Track and Field event.

Like we all had to do when we were kids, when we accidentally threw our frisbee too far and it went over the Mitchell's fence-- we had to go get it. Frankly, these Big Bertha women have grown lazy, with half a dozen uniformed officials and gophers that collect their discs. Since we're so concerned about the health of the gymnastics girls, why shouldn't we care about these women, who as presently stands, are heart attacks in stretch pants waiting to happen? The new, health conscious discuss throw, would consist of a combination 'disc and dash' where they get points for distance, and also points for how quickly they can run and fetch the disc before throwing it again. There. We care about our athletes.

The Javelin throw could also use an enhancement. While presently there is little intrigue while the javelin is in flight, and when all is said and done, it most often ends with the Javelin hitting nothing of interest after its glorious flight. The new Javelin throw will have giant balloons covering the field, and depending on which balloon gets popped, the contestant will win a prize. Prizes could include: an Olympic Gold Medal! Regardless of how far the toss!; Fifty Thousand Tickets! which can be exchanged for a really cool Cops of Justice plastic handcuff and billy club set, or taffy!; or since we're in China, a Giant Stuffed Panda. For Real! (Okay... perhaps that's gone too far. That prize may set off an international PETA incident.)

And what's with Michael Phelps winning all of those swimming events? We need handicapped swimming. This event in no way is about people with disabilities. I am talking about creating a venue for swimming, where each of the lanes is filled not with water, but with viscous material of different thickness, with the best swimmers doing their strokes in the 'thicker' material. Perhaps Phelps would be swimming with a viscosity lane ranking of 4.7, while a weaker swimmer will be swimming with viscosity ranking 2.4. That might allow for any of us to qualify for the Olympic games with the chance to compete against the world's finest! But where, in China, do we suppose we could get water filled with viscous material?

That may be a bit of a stretch....

Hummingbirds Suck (at keeping secrets)...

Last year we got a hummingbird feeder. It wasn't just any hummin' bird feeder, it was The World's Greatest hummingbird feeder (at least that's what the company making this thing named it). It's really quite nondescript. It's a bottle that hangs upside down with a red base screwed to it that has six or eight holes in the base, along with a little perch rail that surrounds the red base. (Apparently, those hummingbird feeders that don't have the perch rail are very inconsiderate of the fact that hummingbirds are constantly... I mean CONSTANTLY flapping their tiny wings -- just watch them!) In fact, if you don't have The World's Greatest feeder like I do, you'll only be seeing these little birdies flap flap flapping. The perch rail gets them to shut up and sit for a whole few seconds while they suck.

So, as secret keeping goes, hummingbirds are absolutely *horrible* at keeping secrets. How do I know this- you might rhetorically ask? Well... I did just a tiny bit of searching online for hummingbird feeders (mostly to see how poorly all of the other 'non-worlds greatest feeders' might look) and to my surprise, there are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of different designs, shapes, prices (Wow! $90 for a hummingbird feeder?!-- and for a feeder that's not the World's Greatest?! Yikes-- Some feeders are pricey). The sheer large number of hummingbird feeders available makes it absolutely clear to me that hummingbirds must be the world's worst secret keepers.

Think about it. A bottle. Hanging upside down, which I fill with a sugar water concoction and hang under the roof of my house, just outside my kitchen window gets noticed as interesting? By a bird? Some feeders try to replicate flowers. Others, like the world's greatest, don't even have to go there. No flowers, no designs. They just KNOW that hummingbird's can't keep secrets.

So here's how it must go. Bruce, the hummingbird, is hungry. He incredulously notices a clear bottle hanging outside my kitchen window. Bruce investigates. (He really digs the perch rail.) Bruce sits down and sucks and then flies away to work where he spends time as a light machine operator in HWU 248 (hummingbirds *obviously* can't operate heavy machinery, and those that are tired of sweat shop oppression have unionized. Bruce is part of Hummingbird Workers Union 248). Bruce, *dumb* Bruce, can't keep a secret about something that would clearly benefit him if he did (more juice for him). He immediately tells other humming birds at work about his SWEET FIND. This thing, not even a flower, has suckable stuff!

