2010 Winter Olympics

The 2010 Winter Olympics begins tonight in Vancouver with the opening ceremonies, and in celebration, Google's logo today pays tribute to the Olympics.






That's the picture you get when you save off the image, but it's actually the truncated version. Below is the logo that covers the entire length of the screen, which I like better.







I haven't really been into the Olympics for some time, though I did watch quite a bit more of the last Summer Olympics than I had planned or expected to, and I really enjoyed it. I'm kind of interested in some of the events this time around. I used to really like figure skating and all the downhill skiing stuff, and I was even watching the speed skating stuff during the Eric Heiden days. I'll probably end up catching some of the events over the next couple of week.

stupid travel questions

Someone on a mailing list that I'm on sent around a list of questions supposedly gathered by an international tourism site of stupid questions being asked by people who will be visiting Canada for the 2010 Winter Olympics next month. Well, snopes.com has debunked that list as having originated some time ago, with differing variations for the country and the occasion. But I still think the questions are pretty funny, whether they are real or made up, and I would expect that each of the questions has some truth to them as having been asked before.

On the mailing list, there was discussion about how people from other countries don't necessarily understand the geographical layout of the States or the proximities (or lack thereof) between various states and cities. One person posted that a relative from England was annoyed that they couldn't just pop over from Los Angeles to Cincinnati for the day to visit other relatives until they were told the distances involved. In many European countries, and even back east, traveling between countries and provinces and cities doesn't take a lot of time. I remember talking to a friend who lives in Boston about a day trip that she and her kids were taking. They were going to drive through another state to get to a third state to do some sightseeing and such. I was surprised she'd be going all that way, especially with young-ish kids, until she mentioned that it would be about a half an hour drive. Heck, I can barely get out of Los Angeles County with a half-hour drive!

Anyway, here's the snopes article. My favorite is the seventh question on the first list. :)

Summer Olympics on Tatooine, Winter Olympics on Hoth?

OK, so the Olympics were a little while ago, but recently, the husband showed me this particular strip, which I thought was just too damned funny. (OK, the link comes up a bit odd, but if you scroll down, the strip seems to be there.)

ETA: OK, that's weird, no one else seems to be able to see it, but I can, even though I'm not a paid subscriber. Anyway I'm including the picture here.





When I posted the link on twitter a few weeks ago, @JRBooth came back with this perfect response: "....not surprisingly, a dismal 1.3 score from the Alderaanian judge..."

it's a contact sport, but not that kind of contact

OK, so I'd said previously that I wasn't planning on watching any Olympics coverage, but I've ended up actually watching quite a bit, relatively speaking. I watched some of the gymnastics coverage, some of the swimming coverage, some of the beach volleyball coverage and random bits of things that have just been on TV during NBC's mega-Olympics broadcasts. And the men's basketball final is tonight, starting at 11:30pm, which I'm planning to stay up for.

I have not seen any coverage of the taekwondo competition, but I found out about this story. Angel Matos from Cuba was disqualified in a bronze-medal match for taking more time than allotted while he was waiting for medical attention. They are allowed one minute of injury time, and he was disqualified when his time ran out.

I suppose I could see how he could be upset to lose a medal because of a technicality. I don't know the specifics of what happened, though I would assume that the medical attention would be coming from his own people, since it wouldn't make sense to me that a contender could be penalized for taking too much time when it's the official medical people who aren't responsive in the time allotted.

So, was he in fact upset? Yes. Did he object to the disqualification? Yes. What else did he do? Well, he showed his dissatisfaction with the results by kicking the Swedish referee in the face. Yep, you read that correctly. He took his objection to the physical attack level. The judge will require stitches in his lip.

The World Taekwondo Federation (Derail for a second - can I just say that I'm giggling a little bit about the abbreviation they're using for their website? OK, back to the story.) has recommended that Matos be banned for life. I would certainly agree with that course of action. It sounds like there were very set rules, which he violated, so therefore, he was disqualified. Even if he did have a legitimate argument against the disqualification, the solution was NOT TO KICK THE JUDGE IN THE FACE. What if it was a baseball game, and the umpire made a bad call on the batter? Would it be ok for the batter to turn around and hit the umpire with the bat? What if it was a bad call on the pitcher? Would it be ok for the pitcher to throw a ball at the umpire's face? What if it was a basketball game, and the referee made a bad call? Would it be ok for the player to throw the basketball at the referee? What if it was a football game? Would it be ok for the player to tackle the referee? Matos' action went way above and beyond bad sportsmanship. I don't know what the laws are like there, but I would imagine that in the States, Matos could potentially be prosecuted for assault.

