XXX

Does anyone teach Roman numerals in school anymore?

Obviously, the title of this blog has the potential of being wildly misconstrued. To clarify for those who have been hiding in an undersea air pocket living on kelp, we are in the middle of the thirtieth Olympiad. An X in Roman numerals denotes our number ten (10). Thus triple X denotes ten plus ten plus ten (10 + 10 + 10), or thirty (30).

Fair warning: This is not going to be a warm and fuzzy blog about the Olympics.

I'll try not to be hateful because that's not really my style, but my lovely wife will tell you that when I get perturbed about something, my lips tend to thin out and I get an expression on my face that is apparently hateful-like. I'm working on that.

Let's start with the XXX Olympiad. Thirty isn't a very large number, considering the Olympics started in Greece somewhere in the neighborhood of 776 BC. By definition, an Olympiad is a four year period (beginning in January) during which the Summer Olympics are set to occur. I'm no math wizard but four times thirty (4 x 30) equals one hundred and twenty (120). If it's the year 2012 now, and we subtract 120, we get 1892. But according to Wiki-know-it-all-Pedia, the first Olympiad of the modern era started in 1896.

If you love math and/or obsolete number systems and want to know all there is to know about how we (someone) decided to number the Olympic games, please go here. Because I'm done with that (poor grammar intended).

NBC has the sole broadcast rights for Olympic television coverage. You can go here and find NBC's mother lode Olympics website. On the surface, a veritable cornucopia of Olympic media. In reality, a frustrating web site I've only used to get results for the events I was mildly interested in. In fact, unless you live in the UK or the USA's Eastern timezone, it can be a real challenge to stumble upon television coverage for the event you want to watch. Of course, that assumes that you really are an Olympic fan, because in this Age of the Internet, chances are you already know the outcome of the event and you're just watching the tape-delay broadcast to revel in the (replayed) moment. It's only natural that NBC wants the prime time audience; after all most people aren't home to watch live coverage during the day. Personally, I even find it hard to watch tape delays of events I'm really interested in - especially if I already know the final results. And I just won't go around the office all day with my fingers in my ears bleating, "La la la la la la." to block out any spoilers that might be lurking in the break room.

Olympic swimmers are alien lifeforms

Speaking of busted coverage (that's right, the NFL and major college football seasons are almost here!!), Mediacom's onscreen programming guide shows blurbs about when specific events will be on; only, when I tune in at the appointed time, it's usually nothing remotely resembling what was advertised to be broadcast in that time slot. I still haven't been able to catch any of the women's soccer - not just the USA team's games - when the guides say they are being played. It's not rocket science: if you want people to watch, tell them when the events are on television. And then show them at that time on the correct channel!!!

Despite my inability to watch any of the Olympic events I truly wanted to see, I have been inundated with a stream of Olympic media. Here are a few observations from that onslaught:

• LoLo Jones is a fine hurdler although there are some sour grapes out there (you know who you are) that think LoLo is the next coming of Anna Kournikova. Frankly, that's not even fair unless you consider the fact that Anna K won some major doubles championships, and was ranked number one in the world in doubles in 1999. She was also reached a career high singles ranking of 8 in 2000. Oh, and they're both very attractive. Stinks to be LoLo. Not.
• Michael Phelps is the greatest Olympic athlete...ever. See? Potheads can be productive
• Men's soccer...oh yeah, we didn't qualify. Gabon, a small country in West Africa with a total population of about 1.5 million did. Thanks a lot, Little League.
• I recognized three things in the opening ceremonies: Kenneth Branagh, Daniel Craig and the Queen. There were peasants, an industrial revolution, some pretty fly special effects with fireworks made to look like molten iron. But the crazy plot line reminded me of a Stanley Kubrick story - good thing Matt and Meredith were there to narrate or I would've been completely lost!
• Women in the Olympics were everywhere! A Saudi woman in judo, a lot of hyphenated beach volleyball players and, frankly, except for Michael Phelps and Usain Bolt, women are all I've seen - gymnastics, swimming, diving, volleyball, more gymnastics, more swimming, more volleyball, beach volleyball, water polo, track, field...not that that's a bad thing but I heard someone complaining about women in the Olympics on the radio the other day. I don't see the reasoning.
• And speaking of Usain Bolt, he's turning the marquee track events into WWE. Stop it!

Top Olympic moments so far, in no particular order:

• Oscar Pistorius (RSA). Double amputee in the 400 meters; do his prosthetic legs help him or give him an unfair advantage?  I don't know, but unless they have nuclear power cells it's still his own muscle and coordination that allow him to run. Awesome job!
• Gabby.
• US Women vs. Canada (Soccer): Wow. I had the live text of this game on at work; it was exciting and I didn't even get to see it. Like War of the Worlds on the radio must've been.
• US Women vs. Japan (Soccer): USA. Gold Medal. Hope Solo was a rock between the posts and Carli Lloyd was a female Messi. Epic! (Oh, and I couldn't even FIND the live text feed for this one until the second half and that was on some obscure web site. Thanks again NBC.

I have scored this many goals!

Alright, all things considered, the Olympics aren't that bad. I definitely appreciate the years of work that many of the athletes put in and the hardships they endure through training and qualification (excluding the likes of LeBron and co.).

And I'll continue to follow the action as haphazardly as NBC allows me to.

After all, I have to do something until the World Cup qualifying starts!

What are your thoughts on this, the XXX Olympiad?

X (just one)