One more story to write today, and then I’m free to clean my house for two days. (Isn’t my life, just, super-glam?) So maybe something a few shorts today, as nothing is itching me but deadline:
* The infamous “Is Obama too skinny to be president?” story contained one factoid I took note of: When the candidate is too rushed to eat a proper meal, he will opt for something called a Met-Rx bar. It so happens I know a few people who do the same thing, and find the meal-in-a-puck solution preferable to the inevitable starvation-then-overeating. And the day after I read this, I saw Met-Rx bars in my local Kroger, on sale. It seemed like a sign. I bought two.
And all I have to say is, if Obama is eating these things, I hope he spends the next several hours in a well-ventilated room, if you catch my drift. And if you were in the same room with me, you would.
* I’m growing weary of Olympics coverage. I always do, in the second week. I become very very tired of her Olympic dream, whether it ends in golden glory or is crushed by defeat. I’ve had it up to here with hearing athletes not two decades old describe their experience as awesome, even if they lose, how glad they are just to be there. (I’m cheered by the number of fat parents in the stands, however. That is just endlessly amusing to me, how these tubbies produced such gods of athleticism.) I’m really, really sick of Bob Costas, sicker still of whoever’s color-commenting the gymnastics, with his “This…is…a disaster” every time someone wobbles out there. (Just once I want to hear “That’s gotta hurt!”) I hate beach volleyball; where is the modern pentathalon coverage? “Medal” should not be a verb. And where are the flag-desecration alarmists when some sweaty sprinter is taking a victory lap using Old Glory as a shawl? These are only a few of my long list of grievances.
* It’s nice to know J-Lo shares many of my complaints, too.
* Michigan: We’re number 10! Better luck next year, suckas.
OK, enough f-off time for now. Deadline in four hours. You folks are on your own.
John said on August 20, 2008 at 12:36 pm
I
herehear you! I am sick of the Olympics commentary but still like the events. The Mute button is a godsend!119 chars
James said on August 20, 2008 at 12:46 pm
I thought this was funny, regarding the Olympics.
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LAMary said on August 20, 2008 at 1:22 pm
Every freaking time I turn on the Olympics it’s beach volleyball. So far I’ve seen lots of that and some track, rowing, tiny bit of softball and everything Phelps or Torres were in. I want Romanian weightlifters and Bulgarian shotputters. I want some sailing and some horsey things.
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Deb said on August 20, 2008 at 1:53 pm
And why is a silver or a bronze a tragedy. You’re second or third in the whole wide world, for god’s sake.
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LAMary said on August 20, 2008 at 2:52 pm
Met-rx sounds like it’s in the same category as Fiber One bars. Not good for the office. Someone brought in a box for the break room. No one ate two.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on August 20, 2008 at 3:28 pm
Have there been any horsemanship events in prime time? If there’ve been, i’ve missed ’em.
And there must be no Murricans in the decathlon, because i’ve not heard boo to a goose about that one. What the heck have the Chinese been winning so many golds in? I’d hate to guess based on Costasvision.
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Jolene said on August 20, 2008 at 3:29 pm
Last night, I did actually hear a commentator say, “That’s gotta hurt.” A gymnast–Japanese, I think–fell off the balance beam. The first comment was about the fall being “a very serious error,” but the second allowed as how it probably wasn’t much fun either.
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Kirk said on August 20, 2008 at 3:45 pm
Today’s Dispatch sports front has a story about the American prospect in the decathlon, along with the fact that the event has slid into the realm of unsexiness.
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Dexter said on August 20, 2008 at 3:53 pm
I have been enjoying the games after raving how I wasn’t going to watch anything but Ryan “Run Ryan Run” Hall’s quest for Marathon supremacy.
I got hooked on the gymnastics, and only the nasally on-site color man annoyed me. Nastia and Shawn were so wonderful it amazed me. Jonathan Horton’s final routine which clinched Silver for him was slack-jaw amazement…a thing to behold.
I watched the online 4-screens at once for a bit, but it was too much, I ain’t THAT dedicated a connoisseur of viewing. I instantly turn away from volleyball, casually watched the diving with mute button on, and have hit here-and-there glimpses of the other sports. The basketball slaughtering process the USA is executing is just ho-hum robo-kill.
I am anxiously awaiting the men’s Marathon…I haven’t missed it, have I? Oh, lots of track events lately…anybody can spare a few seconds to watch a heat or two.
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Dexter said on August 20, 2008 at 3:57 pm
…and now I get an email from my old army buddy and long-time correspondent stating that with the successful sale of his Vermont country home he is already making plans for London 2012. That ought to eat a sizable hole in his real-estate dollar windfall.
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LAMary said on August 20, 2008 at 4:20 pm
Every time I saw the gymnast named Sacramone, I thought of Johnny Sack and how proud he would be.
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nancy said on August 20, 2008 at 4:24 pm
Every time I saw her, I thought of one of the stories I read about the age-cheating question: “Compared to the Chinese, the American gymnasts look like the Green Bay Packers.” She looked like she had a bull neck on her. Then I saw her in one of the interview segments, hair down and in more natural makeup, and she was just a pretty little daisy like all the others.
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Dexter said on August 20, 2008 at 5:25 pm
LA M.: Yep, me too. I started calling her Jenny Sack because Alicia Sack didn’t ring the bell. The spelling bugged me, hell, we all know it’s Sacrimoni, not Sacremone! Here’s JOHNNY for those sans HBO.
(Johnny Sack was sometimes friend of, sometimes enemy of Tony Soprano.)
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joodyb said on August 20, 2008 at 5:34 pm
a pal im’d me last night to relate that Costas had verbed Van Gogh in an oh-so amusing anecdote about Chinese kite fighting ~ olympics = insanity = repetiting a behavior with the hope of a different outcome
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Gasman said on August 20, 2008 at 5:48 pm
I’m actually enjoying watching the volleyball. Lloy Ball, a member of the U.S. squad is from my hometown, Woodburn, IN. His dad Arnie, taught at Harding H.S. and IPFW, both my alma maters. For you non-Fort Wayne folks, IPFW is a satellite combo of both Indiana and Purdue Universities in one. I matriculated from the IU side. The IPFW volleyball team was actually a national powerhouse, despite the fact that our school was puny and very self conscious.
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del said on August 20, 2008 at 8:01 pm
For Olympics coverage try CBC. Costas is too much.
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ellen said on August 20, 2008 at 9:21 pm
I have seen several equestrian events in the morning coverage. Definitely dressage and some jumping events. I want to say that they were on CNBC, but it might have been USA. And the equestrian events wrap up tomorrow. (Central Time) programming schedule.
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coozledad said on August 20, 2008 at 9:43 pm
I forget how being a vegetarian gives you a different “aura”, until we have to share a car with someone while doing voter registration, and they keep punching the down button on their window compulsively and thrusting their head out the window in a desperate search for air that doesn’t smell like boiled cabbage.
I still think broccoli with black bean and garlic sauce is the poorest choice for a first-date meal.
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basset said on August 20, 2008 at 10:28 pm
And you wash it down with dark beer… warm…
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Dexter said on August 20, 2008 at 11:03 pm
Bob Costas: thumbs up … what the fuck, ya want Mitch Albom?
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Hattie said on August 21, 2008 at 1:19 am
The U.S. coverage of the Olympics is very bad. I had the pleasure of following the Olympics in Europe once. Totally different experience.
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MichaelG said on August 21, 2008 at 9:02 am
I watched the ’92 Olympics in Europe where the coverage was excellent and the 2000 Olympics in Saigon where the coveage was so – so. I think NBC’s US coverage has improved dramatically over the years especially with the added channels and reductions in the sob stories. I used to like Costas but now there’s something strangely infantile and creepy about him.
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LA Mary said on August 21, 2008 at 9:44 am
I know you what mean about Bob Costas. He used to be better than most guys who cover sports, but now he seems to have sold his soul to some devil.
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Kath said on August 21, 2008 at 9:50 am
Bob Costas is starting to look more and more like my old Danny O’Day ventriloquist dummy. Except Danny had more realistic hair.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on August 21, 2008 at 10:05 am
Totally unfair, but Jim Lampley always makes me think of Fred Willard, before i shake my head and re-set to “Jim Lampley,” but part of me still wonders who plays him. Costas, on the other hand, is unambiguously Costas, for good or ill (often both in any given telecast).
But i see the Decathlon begins today — now that’s the Olympics. (Oh, and Jacques Frogge, can you just shut it on how athletes are “supposed” to celebrate? Sheesh.)
Watching this is so much more enjoyable than writing grant boilerplate . . .
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jcburns said on August 21, 2008 at 10:37 am
Grant Boilerplate, wasn’t he on Falcon Crest back in the 80s?
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Dorothy said on August 21, 2008 at 10:45 am
No, jc, he was on Dynasty. People always get those two confused.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on August 21, 2008 at 11:12 am
At least i wasn’t watching Grant Boilerplate in “Debbie Does HUD.”
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Halloween Jack said on August 21, 2008 at 1:58 pm
I rarely share with people the fact that I watch neither cable nor broadcast TV regularly, only catching it when I’m at someone else’s house or at a bar, because I don’t want to sound like one of those tiresome slacktivists who get all smug by doing without one of those alleged pillars of Western civ. (Even if I did, I’d be immediately disqualified for having an iPhone.) Here’s the thing, though: all the good shows end up on DVD anyway, all the good bits from the news on YouTube, and you avoid so much crap. For me, the whole point of that J-Lo article is that Super-swimmer is keeping the spotlight off of her, for which he deserves another three dozen or so gold medals (and the services of Bulgarian weightlifters to tote them around), plus a Nobel Peace Prize, plus presidency of the whole damn world.
WRT the gastrointestinal effects of energy bars (and the fartlighting post above), wouldn’t it be great if you could reduce your carbon footprint by collecting these emissions–say, by a discreet buttplug attached to a gas line–and using them to power a car? Look for the Ford Poot (a single-seater, natch) in 2011.
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LAMary said on August 21, 2008 at 6:30 pm
http://www.under-tec.com/index.php
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brian stouder said on August 22, 2008 at 11:55 am
Mary, the carbon-filtered underwear ad was bizarre and funny!
I wonder if that would be covered by one’s insurance -(maybe the Homeowner’s policy would cover [so to speak] such a thing)
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