The Michael Phelps Photographic Medal Timeline

Look at medal by medal through his incredible career as the great Michael Phelps retires on a golden note.  I'm going to miss him in Rio.

A Tale of Two Olympics

Here's some food for thought.

"30 Rock" 1, London Olympics 0

"30 Rock" is a darn amusing little sitcom. Take a look at this scene with Michael Sheen and Tina Fey. It made me laugh out loud.

"I don't want to go back to England.
I can't suffer through the London Olympics."

Well, the London Games could be shambolic. I mean, just look at their newly unveiled mascots.

Revise the Medal Count From the 2000 Sydney Olympics

Heh. I'm still waiting for something similar about the Beijing Games' Chinese gymnasts.

Live-Blogging the Vancouver Opening Ceremonies

The Vancouver Games are starting soon!!

OK, the ceremonies haven't even begun yet, and I'm already annoyed by NBC reporters. So far the worst offender is Matt Lauer, who might as well be called the Beijing Poodle (remember this?). Bob Costas was asking Lauer about the opening ceremonies, and Lauer launches into a drooling fanboy reminiscence about how awesome Beijing's were, how they "rocked the world," and how they "set the bar impossibly high" for all other possible Olympics. WHAT?

Matt, sweetie, this is 2010, not 2008, and you are sitting in VANCOUVER. Do you even realize that you've just insulted your Canadian hosts? You just said that Beijing was so ZOMG FRICKING AWESOME that no one else could possibly be anywhere near as good. HELLO, MATT. In about an hour, the Canadians are going to open their Games, and they are going to do it with a huge effort that they've worked hard to put together. How about focusing on the CANADIANS in the here-and-now instead of blabbering on and on about Beijing from 2 years ago? GEEZ.

Thank goodness for Costas, who simply said that the Canadians were planning a different kind of show, something more intimate and comfy, something to make Canadian hearts swell with pride and make everyone else say, "I can't wait to visit Canada!"

(I have visited Canada, and I loved it! I plan actually on getting back later this year.)

8:48 PM: "We Are The World" is 25 years old??? I remember it when I was tiny. Time to play "Name That Celebrity." LL Cool J?

8:57 PM: Oh, for crap's sake. A pro-census commercial. Really? Really?

8:59 PM: The ceremonies are dedicated to Nodar Kumaritashvili, the 21-year-old Georgian luger who died today in a crash. RIP, poor Nodar.

9:00 PM: FINALLY. Let's get started, EH?

9:02 PM: Prerequisite video montage of pretty scenery.

9:04 PM: Snowboarding through the Olympic Rings. Nice!

9:07 PM: Ooooh, Mounties!

9:08 PM: The total population of Canada is really only 33 million? Their land mass is VAST.

9:09 PM: "O Canadaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa"! The singer's doing a fine job, but all I'm really thinking about is: "I want that red dress. And those shoes." She's almost making this sound like a sultry lounge act, isn't she?

9:14 PM: Massive shout-out to/by indigenous/First Nations groups. The huge blue-lit totems are COOL. Different aboriginal nations of the Pacific Northwest have such colorful outfits!

9:20 PM: I admit it, I have a short attention span. Where is the Parade of Nations?

9:22 PM: Greece! And who is that adorable Albanian flagbearer?

9:25 PM: The Austrians look so FORMAL! They're all wearing SUITS!

Azerbaijan: Dude, I love your pants!

9:27 PM: I am LOVING how the Bermuda contingent is wearing red Bermuda shorts.

Brazil. The NBC reporters can't resist mentioning how Rio won the Summer Games and beat out Chicago to do it.

9:30 PM: The Cayman Islanders are wearing big floppy straw hats. Fugly or fabulous? You tell me.

China's 90-person-strong contingent enters.

9:39 PM: Had to go get my laundry out of the dryer. Did I miss anything?

The Georgian team with black arm bands. The Georgians receive a standing ovation from the sympathetic crowd.

9:40 PM: Here come the Germans. Winter powerhouse, but ... PINK-AND-YELLOW VESTS??? Definitely fugly.

9:42 PM: The Brits look smashing! Crisp white jackets. LOVE the berets.

Those aboriginal dancers have been dancing for a while now. Tired yet?

9:47 PM: The 100+ Italians somehow manage to look like fashion plates. Again. It doesn't seem fair, does it?

9:50 PM: That Kazakh headdress is INTENSE, man.

9:51 PM: The South Koreans are here. This time they are NOT marching together with the North Koreans. Relations are bad -- well, DUH.

9:59 PM: Norway's in the house. They're gonna be HUGE.

