If You Ain't First, You're Last

Here is my Olympic update:

People may talk about the fake fireworks or the Chinese version of Milli Vanilli, but I thought the opening ceremonies were pretty dang awesome. Of course, I didn't watch all of the march of nations, but the beginning and the torch lighting was pretty fantastic. The best part for me were the boxes that were made to move as though they were water. It was also pretty cool to know that some people were representing countries with populations less than what were in the stadium at the time. Some might say it's a small world.

We only have "poor people T.V.", so our viewing has been pretty much limited to synchronized diving, gymnastics, and beach volleyball. Oh! and did anyone know that Michael Phelps was competing in the Olympics this year? You would think that he was the only one, based on how much coverage NBC gives us of him. I'll admit that he has done quite impressively, but I still don't know that I can acknowledge him as being better than Mark Spitz. After all, Mark Spitz accomplished all of his medals while sporting an awesome mustache.
I did catch the interview with Spitz and Phelps after Michael won his 8th gold medal and was very impressed by Mark Spitz. I think it was a shame that he wasn't in China to congratulate Phelps.

The kids have been very interested in watching the Olympics as well. My favorite part of watching so far was when Geronimo happened to be watching the women's synchronized diving. He saw the women from China and said, "Look dad, the boys are going to jump in the pool." I explained to him that they were in fact girls with boy haircuts. The next time they were diving he said, "Look dad, the boy haircuts are going to jump in the pool." Now that track and field is starting, he is really into watching everyone run.

Speaking of running, you are probably wondering how Jefferson Perez did. Strangely, his race wasn't televised on NBC (typed with sarcasm, not only about NBC's coverage, but also about race walking in general). You will be happy to know that Jefferson grabbed the silver for Ecuador (although this picture doesn't show him as being so happy about it). Here is another great video about him:


I do have a few complaints about the coverage of the Olympics so far. First, why do we have to wait until 8 p.m. before we can even start watching? I realize that we aren't going to get to watch stuff straight from China, but why not give us west coasters the east coast feed? And furthermore, why do we have to see the word live on the screen, when that is obviously not the case? If I can convince somebody that we are watching live coverage, I can win some serious betting cash thanks to the internet telling me the results beforehand. At least Yahoo! sports has made an effort to not let you see the results without making an extra click. I don't know why they don't do the Olympics 24-7. There is obviously enough material to cover. I'm not very stoked about not being able to watch any of the basketball, soccer, or baseball games. And while I am thinking about it, why is race walking an event and baseball and softball won't be next Olympics?

Overall, I have been entertained and will be watching a lot more. I wonder if they will have Michael Phelps do commentary about the other events to keep up his screen time during the rest of the Olympics?