August 26, 2004

• Athens Olympics: Day 12

  
  

  Hmmmm… maybe now would be a good time to start talking about the Olympics.

  
  

  Now, I’m gonna break up my thoughts into a few blogs cuz I don’t want to jam twelve whole days of Olympic events into one blog… that would be too much fun for one blog to handle! (read: I barely have three events worth of stuff written up to post as it is)

  
  

  Men’s Gymnastics

  
  

  

  
  

  Paul Hamm becomes the first American to win the men’s all-around gold medal, beating his two Korean competitors by the closest margin in the history of the Olympics.  But, it’s discovered that the judges shorted bronze medalist Yang Tae Yong a tenth of a point on his parallel bar routine, which would’ve given him the gold.  Officials pretty much say, “tough luck, loser”.  So, the officials botch the scoring, admit their mistake and who gets the shaft!?!

  
  

  Of course… the asian guy.

  
  

  Hamm counters that Yang Tae Yong’s parallel bar routine also contained a two-tenths of a point deduction that wasn’t recorded.  So, if they add the one-tenth onto Yang Tae Yong’s score, the International Gymnastics Federation should also deduct two-tenths and Hamm wins anyway.

  
  

  Well, if we want to get all technical and stuff, let’s look at Hamm’s performance on the vault, shall we?  He totally scrubs on his vault attempt…

  
  

   

  
  

  and he STILL scores a 9.137!?!  See, this is what I was talkin’ about in my last Olympics blog about how gymnasts get scores in the 8-9 range no matter how bad they do.  Okay, if it’s two-tenths of a point deduction if you step outside the white line on the mat and five-tenths if you step off the mat, shouldn’t it be like a 1.5 point deduction if you wipe out on the scorer’s table!?!  I mean, if I’m a judge and a gymnast messes up so bad that he almost kills me, I’m gonna start exploring the concept of negative scoring.  Sure, my -2.175 would probably get thrown out, but I believe narrowly escaping death would justify my score.

  
  

  So Mr. Hamm, if you’re gettin’ all whiny about how everyone seems to be against you and how unrecorded mistakes by the Korean gymnast would’ve netted you the gold anyway, just recall what score you got on the vault, shut up AND BE HAPPY YOU WON!

  
  

  Speaking of crappy judges, let’s fast forward to the finals of the men’s high bar routine.

  
  

  

  
  

  Alexei Nemov of Russia does one of the most memorable routines in high bar history.  It was a routine that could only be done previously on Super Nintendo Olympics or something.  He spent more time flying through the air than holding onto the bar.  The 800 million people watching on TV and the entire crowd in attendance felt that they’ve seen something special and the judges gave Nemov a score of 9.725, which was good for… THIRD OUT OF THE THREE GYMNASTS THAT COMPETED UP TO THAT TIME!?!

  
  

  So, the crowd booed… really loud… for a really long time.  They booed so much, that the judges decided they messed up and increased Nemov’s score to a 9.768, which was good for… THIRD OUT OF THE THREE GYMNASTS THAT COMPETED UP TO THAT TIME!?!

  
  

  Now, I don’t know much about gymnastics and I don’t care.  But, if 800 million people think they’ve seen a gold medal performance and 5 “gymnastics experts” put him in last place, then gymnastics is dumb.

  
  

  Women’s Gymnastics

  
  

  

  
  

  As The Official Xanga Blog of the Athens Olympics*, I get exclusive access to a lot of stuff non-official people don’t get.  So, for all you Official Xanga Blog of the Athens Olympics* readers, here’s an excerpt from Carly Patterson’s diary…

  
  

  August 19, 2004
  Dear Diary,

  
  

   

  
  

  Wait a minute.  What the heck is up with Carly’s eyebrows?  She has like… right angles for eyebrows.  They go straight up her face, then they suddenly make a 90 degree turn and continue over her eyes.  It looks like a Blue Angels manuever or something.