Just watch a feeder for a few minutes, and you'll see evidence of exactly what I'm talking about. Elliot decides to check out this thing that he heard Bruce all chirping and flapping his wings about. After getting lost and distracted by the beautiful flowers at the Hunsaker's, Elliot makes the proper turn into my back yard and finds the thing. To Bruce's utter dismay and shock, when he flits into my yard after a short 3 minutes on the job (union rules say no more than 3 consecutive minutes operating the machinery) he finds ELLIOT --eyeballs deep-- in the thing. Bruce is TICKED OFF and feels a mad desire to chase Elliot around the yard and away from the thing. THE THING that was *his* special find.

Well... guess what? Elliot tells Spencer, Lucy, Mike, and Reid Thornton Jr., even when it's in Elliot's best interest NOT to, and what ensues is nothing other than a hummingbird melee out back, with each bird claiming the thing as their own. Amusing? Yes. That's why there are so many hummingbird feeders. Pitiful and sad that secrets can't be kept? Sure. If you don't believe me, get a feeder and watch it out your window yourself.

Hummingbird's can't keep secrets.

The Fortunately, Unfortunately book....

When I was a kid, one of my favorite books was a picture book with a story line that put the reader through a series of fortunate and unfortunate circumstances. I can't remember how the book starts, but some of the finely written middle material includes the main 'character' (hard to call the guy a character, because really, what character development was there scene- hopping a dude through a bunch of circumstances, each with fortunate and unfortunate components?... but I digress)... so anyway, here's a stretch of the book's 'activity' that I remember: "...unfortunately, the plane's engine broke down. Fortunately, there was a parachute. Unfortunately, the parachute had a hole in it. Fortunately, there was a haystack. Unfortunately, there was a pitch fork in the haystack. Fortunately, he missed the pitch fork..."

Not to leave you hanging... I'm sure you now have to go buy the book... and not to ruin it for you either, but the dude ends up at a happy place in the end, after having broken through the end of a tunnel with a fireman's ax, and somehow finding himself at his own birthday party. Was this story induced by chemicals of some kind? Not sure. Hmmm... come to think of it, this author's writing style is just like my own! All over the place but with a happy ending!

So, the Olympic games have started. I love the Olympic games. Fortunately, we have television and can watch coverage in HD- A reasonable facsimile of being there. But unfortunately a... tape delay? I thought at least some of the games were coming to us LIVE --even while at trickier than usual hours for some people (for me, 8 AM Mountain I'm expecting to see the US Men's basketball team play China) - I made sure I was up to see MY team play in the biggest viewership draw of any basketball game in history. What? I have to wait until 9 AM to see a game I know started at 8 AM?

Doesn't NBC think those of us in the Mountain and Pacific Time zones care to see some of the games live? Perhaps we should all simply DVR the entire broadcast. Blitz through ALL of the commercials which their advertisers have paid top dollar for, and see our tape delayed events on our own schedule altogether.

Unfortunately, there's the internet... telling us all top results and ruining our tape delay broadcast. Fortunately, there's the internet, allow us to take in live streaming video of events as they occur, if we want to. Unfortunately, sitting in front of my computer monitor is not quite as comfy as lying on the couch. Fortunately, regardless of when I actually take in the events, if I don't peek at the internet, it's "live to me!" Unfortunately, knowing it's not live, makes my good Karma, energy focusing, cheering that I just KNOW aides the athletes... moot. "Go Michael Phelps!!!" I say... cheering him on... while actually he's getting a massage at that very time?

Don't know the answer. Far be it from me to control the NBC broadcasts.

I got up to watch the USA/China basketball game. Unfortunately, it wasn't on yet. Fortunately, it gave me an hour to write my blog...