There was also mention in the article that a recommendation had been made to ban Matos' coach as well. I thought that was a bit odd since he couldn't control what Matos did at that time. And then I read what the coach said.

Matos' coach was unapologetic.

"He was too strict," Leudis Gonzalez said, referring to the decision to disqualify Matos. Afterward, he charged the match was fixed, accusing the Kazakhs of offering him money.

Too strict. As in, "he followed the rules too closely"? What the hell does that mean? Aren't rules set forth to be followed, the ages of the Chinese gymnasts notwithstanding? Was the coach expecting that the judge should have let Matos go a little bit over the time limit allotted? How much over? 5 seconds? 10 seconds? 4 minutes? I can see that the coach might want to be supportive of his fighter, but it seems to me that he could have done that without condoning the unnecessary violence that Matos exhibited. If he's ok with what Matos did, does that mean that he's going to teach any other fighters under his watch the same kinds of principles? And isn't it a little too convenient that after his fighter was disqualified, he *then* was crying "fixed match"?

Years ago, for reasons too stupid to go into, I took a taekwondo class for a couple of weeks. I will admit that I don't recall too much of what they told us, and I don't remember getting too much on the philosophy, though I wasn't in there long enough to find out, but the kind of behaviour exhibited by Matos seems to go against the teachings associated with taekwondo.

I would expect that any serious student of taekwondo would be appalled at Matos' actions. It will be interesting to see what happens to Matos and his coach.

graciousness in being second

At this point, it would be hard to not know who Michael Phelps is. Even for those not watching any bit of the Olympics, his quest and successes are plastered all over the news.

Having already won 6 gold medals at the Beijing Olympics, Phelps was getting ready for the race that could potentially win him his 7th - but this was going to be the most hard-fought race for him to date at these Olympics. He had two main competitors, Serbian Milorad Cavic and fellow American Ian Crocker, who would be challenging his attempt at that seventh gold.

I happened to be listening to the race on the radio shortly after 7pm when it happened, and Phelps was trailing for most of the race - 100 meter butterfly - which is one full round-trip lap in the pool. Cavic was first after half a lap, with Phelps trailing way behind in seventh place. But true to form, Phelps poured it on during that last half-lap. He was gaining ground on leader Cavic, but it didn't sound like he'd have enough to catch him. And then the race was over. And impossibly, Phelps had indeed won - by a mere one-hundredth of a second.

Last night just after 10pm, I remembered that NBC's Olympic coverage was starting at 10pm, so I quickly turned on the TV. They were covering the women's swimming race that I'd heard right before Phelps' race, so I knew I wasn't too late. I then had the opportunity to watch the race myself, and as they were nearing the end of the race, it did indeed look like Phelps wasn't going to be able to catch Cavic. But then it was declared that Phelps was the winner. And then came the repeated replays. When I'd heard the radio account a few hours previously, they had said that Phelps had probably won the race at the very end, that Cavic had taken his last stroke and was gliding to touch the wall, whereas Phelps took another half-stroke and slammed himself into the wall. The analysts were attributing his win to the last push that came with the last stroke, which is what gave Phelps that one-hundredth of a second edge over Cavic.

Cavic's disappointment at not winning the gold is understandable. To be that close, to lose the gold by a mere one-hundredth of a second, has to be disturbing. The Serbians actually filed a protest over the end of the race, so an investigation had to be conducted to make sure the right person would be declared the actual winner. Given how close the end was, it's not surprising that they'd want it looked at carefully. The tape was reviewed, and while the results could not be seen on a regular-speed replay, they were able to slow the tape down to one frame every 10-thousandth of a second, which showed that Phelps actually touched first.

