TGWTG User Blogs

This article is in a separate continuity from Worth a Look or Just for Laughs, so if you follow those, neither is impacted here. Instead this is a random rambling, devoid of rhyme or reason. It's a trip into my fragile damaged psyche full or just... awkwardness.

Or that's the premise at least.

In truth this blog wishes to address the Olympics, and the apparent fact that no one cares anymore. Obviously that's a hyperbole because people do care. It's watched by millions, and witnessed live by Americans (who this article focuses mostly on, so fuck off foreigner-unless you're the Foreigner, in which case I'd love to hear "Double Vision") at Beijing. It receives tons of press, and easily dominates the airwaves. It's featured on four different stations on basic cable networks, and is the culmination of years of work for these athletes. But still, no one gives a damn.

I'll admit that I am not into most of these sports. Chances are if a sport doesn't have body slams or the New York Giants in it, I won't be watching. I remember painfully sitting through bull riding and white water rafting on the television at my grandmother's one agonizing weekend, and wishing that her old hard candies were laced with arsenic. Even American classics like baseball and basketball bore me; though I can watch either assuming the right conditions are met (i.e. beer is available). Swimming however you would have to strap me down in some Clockwork Orange fashion to watch. If I had to endure synchronized diving on a national level I think I would kill myself. Aside from the ability of seeing plenty of skin tight outfits I have no reason to watch gymnastics. And no reason at all to watch the women's! Ha-ha! Gay joke!

And yet when the Olympics roll around I go under a total 180, and suddenly watch the next Michael Phelps event like a giddy school girl with pictures of him on the wall. I mean he's no Liam Neeson, but... getting off topic I am. Call it blind patriotism, but I freaking love the Olympics. There's so much drama there that you almost choke on it. God when you see that 17 year old gymnast who broke her ankle only four months before the finals you are weeping with tears as she sticks the dismount. Or maybe that's just me, but it's still pretty powerful. Perhaps the reason I hate most of these sports is because I never see them to their full capacity, but at the Olympics I'm witnessing the best the world has to offer in that sport. I'm witnessing the best swimmers the world has to offer. Fuck Robin Hood, these are the best archers on the entire planet! These are the best damn synchronized divers on Earth! Okay, that last one still isn't impressive because I just can't see someone training for that. It seems so... silly. Still, the drama! Oh the drama!

I sat there, furious in a pile of my own anger as ranked 23 Latvia defeated Team USA's men volleyball team. That duo was ranked number 2 behind the host country of China, and we lost against a country I believed was fictional and created for the sole purpose of letting Dr. Doom rule it! Yet at the same time I shouted and squealed as Jason Lezak caught up with the French team in the 4x100m relay and won by eight hundredths of a second. Eight hundredths of a second separated the smelly French (I kid Benzaie! You know you're the Eiffel Tower of Awesome!), and the hope that Michael Phelps could go down as the greatest Olympian alive. He's already won more medals than anyone else, and now he just has to win more than anyone else has in a single Olympics! Did you know that Phelps individually has won more gold medals than the country of Mexico has won in its entire existence? Hat dances strangely aren't an event.

So why don't people watch the Olympics when they provide so much drama? Well I guess because they all heart dudes, or rather they don't want to. I can understand that, I mean although this is tetra annual event, in contrast I may watch two of the games of the NBA Finals per decade, but again the Olympics are such a different form of event. It's historic, and much more so than 42 Superbowls or 100 World Series. This has been around for centuries, and there's a certain charm to it. It's hard to realize just how epic the Olympics can be, especially with the over the top ceremony. Only person to do anything crazy was Hitler, but that's a story for another day. There is a story to each Olympic event, and the announcers do a great job sucking you in.

I got sucked into indoor team men's volleyball. Volleyball, without women in bikinis and sand, and it's inside. I watched it for two hours! How?! I would never watch volleyball even if it was teams of women naked and instead of playing volleyball they're making out with each other while pouring whipped dairy toppings all over each other. Okay, actually I would watch that, but regular volleyball never! Never, I say! So here I am, watching two foreign teams play volleyball. Not even well known teams. It was like Bulgaria and Venezuela. How would care who won this match? As someone who couldn't give two craps about those random 32 seeded teams (Curse you Latvia! May Dr. Doom rule you with a violent fist) why was I watching them?

So here I am, trying to encourage you all to watch as well. I've heard too many people of my age group saying "I don't watch", or "I don't care". I can't really blame anyone, but it is the freaking Olympics. If you're going to watch anything athletic, then you might as well view the best-except with American Football because that's only highlighted by the Superbowl. Which I might add the New York Giants won thank you very much.

All in all the Olympics come around only once every four years... the good Olympics anyway, so why not give it a view? It's got a surprising amount of drama and emotion to it, and it's seeing the very pinnacle that mankind has reached. These are our best swimmers, our best track stars, and our best uh... archers? Yeah, our best archers! If you have the tiniest scrap of nationalism in you then it is your duty to sit in front of the television holding a greatly reduced size of your countries flag whilst screaming profanities at the TV because the dumb 16 year old gymnast screwed up her dismount and cost your team the gold. Stupid bitch.