Olympics

So, no Bode or Apollo tonight.

But The Flying Tomato takes a Gold in a pretty impressive snowboarding competition, which was cool to watch.

I was watching a few tapes that I have of the 2004 games, and I got some good moments on tape, like the Nemov riots and the Men's Overall, both in gymnastics. The Nemov thing is probably one of the greatest moments that I've seen in sports. Here is the former all around gold medalist, older and not doing so well. He gets on the High Bar and does a simple but phenomenally impressive routine. And the judges murder him on the score.

The crowd goes absolutely crazy. Here's a Russian in Greece, but everyone in the room knows who this guy is. Four years ago, this was the best athlete in the world, and now he's on the bottom of the rankings. People are screaming and yelling and the judges stop the competition. The head of the judging committee comes does, confers with judges who gave the two lowest scores, and they change the scores, which is basically unheard of. The crowd precipitated a score change, which is pretty amazing.

Still, he's at the bottom, and people are still pissed. Finally Nemov has to stand up, get back on the floor. He gestures thanks to the people, and then asks them to quiet down. They haven't shut up by the time the next competitor starts though, although once it's in progress they shift to cheering for him. That was Paul Hamm, who won the gold with that routine.

I love the Olympics, which is odd because, as I think I've already pointed out that I'm not a sports person. But the Olympics are inspiring me. Ever since I've been a little kid, I've watched them, and I've imagined. Now that almost all of the competitors are younger than I, I've pretty much had to give up dreams.

If I could have, I would be a lot more physical than I am. I'm really intellectual, but I don't want to be. There's stuff that I want to do with that, true, but it's the athleticism that I admire.

It's like there's a part of me that's missing. You look at Ohno, or Miller, or Hamm, or Michael Phelps or Nemov, and they all have this ability to do the work. It's not the concentration. I can concentrate for a few minutes just fine. It's the ability to get the hell out of the door in the morning.

Is it fear? It might be.

Well, so no Olympics for me, ever. But I can still watch, and with enough suspension of disbelief, maybe even dream.

Super Bowl

I'm pretty sure that I've now managed to miss the Super Bowl. I was planning on being asleep for most of it, but that didn't work out so well.

Regardless, the television hasn't been turned on. I don't remember which teams were playing, and until I go into work tonight I won't find out out. Once I'm there, I'll have to know, because people will ask me, because I'm a guy. Previously, I've thought about wearing a badge that screams "I'm gay!" on days like this, but I suspect that my bosses won't take that well.

It's not a gay thing, I don't think, this dislike of organized American sports. I think it's a by product of growing up gay. I'm not saying that it's like this for all gay men, but for me, being gay meant having a certain fear of interacting with guys on their turf. That fear led to separation, and separation leads to an aversion to group sports.

So, I guess that I'm just not interested now because I wasn't interested then.

And of course, I'm conveniently forgetting the geek thing at the moment. If you're an in a situation where forward momentum is stymied by an equal and opposite force, you're in a situation where the intelligent thing to do is redefine the rules of the game, if you can. Football makes no sense.

On the upside, tonight's my Friday. Working 3 days a week is cool, as long as you can live on 24 hours worth of work. My father offered me a job, but since he can't actually pay me, I'm not really sure that I want to put myself through the pain of taking it. But my last visit with him was actually really nice.

Still, I'm not used to having so much free time. For the last three and a half years I've been working somewhere around 60 hours a week. In Miami, I held down two full time jobs, and here I've been going to school full time, and then working weekends. Without cable television and a desktop computer, it's bizarre how much time I spend doing nothing.