There are so many tiny contingents. It's really kind of charming. They're here to have a good time and take part. Isn't that the whole point?

Russia: There are 178 athletes?! They're waving ... what? fuzzy blue teddy bears?

10:06 PM: Taking a fashion tip from the Slovakians: black coat, red scarf.

OK, I'm starting to get tired here. Are we almost done?

10:09 PM: 146 Swiss athletes?! Tiny nation, GINORMOUS contingent.

10:10 PM: Here's "Chinese Taipei" with that STUPID FAKE FLAG. I hate that thing.

Come on, come on, Team USA.

10:12 PM: YAY! 216 Team USA athletes stroll in -- with awesome knit hats that have moose on them!

10:14 PM: Team Canada! It brings down the house with 206 athletes in some eye-popping red outfits. I am loving the red-and-black plaid scarves too. There's a shot to the stands of Canadian PM Stephen Harper.

10:18 PM: OK, OK, on to the cultural bit of the ceremonies, please. MM is getting tired. I had a full day on campus today and really want to hit the hay. But I really want to see the lighting of the flame. Unfortunately, I'll have to listen to a bunch of IOC blowhards yap first, though. Errrrgh.

10:20 PM: Nelly Furtado is CANADIAN? I knew Bryan Adams is. Then again, a lot of entertainers in the US turn out to be actually Canadian. Including Captain Kirk! Nelly's platform heels, though, just look painful. Hey, I'll do all sorts of crazy stuff in the name of looking good, but not those platform heels.

10:27 PM: Snowing indoors! Oh, and here is some fringe-wearing guy who's supposed to be the protagonist of the cultural bit, of swooping around different regions of the Great White North.

DONALD SUTHERLAND IS CANADIAN?!

The artificial Northern Lights are awesome!

10:30 PM: A gigantic lighted bear! I'M IN LOVE.

10:33 PM: A faux natural disaster. Now if someone tries to make some comment about global warming, I am going to scream and mute the TV.

Orcas and aboriginal patterns and salmon, oh my!

10:36 PM: Cool lighted totem poles. But I feel a cheesy dance number coming on.

10:37 PM: Sarah McLachlan, wearing a ludicrous necklace that looks like something a 3-year-old made with paste and sequins. I actually like Sarah's music, even if it's so ... calming. The Cine-Sib used to call Alessandra "She Who Interprets Sarah McLachlan Videos."

10:38 PM: I knew it. Cheesy dance number. Boooooooo!

10:44 PM: A bewitched canoe? With a fiddler in it? I think I prefer the Fiddler on the Roof.

OK, punk fiddling. It looks like FUN. I have no musical talent at all, but if I did, I'd want to learn to fiddle. But you want fiddle virtuoso madness? 2 words: Natalie MacMaster. She's from Nova Scotia.

10:51 PM: DANCE FEVER. OK, people with sparklers on their heels -- fun effect.

10:57 PM: Am bored now and surfing recipe websites. What do you think of this?

10:58 PM: It's not an Olympic opening ceremony until you have someone dangling on wires and floating through the air. Maybe we should make wire-dangling a Summer Games sport.

11:05 PM: OK, totally awesome mountains and skiers/snowboarders on wires.

11:09 PM: WHY DO PEOPLE ALWAYS HAVE TO PUT LIGHTS ON THEMSELVES? They look like they have smallpox that lights up with glow-in-the-dark pus.

11:11 PM: Poetry?! About Canada? No, no, no! "We are an experiment gone right for a change"?!

11:12 PM: OMG, MAKE IT STOP! MAKE IT STOP!

11:12 PM: Muting the TV. Ugh. This "poet" (and I use the term loosely) belongs in some dingy coffeehouse during a poetry slam, not on stage at the Games. Beat poet? Yeah, I'd like to beat the poet, all right.

11:16 PM: Oh, great. IOC big shots are taking their turn at the mike. Groan. Did that windbag just use the words "through the magic of television"?! *gag*

11:18 PM: "the greatest winter athletes of all time." Shut up, you Kanye wannabe.

"You are the beacon of hope." He actually said that. This guy's incredible banality is putting me to sleep FAST.

11:21 PM: Hurry up and light the flame so we get on with competing already! MM wants some ski jumping tomorrow, dang it.

11:22 PM: I am SO TEMPTED to mute the TV and just listen to my "Glee" soundtrack CD until I see the Olympic flame enter the stadium.

11:24 PM: Listening now to the "Glee" cast sing "Jump." I listen to enough blowhards in my school life. I don't need to hear yet another blowhard in my off hours!

