those cats were fast as lightning

I had an epiphany. Bob Costas has been more ridiculous than usual, and Mary Carillo's color commentary segments have sometimes bordered on offensive; the combination has made me question what NBC is thinking in not reining them in a little. However, then I realized -- anyone who has a tendency to be offended is already boycotting the Games. Just think -- all those people who can't overlook human rights violations, censorship, crass commercialism, exploitation of young athletes, etc., have already decided not to watch these Games. Which, by extension, means these may be the easiest Olympics for Bob Costas to host. He can do ridiculous things (like keep pressing Hugh McCutcheon, the volleyball coach whose father-in-law was stabbed to death randomly at the start of the Olympics, in an effort to see if he can strike ratings gold by squeezing some tears out of a stoic but tragedy-scarred coach), but as long as his offenses do not top the things that China does (like send two eighty-year-olds to labor reeducation camp for filing a request to protest the destruction of their homes in the construction of the Olympic buildings), no one cares. Brilliant!

My favorite part of any night is watching Bob Costas try to one-up his fellow commentators. I don't know how successful he is with Cris Collingsworth, since as I mentioned last night, I always skip him. But when Bela Karolyi was commentating, he showed video of Bela a couple of times in an apparent effort to embarass him. And whenever Mary Carillo gives one of her color commentaries, he always has to have the last jhoke -- in the case of tonight, this was quoting the 'Kung Fu Fighting' song because she had done a feature on kung fun monks. Mary Carillo's good for a few laughs too; I scored big with Katrina by claiming, in answer to Oniel's question about what Mary Carillo used to do, that she used to be John McEnroe before getting a sex change. Considering that she seems more masculine than Bob Costas, this is potentially believable.

So anyway, today was good; work wasn't bad, and then Oniel and Katrina came over to watch the Olympics. We ordered takeout Chinese, and it turned out to be really good -- and super close to my apartment (less than a block away), which is awesome. Oniel also brought 'traditional Chinese desserts' - in this case, well-received cookies that he bought at a convenience store on the way over. Katrina struck out with her dates, but only because I was so full from Chinese that I didn't have room or inclination for them :(

We had a fabulous time; I showed them some of last night's coverage, in particular focusing on the devastating disqualifications of both of the American 4x100m relay teams and the scathing commentary/dissection of the USA Track and Field organization by the track commentators after the event. Then we watched most of tonight live, while discussing other ridiculous tings (like how Oniel wants some of Michael Phelps' elusive chest hair, mostly because it seems impossible to get; or the origin of Cynthia Potter, the diving commentator; or the awesome glasses of Cuba's Dayron Robles, who rocks a style all his own (to the point that Tammy dubbed him a 'cheeterd' for being half cheetah/half nerd), but makes me wonder if he could be even faster if his socialized medicine could provide him with contact lenses.

Oniel left about twenty minutes ago, and I seriously considered going straight to bed without writing a post. But I've gone a long time w/out skipping, and I wanted to continue. Also, Katrina said/threatened that she will read in the morning to see if I left out any crucial issues, and I would hate to disappoint. Finally, I'm going to start another blog (already linked to above) so that I can start collecting content for a future romance novel website, so I need to make sure I'm dedicating time to both projects and don't let this particular form of communication fall by the wayside. Now, though, I'm falling asleep over my keyboard, so it's really time for bed!