after a lovely Saturday of belated anniversary present shopping (we settled on a one-third off console table from pottery barn) the lady sparkler and I settled in for a long evening at home … watching two-month stale coverage of the Beijing Summer Olympics.
a couple things, looking back two months:
- it’s been at least a week since I had heard any one say “michael phelps,” which made me wonder if he had fired his agent considering his best post-Olympic gig has been for Rosetta Stone.
- It seems like (back then) John McCain actually ran ads that weren’t entirely focused on trashing Barack Obama. heck, August was so long ago that I didn’t even know that MILF had a political context.
- I once again contemplated changing my celebrity exception clause to be U.S. Olympic indoor volleyball team silver medalist Logan Tom, but quickly realized I am already married to some one who can kick my @$& so what would the point be?
- Whichever Olympic scheduler put synchronized swimming, canoeing, water polo, and rhythmic gymnastics in the same four hour block should be fired … or shot.
- I got to thinking about politics, the economy and my 401k, and actually got nostalgic for a minute, thinking “wow. that was a simpler time, wasn’t it?!?”. yeah, way back in august.
so, back to the present. much of our weekend was spent on the couch watching soccer.
the taped USA vs. Brazil woman’s gold medal match was one of the best this year. goalie hope solo (I heard she is Han Solo’s niece) pitched a shut out over 120 minutes, making her world cup benching last year — and USA’s subsequent 4-0 drubbing at the hands of Brazil — that much more inexplicable.
but perhaps the best news of the weekend came from the English premier league, where my team (Tottenham Hotspur) finally won their first game after nine attempts (that, and the midnight firing of the entire management structure.) while the win wasn’t enough to get them out of last place, they are now just one win away from a once unthinkably-good 15th place. (weeee!)
to be fair, Tottenham could have actually been the second best news of the weekend … the best may have been the news that the Anchorage Daily News endorsed *Obama,* saying something about “putting her one … heartbeat from the leadership of the free world is just too risky at this time.”
in the words of conservative blogger Andrew Sullivan, the Anchorage Daily News editorial board is obviously filled with “goddamn East Coast elitist hippies.”



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just finished up the olympic women’s gymnastics team all-a-round competition … and we are *done* with the manic-depressive rantings that spew from nbc’s gymnastics commentators.![[Photo]](http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3052/2728517472_a24ede49ac.jpg?v=0)
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but the olympic moment i remember the most? it was the summer of 1996, and i was in moscow for a summer abroad program.
it was horrifying.
i missed much of the games, but happened to check into a moscow hotel during the opening ceremonies. we walked into the lobby, where a handful of russians were gathered around a tiny black and
whitegreen television.suddenly, on the tv a fleet of pickup trucks roared into Atlanta’s Olympic Stadium, with their truck beds filled with scantily clad cheerleaders. the russian men started howling, and we were looking for any rock, log, or carpet to crawl under.
not an olympic ceremony goes by that i don’t marvel at how little culture our young nation actually has.