From the article mentioned above:

Cavic still wasn't sure he actually lost, but said he would accept FINA's ruling.

"I'm stoked with what happened," Cavic said. "I don't want to fight this. People will be bringing this up for years and saying you won that race. If we got to do this again, I would win it."

Cavic watched the replay himself.

"It's kind of hard to see," he said. "I know I had a long finish and Michael Phelps had a short finish."

I can understand that Cavic felt that he won, and from the regular-speed replays, you can't really tell, especially since Cavic's hands were under the water while Phelps' were out of the water. He admits that he couldn't tell from the replay, but in that case, it would seem that the touch-pad would be the ultimate decider in who touched first, and the touch-pad registered Phelps.

The comment that I really object to, though, came from someone in the Serbian delegation.

"We filed the protest but it is already over," said Branislav Jevtic, Serbia's chief of mission for all sports. "They examined the video and I think the case is closed. The video says (Phelps) finished first.

"In my opinion, it's not right, but we must follow the rules. Everybody saw what happened."

The video says Phelps won, but somehow, that's not right, but they're going to graciously agree to follow the rules? What the hell does that mean? If the video and the touch-pad indicate that Phelps won, how is that not right? Both of them were wrong, but the eye-ball view was better? And it's no gracious move to accept the facts, no matter how heartbreaking it might be for your country. He seems to be implying that there's a taint to this win, that somehow, the win was improperly conceded to Phelps. I think that the Serbian delegation's challenge actually made Phelps' win even more solid. Without it, it was just the regular replays over and over again. But since the super-slow-mo version has been looked at, and from that, it was clear that Phelps was the winner, there's now no question.

Being relegated to a silver medal by one-hundredth of a second is not an enviable place to be in. But if you've been beaten fair and square, with evidence beyond question, you have to accept second place graciously.

speaking of the Olympics

Google often has logos themed to a particular important event for that particular day. Today's logo uses the mascots from Beijing in an Olympic-themed logo. It's very cute.




I think the one in the front whose head/hair is on fire is funny. Love that they incorporated zodiac symbols in the design as well.

Are you ready for some football?

The drought is over. Relief is here. I'm not into basketball or baseball like I used to be, and I was never into hockey, so once the Super Bowl was over early in the year, it meant there was no more professional football to watch. I used to get glimpses of NFL Europe sometimes on a Sunday morning, but then that went away for whatever reason. And there was no football. And there was still no football.

But now - there's football! The pre-season has started, and even though I don't normally pay that much attention to pre-season, I'm so desperate for football that I'm going to watch/record the pre-season games that are going to be broadcast tonight and tomorrow night.

Tonight, the Oakland Raiders will be playing the San Francisco 49ers. The 49ers have always been one of my teams, and now, they're one of my teams mostly for historic reasons since I have no idea who's even on the team anymore. But if nothing else, maybe it'll be another fun season of watching the Raiders get pummeled.

Tomorrow night, one of my other teams, the Dallas Cowboys, will be playing the San Diego Chargers, who I don't particularly like. I'm looking forward to seeing how Tony Romo does, though I'd prefer for the starlets to be left off-camera. The Cowboy cheerleaders are ok though - I've always thought they had cool outfits. Remember this movie? I do.

And now that we're on the second phase of the three-ring circus that is Brett Favre, it'll be interesting to see how both the Packers with Aaron Rogers will do as well as how the Jets do. I've liked Brett, though I've found his "I want to play, I don't want to play" every year for the last however many years to be fairly tiresome, and I'm really tired of his whole attitude this time around, not to mention some of the reasons people have used to rally around him. Ooooo, those big bad Packers - they treated their star so horribly, they can treat anyone so horribly. Yeah, right, it's just that. It has nothing to do with the fact that Favre has been holding the Packers hostage for the last multiple years, and just when they thought the crisis was over, he came back for more. I know it sounds mean, but I'm hoping he gets taught a lesson and the Jets pay the price.


Oh, and ummm, there's some other sports-related thing that starts today, but I haven't been into the Olympics in a number of years. I used to be huge into gymnastics, but I have no clue who anyone is. I suppose I might watch something if I'm home with the TV on and nothing else to do, but as far as making an actual effort, nope.