Olympics

I picked a pretty good time of year to have two solid weeks with no responsibility. I get to see pretty much all the Olympic events that are on TV if I so choose. I really do enjoy watching certain sports I don't get to see very often, such as badminton, archery, field hockey, and handball. Track and field is on sporadically throughout the year, but I don't pay as much attention then as I do during the Olympics. I really like the Olympics. The idea of somebody from Central African Republic taking on somebody from American Samoa (no idea if this actually happens) makes me smile. Thoughts on some of the action so far:

I always wonder how some countries end up having national uniforms that don't match the colors of their flag. Italy wears blue uniforms, despite the flag being green, white and red. The Italian national soccer team is called the Azzurri (from Azzurro Savoia), which translates roughly as "the Blues". Wikipedia (arbiter of truth in today's world) calls it "the colour traditionally linked to the dynasty which unified Italy in 1861". (the French national team is also called "les Bleus")

The Australian Flag is red, white and blue, but their national uniforms are green and gold, making them look like the Packers. (away soccer jerseys are blue)

I was watching some men's rowing yesterday and saw the 4-man team from Denmark win a gold medal. I think that any Scandinavian team winning rowing gold should immediately rampage through the surrounding countryside, pillaging and burning everything in their paths. Reflecting one's Viking heritage is very important.

I also saw the U.S. women's eight win gold, and let's just say they were happy. Happy when it ended, happy in the interview, and happy during the national anthem. For some reason I was caught up a little watching and listening to several of the women actually singing the anthem. In most cases you just see their lips moving, if they sing at all. They could be using my sister's old trick of singing "cantaloupe, watermelon" when they don't know the words. But in this case I could hear them singing, and combined with the obvious joy on their faces, it made for quite a scene.

From what I know about rowing and the training that goes into it, I'd be thinking "Okay, I've got a medal. I never want to get into that ******* boat again."

I wrote in this post about my favorite overall team being the US Women's Soccer team. I got a chance to watch them this morning against Japan and was relatively pleased. They're playing without three starting players: Leslie Osborne, Cat Whitehill, and (sniff) Abby Wambach (sniff). They lost the opening game of group play to Norway 2-0. Since then they beat Japan and New Zealand to advance to the elimination rounds, beat Canada in overtime and beat Japan again today to reach the finals. This means the team has made the finals in every Olympics since women's soccer was added as a sport. For this to happen without three world-class players is very, very impressive.

Good luck against Brazil in the finals. They're going to need it.

Ato Boldon is doing color commentary for NBC's track and field coverage. I knew he was from Trinidad and Tobago, so I was looking forward to him speaking with a heavy Trinidad accent. I used to work in an office that had a lady from T&T, and I could listen to her talk all day, where I would understand about 2 of every 3 words. Sadly, Ato seems to have lost (or disguised) most of his accent by moving to Queens, NY when he was 14. Zut alors!

Finally, I'd like to direct your attention to this video, which is called "Beijing Welcomes You". It's very nice, very pretty, and very sweet. It's about friendship and camaraderie and how China opens its arms to the rest of the world for the Olympics. It's got Jackie Chan. I'll have it stuck in my head for a week. If they made one like it in America, we would rip it to shreds and make fun of if mercilessly.

Come to think of it, we didn't even wait for an English version, since someone already came up with a version called "Please Ignore the Communism". (Note: both videos appear to have spotty accessibility--I've seen "this video is no longer available" on both, but searching for them seems to work okay). My favorite lines:

"We will get to know each other/nd I am sure you will find love

becomes

"So have fun here and when you leave/please take these extra children"

and

"The evergreen tree grows in my yard/I will tell you my stories"

becomes

"When the Party tells you to dress like Elvis/You dress like ****ing Elvis"

My favorite parts of the parody: