i want to be like mike.
to say that i've been obsessed with watching michael phelps in the olympics would be an understatement. and i know that i'm not the only one, as nbc is reporting record numbers in viewership during primetime swimming events.
i've been loving all of the articles online and in the blogosphere about how unfair all of the attention is; and that other athletes are competing in his shadow.
why should we care? why should we care that an american olympian, baltimore born & raised, is the face of the beijing games in the united states? why should we care that he has won more gold medals than any olympian in the modern olympics' 112 year history? or that he has tied a record that was last set thirteen years before he was even born?
we should care because he's done it all the old fashioned way, with hard work & dedication, sans drugs.
we've held other athletes on a pedestal in the past: michael jordan & the dream team, derek jeter, that whiny bitch brett favre. but think about it. really think about it. swimming is not considered a spectator sport in the u.s, and is rarely televised. so swimmers that work their asses off just as much as nba/nfl/mlb stars, without the kabillion dollar a year contracts, have the olympics, once every 4 years, to show the world what they can do.
i agree that he's not the only olympian. and others work hard too, there's no doubt about that. but even amongst one's own team, there must be a winner. and for the u.s, michael phelps is it. and he's got the medals & the world records to prove it.
so for 17 days out of every 1460, if the proverbial spotlight never leaves the likes of michael phelps, it's okay by me. because i want to be like mike.
dong dong? really? reeaally? and i thought that only americans didn't think through their choice of baby names. after all, the united states did grace the world with children with names like dick butkus, alabama gypsyrose jennings and diva thin muffin pigeen zappa.
in this case however, i think china takes the gold medal in the "horrible naming event" at the olympics in beijing with dong dong.
[article from nbc olympics]
Move over Mark Spitz.[nbc olympics]
Michael Phelps won his seventh gold medal of the Beijing Olympics on Saturday, edging Milorad Cavic by a fingernail, .01 of second in the 100m butterfly on Saturday at the Water Cube.
Phelps, who was seventh out of eight swimmers at the first wall but made up ground with his turn, still looked to be behind Cavic in the final meters but got to the wall first in 50.58 to Cavic's 50.59.
Spitz won his seven gold medals at the 1972 Munich Games. Phelps will try to beat the record in the 4x100m medley relay Sunday in the final day of swimming in Beijing.
While the pre-meet, potential upset talk in the 100m fly centered around world-record holder Ian Crocker, California-trained Cavic, who competes for Serbia, surpassed Phelps in the heats as the second-fastest man to swim the event. He nearly spoiled Phelps' chase at history.
Phelps said Cavic's words before the race fueled him.
"Cavic said it would be good for me and good for swimming if he won," Phelps said in an NBC poolside interview after the race. "I'm at a loss for words. I had no idea the race was that close. I was lucky enough to get my hands on the wall first."
Phelps said tying Spitz has been a longtime goal.
"In my dreams I always wanted it," he said. "I thought in the perfect circumstances I could do it."
Spitz marveled at the way Phelps has dealt with all the media attention and pre-Beijing hype since Phelps won six golds in Athens.
"I've always marveled at the fact that in the last four years, he has had to live with a lot more expectations and anxiety that I had to deal with," Spitz said.
China's impressive haul of gold medals at the Beijing Olympics was tarnished somewhat today when it was revealed that "abnormally high levels of lead" were found in the first-place medallions.WOULD IT SURPRISE YOU IF IT WERE ACTUALLY TRUE? ME NEITHER.
The medals, which were supposed to be made entirely of gold, were instead found to be composed of 99% lead alloy and coated with a gold-colored lead-based paint.
The shocking revelations roiled the Olympic complex today and sent officials looking for answers from the Chinese manufacturer of the medals, the Wuhan One Hundred Percent Gold Medal Corporation.
"We are trying to determine how exactly so much lead got into those gold medals," said a spokesman for Wuhan, China's largest exporter of gold medals. "Until we do, we are urging all first-place athletes not to lick, taste or suck on their medals."
The news about the potentially toxic gold medals spread panic among Olympic champions, especially U.S. swimming phenom Michael Phelps.
"I am very, very concerned about my extensive contact with gold medals," Mr. Phelps told reporters. "But what am I supposed to do? Stop being so awesome?"
In other Olympic news, China's hopes for winning more medals in women's gymnastics were dashed when one of their leading gymnasts vanished down a bathtub drain on Tuesday.
Immediately after Jiang Qimin's disappearance, Beijing authorities launched a search for the acclaimed seven-pound athlete.
Jiang had been the subject of speculation earlier this week as many foreign observers doubted China's claims that the two-foot-tall gymnast was sixteen years old.
