I Love the Olympics

I love the Olympics, plain and simple. Never would I ever watch such random sporting events with the maintained interest that I have while currently watching the Olympics. Gymnastics, swimming, table tennis, hell it is all good when it's on the world's biggest stage. A few points I want to touch on:

• I love the announcers of sports like gymnastics. You see someone come up for a gymnastic event and the announcer will be like, "she completely nailed this routine in the 2007 World Championship Qualifying meet" or "she was all SEC at LSU in this event". These announcers must only work once every four years, so I wonder what they do during their free time.
• Water polo and fencing are two sports that don't translate to the big screen. You can't even see where the ball is in water polo. I have no idea what is going on, even as the announcer is breaking down the defensive philosophies for a bunch of dudes swimming around in a pool. It is almost impossible to tell who got the scoring hit in fencing. Usually the two square up, both strike, and it's over in a few seconds and someone screams. You don't really know who scored until the scoreboard updates itself.
  
• It is amazing how intense swimming is to watch. I really enjoy it and I know that once the Olympics ends I won't think about it again until 2012. Michael Phelps has been the man to watch in his Olympics, like watching Jordan in his prime.
• Speaking of swimming, one of the better moments of the Olympics was the team relay. France talked a lot of shit how they were going to crush the USA and they were in the lead for almost the entire race. The USA, however, made an amazing comeback and shut the Frenchies up. Leave it to a Frenchman to talk shit during the Olympics.
  
• Am I gay for watching gymnastics? I am gonna say no, and if you think I am then you have the problem.
  
• It is nice to watch an all-star team like Team USA basketball play together and play defense. I don't know if this team will win the gold, but if they don't it wont be because of the debacles they suffered in recent years.
  

So I tuned into woman's gymnastics coverage tonight in order to watch Shawn Johnson, the much hyped 16 year old USA Olympian. Shawn John (as we call her) is from West Des Moines, Iowa, so that is cool. She is most likely going to win a gold this year as she is probably the best gymnast in the world right now. Here is what I want to happen with her career: I want her to win a gold this year and get famous (which is very likely). Then, in 2012 at the London Games, she needs to flame out, like she totally biffs it on the balance bar and loses a shot at the metal for her team and herself. After this horrible event she retires from the sport, at age 20, and falls into obscurity. One day in 2018 you'll be at some dive bar in West Des Moines and you will see Shawn, alone, at the bar on her 5th shot of bourbon while watching the World Gymnastics Championship on some 19 inch, barely color TV. After watching someone masterfully preform on the balance bar she throws her shot glass at the TV and screams "do you know who I am? I'm Shawn Johnson dammit!"

Yeah that would be fun, and also really random. But wait, there is more:

So in 2019 something terrible happens to the woman's Olympic team that is heading to the 2020 games. All of the sudden six new performers are needed. A representative of the woman's team flies to West Des Monies to find Shawn Johnson. They need her back. "Why Me?" She asks. To that the representative will reply, "why you Shawn? Because you used to be the best!"

Yes, yes, this is what I want to see happen. Sounds like a good movie. I'll start working on the screen play. After the Olympics, that is.

More Fun

I write to you today not as a blogger, but as a concerned citizen.

Just kidding, I write to you as a blogger.

Okay, now that we got that totally random intro out of the way, I just wanted to say hi. My blog seems to have become two things: stories about my life and movie reviews. What fun right? Well today I bring you another story about my life.

First off, and I neglected to mention this in my review of The Dark Knight, on my way back from the movie that night I got pulled over by a cop. I made an illegal turn on red, but apparently my license had been suspended for over a year (because of a prior ticket). I, of course, had no knowledge of this. This was just another case of the always helpful DMV, who literally couldn't have cared less when I called them. I'm serious, I have never seen a person care less about anything in the world than the DMV woman I talked to on the phone that day. I could have told her people were dying in Darfur and she would have said, "the DMV has no record of that". Anyway, I ended up having to go to criminal court, but I got all my charges dismissed. Since I was in criminal court, by extension, I basically think I know what it is like to do hard time. I now feel I have the right to say things like: Out on bail, fresh outta jail, California dreamin'. Which, if you Google, the first hit you get is a myspace profile of the same name of a kid in Iowa. This kid must be the most gangsta kid in Iowa. I love it!

In all seriousness I'm glad I got the charged dismissed. Even though I was under no threat of jail time, it would have been cool to go to jail so I could rap from a prison phone a la Big Hoss. Wow, enough 90s rap reference for one night, okay?

This past weekend was one of the better weekends I ever had, but it was a bit sad as well. It was my good friend Pro's going away weekend, he is moving to Cinncinnati to go to medical school and take over the world one day. On Friday night I had the pleasure of going to his goodbye party, which featured a keg of PBR. Note to any readers: If you are going to throw a party, do not get a keg of PBR. I toughed out the terrible beer but the keg was tapped around midnight so I decided to walk home (I did not live that far away). As I was walking down the street I hear "A-Zone don't go! A-Zone don't go!" (I don't think I ever explained the origins of my A-Zone nickname on this blog, but now is not the time). I turn around and who do I see, Large, Bjorn and J2 with 40s of Mickey's in hand. They had left the party an hour earlier, but not only had they rallied, they brought booze when the keg was tapped! So I went back to the party with my friends and much better booze. This might go down as the single greatest turnaround in party history.

On Saturday night some of us went to Mill for part II of Pro's going away party. We hit Mill Cue club for their ridiculously cheap long island ice teas (They range from $3-4.50, and they are twice the size and half the price compared to most places). I got to talking to this girl, now let me preface this story by saying I like to joke about hard drugs a lot. Don't ask me why, but I find it hilarious to say "where is the E?" as a joke. The only problem is half the time I think people don't realize I am joking and just think I am a drug addict. So I am talking to her, and for some reason we are talking about drugs and I say "I need to buy a glass table to do lines of coke off." Funny right? Well her response is something like "oh yeah I have one of those that I do lines of coke off", but she happens to be DEAD serious. So that was awkward, but makes for quite the story.

On Sunday night Pro had people over at my house (yes I wrote that right, I didn't have any say in the matter). That was a good night except I was tired out by then and had to work on Monday morning. Basically Pro's going away weekend was a trilogy, kind of like the Star Wars trilogy. The fist one was unique, the second one was the best and the third one was good in its own ways. Anyway, I will miss Pro. He leaves a huge void in Arizona. Whenever I need to eat wings, play trivia or make a random Rocky, Back to the Future or 90s reference, he was there. I will be taking applications for someone to take his place, but they are HUGE shoes to feel.

Good luck in Cinnci, Pro.


And you readers, thanks for sticking with me!