オリンピク

I'm guessing that the olympics are kind of a big deal in America. They always seemed to be when I was there, and I guess that is because we rock at them. They are kind of a big deal here, too, which makes me think that they are probably a big deal almost everywhere, but if someone who isn't American happens to stumble upon this blog, let me know what you think of them.

Frankly I could not care less about the Olympics. It's great and all that they are supposed to be promoting peace and human rights and all that crap through sports, but it is obviously a facade and if it weren't you wouldn't have them in China while demanding only that the terrible Chinese government make hollow promises about human rights even as they do whatever they want to Tibetan protesters and pretty much actively give their own citzens cancer by dumping whatever they want into the rivers all in the name of making more terrible plastic crap. But, whatever, it's not like the U.S. is all that awesome on the world's stage, and we seem to get the Olympics all the time.

The real problem with the Olympics is that they are incredibly boring. Basically half the events are just people running in a straight line or in a circle, neither of which is particularly fascinating. It's great sport and all, and they are certainly in really good shape, but if they weren't, if it were just a bunch of out of shape guys running, it would basically be the same thing because they'd all still be really close. Running is just boring. That's why American TV never shows it.

Someone else pointed out that swimming is pretty stupid, too, because there are tons of medals for it when there should really only be a couple. There are all these medals for different strokes, and then a freestyle one, and during the freestyle race, everyone just uses the fast stroke. so, basically, you have one good way of swimming and a ton of crappy ones. You wouldn't give out medals for running backwards in track, so why would you give out medals for any stupid way you can plow through the water. Swimming also fails to be interesting in a big way.

There are also non-sports that still get included in the games, like gymnastics and sychronized swimming. These fail to be actual contests of skill so much as contests of whatever the judge happens to like (which it turns out is usually the home country because judges just go with whoever gets cheered for the most) on top of failing to be non-sleep inducing.

Soccer is a legitimate sport that seems like it would be good, but just isn't. The basic strategy of soccer goes something like this:

Scoring is essentially impossible because the field is too big and even people who's only job it is to kick a ball into a gigantic net consistently miss in the unlikely event that they even come within half a mile of the net in the first place.

Thus, the object is to hold onto the ball by passing it back and forth until by some freak accident, like well placed lightning or possibly an earthquake or godzilla, the ball ends up in the net. Continue holding the ball because you can't possibly risk your 1-0 lead. This will go on FOR EVER. There is a reason Americans don't like soccer. It is basically a crappy version of every other get-the-ball-past-the-other-guys-and-into-a-net/goal/basket/zone type sport ever.

Then there is baseball. Baseball is cool.

Combining uninteresting sports also results in uninteresting sports. Swimming? Boring. Biking? Boring. Running? Boring. Swimming-biking-running? Three times the boredom. I honestly have no idea how people can watch all this stuff.

By far the most interesting part of the Olympics is trying to devise a better system than medal count for determining which country wins.