  
  

  Okay, okay… back to the diary…

  
  

  August 19, 2004
  Dear Diary,

  
  

  OMG, I LIKE SO WON THE OLYMPICS!  I’m like sooooo happy and they like gave me a olive wreath and a gold medal that I can like so sell on eBay.  But everything wasn’t perfect.  Like, when I finished my final event, my coach like hugged me and like so wouldn’t let me go.  Everyone was like so clapping and yelling and stuff, but I couldn’t even tell if I won was cuz my coach was still hugging me.  He said, “You won!”, so I was like, “It woulda been nice to find that out for myself, you meanie!”.  After a couple of minutes, he finally lets me go, so I like hug some of my teammates and the losers other competitors, but when the cameras came by again, OMG my coach like so runs over to me and picks me up and like puts me on his shoulders!

  
  

  

  
  

  GET OUT OF MY SPOTLIGHT, YOU CHRISTOPHER WALKEN-LOOKING GLORY HOG!

  
  

  I’m like so gonna fire him.  Some executives came by and said they’re like gonna put me on a Wheaties box, but I’m like holding out for the Lucky Charms people.  I would so like to catch that leprechaun and get some REAL gold!

  
  

  Love and kisses!
  Carly

  
  

  Men’s Basketball

  
  

   
  

  
  

  So, the vaunted USA basketball team with all its NBA stars has lost to Puerto Rico and Lithuania, which combined are slightly smaller than the size of South Carolina.  And I say… GOOD!  It’s good to see teams that use solid teamwork and fundamental basketball can still beat athletically superior teams.  And I’m putting my money down on Spain when the US plays them tomorrow.

  
  

  And with the performance of the men’s team, I think it’s a perfect time for the first installment of…

  
  

  Coach Dram’s Corner

  
  

  

  
  

  Now, as some of you know out there, I coach basketball in a church league.  While the teams I’ve coached have done well over the last few years, there’s also been many years that we’ve done rather poorly. Now, I don’t want to go into much detail, seeing how some of the former players I coach have Xanga and would no longer be able to lie to people about how good they were if I named names.

  
  

  Anyway, at the end of the year, we have an appreciation dinner and the coaches have to get up and make a speech about the team and the season.  I usually try to mix some humor in with my speech (as if that would come as a shock to anyone that’s read Dramamine Boy’s Xanga) and I’ve found that it’s much easier to be funny when you’ve gone through a terrible season than a successful one.  I mean, when you’re terrible, you just have to look back at what happened during the season and the jokes just write themselves.

  
  

  One year, we went like 1-9 or something like that and came in dead last.  So for my speech, I decided to make a top ten list.  I was sorting through some papers the other day and came across the top ten list I wrote for my speech.  USA basketball coach Larry Brown might wanna check this out and use some of these excuses for later.  Here for you now, are…

  
  

  The Top Ten Reasons Why We Finished 1-9

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  10.	Players thought “run the play” was just a suggestion, not something that actually had to be done.
  9.	Didn’t do well in the regular season because we were saving it up for the tournaments.
  8.	Didn’t do well in the tournaments because we were burned out from the regular season.
  7.	Individual practice during the week consisted of playing five hours of NBA Jam.
  6.	Team performance always seemed to peak during snack time after the game.
  5.	Didn’t want to show up the C-1 team (another team from our organization that we had to play during the season) by having a better record than them.
  4.	Didn’t want to show up ANYONE by having a better record than them.
  3.	During timeouts, instead of drawing up a play, the coach was busy working on dumb top ten list for the appreciation dinner.
  2.	Spending three practices working on the “bucket of confetti” trick was probably a bad idea.
  1.	Turnovers are just our way of showing our generosity.

  
  

  
  There will be more installments of Coach Dram’s Corner in the future, but the next blog will be another Olympics update from Dramamine Boy’s Xanga – The Official Xanga Blog of the Athens Olympics!* coming soon!

  
  

   

  
  

   

  
  

   

  
  

  No, really… soon!

  
  

   

  
  

  Why is everyone looking at me like that?

  • 2:18 am
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