In an interview with NBC's Bob Costas on Monday, Jiang sparked controversy with this response to a question about her age: "I want my sippy cup."
i, for one, especially love him when i'm not expecting him. that makes his offerings even more pleasurable. (wow, rereading that makes it sound like i'm having an affair with the ups guy. they do like it in the wearing brown...) BACKSPACE, BACKSPACE, DELETE. let's start again. i love when the ups guy comes down the street, which is not that often in these parts, and hearing that horn. you hear the horn because they're extra lazy out here, they beep when they pull up so that by the time they go find your package in the back of the truck, you are already halfway down the driveway. they must be union.
anyway, the package was from the cherry republic. after reading my post '100 little things,' holly aka spleeness, paid special attention to numbers 37-39:
37. I love artificial cherry flavoring.she sent me a bag of cherry republic sour cherry patches. artificial cherry flavor? check. gummi? check. covered in delicious sourness? BONUS!
38. Therefore I enjoy anything that is artificially cherry flavored.
39. I wish all food was “gummi.” I love gummi anything, especially worms.
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if you're in agreement with my last post about johnnie mccaincient, or just plain thirsty, try this one on for size:
jackie roberts, the owner of the pink door in seattle, has created a cocktail in barack’s honor; the obama-rama, the drink and the reasoning-
2 oz. Crater Lake Vodka (hand-crafted American vodka from Oregon.) WHY? Because he loves America.THAT SOUNDS DELICIOUS, I'LL TAKE TWO.
2 oz. freshly pressed grape juice WHY? Because he’s fresh!
1/2 oz. Cointreau WHY? Because he has a sweet side
1/2 oz. freshly pressed lemon juice WHY? Because he HAS to win Florida.
Just a whisper of curacao to make the drink the color of green WHY? because he is serious about the environment.
Drink is served up in a sugared martini glass garnished with a frozen sugar-grape on an American flag hand-decorated by the owner with glitter bling.
$10 (one dollar of every drink goes to the OBAMA campaign)
i get a strange vibe from john mccain.
think about stereotypes. very few stereotypes are so defined as that of the used car salesman. think about all the lies you have to tell to sell a lemon. "oh yea, the air conditioning works great!" (that is if by asking "does the 'air conditioning' work?" you mean, do the windows go down?) people that go shopping for a used car often go in with the expectation that they are going to be swindled. they've come to expect to have some sleezy guy in a seersucker suit named mel to try and sell them a "real gem" of a 1999 ford taurus deluxe station wagon; when what they really want is that fancy used sports car on the lot. they expect that nothing that mel says will be true unless it's written down on paper. with expectations, the only possibility is that you'll have one of two outcomes:
1) disappointment in that you got exactly what you thought you would.politicians, like used car salesman, are also often stereotyped. i'd like to think that we are more often "pleasantly surprised" by politicians, but let's face it, i'm not that naive. unlike the case with mel, where we enter into the situation expecting to be ass-raped, with politicians, we often enter into "the deal" hoping for the best, only to be disappointed.
or
2) pleasant surprise in that, on occasion, things aren't always as bad as they seem, and you leave 'surprised' that everything you heard about mel is completely wrong.
SELLING CARS AT MEL'S.
my poor pops. as if yesterday's weightlifting/elbow popping event at the olympics wasn't bad enough for the magyars, today i found them mentioned in the latter of the best & worst moments of the opening cermonies. more specifically, number one on the worst list.
1. Team Hungary's entrance. Though they'd already established that they weren't the right men to discuss fashion, NBC analysts Matt Lauer and Bob Costas couldn't help themselves when the Hungarian women (pictured, above) entered the Bird's Nest wearing what has take the gold medal in Worst National Ensemble. "What do you think of these outfits?" Lauer asked. "Well, it's all a matter of taste," Costas answered. "Diplomatic as always," Lauer noted. Awkward silence. "They appear happy about it all," Costas said. "Slowly digging yourself out. Hungary, Line 1," Lauer joked.those outfits make me think of bloody cows, used tampons and/or what a fatass ends up looking like on a paintball range.
a kentucky woman hottie is facing prostitution charges for trading sex for gasoline & a cold one. angela "fill-my-tank" eversole, 34, was nabbed last weekend during a police stakeout at a days inn, where she trysted with customer kenneth "hump'n'pump" nowak. according to court records, nowak hump'n'pump admitted paying for eversole's fill-my-tank's services with a $100 speedway gas card & a coupon for a free slurpee. fill-my-tank was hit with a prostitution rap and also charged with doing business without an occupational license. hump'n'pump was charged with promoting brainfreeze prostitution. "fill-my-tank" and "hump'n'pump" are pictured above in mug glamour shots snapped following their arrests. a local prosecutor noted that it was sad to see someone selling their body for gas & frozen refreshments; in this case about 25 gallons worth of fuel and a 40 ounce slurpee.
...call for desperate measures.
[the smoking gun]
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