Beat Down

A very busy weekend for me. We spent Saturday moving Mrs. X out of her apartment in Columbus and down with me. So now we're all moved in snug. We're still sorting things out as to which additional items of mine and hers will go into storage and which we actually have room for. We also may have to put some of the shower gifts into storage as we won't be able to use all of them while we are living in the apartment. As soon as the wedding is over, its the beginning of house hunting season for us.

The Olympics started on Friday. Mrs. X and I have been watching a great deal of them over the past several days. Its much more entertaining than all the other crap that's normally on during the summer, even though football has officially started again. The opening ceremonies were entertaining although I think the Greeks were a little hung up on things flying through the air. Someone here in the office mentioned that the Olympic cauldron reminded him of the telescope gun that Marvin the Martian uses in his attempt to blow up the Earth - Oh, the Earth will be gone in a few minutes. I'm going to blow it up. It obstructs my view of Venus.

For the most part I've been quite entertained but I do have two rants. First, I wish the media would drop all this crap about Michael Phelps and his failure to break or tie Mark Spitz's record. First off, he's probably going to win 8 medals period and that's an enormous feat. Second, the field is much harder than it was in 1972 as evidenced by South Africa's win in the relay. Third, the kid is only 19. Let him go out and have fun for God's sake and just be appreciative that he swims for us and not Australia.

My second rant has to do with men's basketball. I personally feel that there was only one Dream Team and that was the '92 team. All others are just pale imitations so stop calling them that. Second, a lot of people seemed to have expected this, including me, so why is it a big deal that they lost. We all knew what the problems with this team were so how is it such a shock? And I don't want to hear if they had other superstars like Kobe, Shaq or KG they wouldn't have lost. This is not a team. They are not balanced, they have no perimeter shooting and they can't play the fundamentals of the game. This is a function of the deterioration of basketball in this country. Basketball used to be fun to watch with strategy, movement and balance. But as we said goodbye to the talent of the 90's, we gave way to prima donnas who never learned the strategy of the game and just came in with raw talent. Today, I can't watch a regular season basketball because its so boring. There is either a drive on the baseline for a dunk or a three point attempt. No one can work the middle and bury the inside jumper anymore. Honestly, the last good basketball game I remember seeing was the 1998 finals. I'd still opt to watch a game from the 80's or 90's over anything on today. Now the Americans are going to see what that rashness has done to them as the Europeans and South Americans wipe the floor with them.