11:26 PM: Jacques Rogge's turn to flap his gums at the podium. YAWN. In an act of subversive sarcasm, I now listen to "My Life Would Suck Without You."

11:30 PM: Light the flame. Light the flame. Light the flame.

11:31 PM: FINALLY. The Governor-General declares the Games open. The lights dim, and we get ... a dopey song by k.d. lang. UGH.

Well, OK, no matter how much the song sucks, at least it's not "Imagine." Yeah, I know that tune is a pop culture favorite, but I hate it.

11:39 PM: Finally, here's the Olympic flag. Carried by Donald Sutherland! Among others. Can we please hurry up and set something on fire? Mamma wants to go to bed!

11:42 PM: Can that girl actually fit through doorways with that hair???

11:45 PM: This song is going on forever, and it's done in full opera style. It's unbearable. I don't care if it IS the Olympic hymn. Hello, mute button. Oh, how I love you.

11:46: A moment of silence for Nodar Kumaritashvili. 21 is far too young.

11:47 PM: Oooh, the athletes' oath. We'll see how many days go by until the first doping scandal hits. I will wager ... 4 days.

11:50 PM: La Parisienne texts: "Burninate already." Amen, sister. SET SOMETHING ON FIRE. IT'S NOT THAT HARD.

11:53 PM: FINALLY!!!!! THE FLAME! *MM weeps with joy.*

11:56 PM: JUST BURNINATE ALREADY. BURNINATE EVERYTHING.

Finally, Wayne Gretzky.

11:58 PM: Newscasters are wondering if there's a technical glitch. Where's the cauldron?

12:00 AM: THAT's the cauldron?

12:01 AM: FIRE!!! YAY!!!!!

12:02 AM: Fireworks make me happy.

12:03 AM: Gretzky to light the exterior cauldron. There's something deliciously pagan about this whole fire business.

12:06 AM: How long, do you think, before some stupid Greenie complains that the Olympic Flame contributes to global warming?

Joe Biden?! As long as Crazy Uncle Joe keeps his trap shut and doesn't embarrass the whole country with another of his nutty utterances, fine. I guess.

"It takes a lot of guts to risk failure in front of everybody." REALLY, Joe? You risk and do it all the time yourself, pal.

12:13 AM: The newscasters are getting on my nerves. Costas is OK, but Lauer? Let's set Matt on fire too.

I can't help hitting back at Matt. It wasn't Beijing 2008 that set an impossibly high standard. In terms of torch lighting, it was Barcelona 1992. Nobody has even come close to this sheer awesomeness.

12:19 AM: "Good night from Vancouver." Well, it was fun and all. Now let's get to the REAL fun, shall we? Tomorrow we get to ski jumping!

MM, signing off.

Vancouver 2010: Let the Games Begin -- and Meet Taiwan's Sole Winter Olympian

The Vancouver Games begin today! Here is a great collection of photos from the torch relay.

Foxtrot and I love the Winter Games -- quite possibly even more than the Summer Games. To quote Foxtrot, "There's more stuff to do in the winter! In the summer, there are only so many ways you can run and swim and jump." Then again, that girl does love skiing.

Anyhoo, I'm looking forward to my 4-yearly indulgence in goofy sports that I hardly ever see outside the Olympics. I want some ski jumping and some curling! (I actually tried curling once, and it is SO MUCH HARDER than it looks.)

On a related note, some friends and I were talking about sports that SHOULD be in the Winter Games. How about snowmobile racing, dogsledding, ice sculpture making, and competitive snowball throwing? Come on, that would be pretty awesome.

Check out this cool photo essay of "unlikely" winter Olympians, including Taiwan's only representative in Vancouver, 24-year-old Chih-Hung Ma of Pingtung (my dad's hometown!) Ma will be competing in the luge. Good luck!

I'll save you my usual rant about "Chinese Taipei." You've already heard it plenty of times.

I'll tell you something else too. I'm so glad the Games are in Canada, a free society and open democracy. Oh, there will be the usual host-country displays of pride, but there won't be the ridiculous shenanigans of the type we saw in Beijing. Along with the the lapdog media that swallowed all the propaganda hook, line, and sinker. Geez, who else is glad that the "Beijingoism" is a memory?

Now we can get on with more important things, like watching people hurl themselves down mountains, perform triple axels, and club each other in the pursuit of a slippery puck. YES!

China's 56 Ethnic Groups

Neatorama has a very cool link that has this good comment:

. . . during the opening ceremonies of the last Olympic games, . . . a parade of 56 children representing those groups was later revealed to have been comprised of 56 Han Chinese children wearing the ethnic clothing of the other groups. Now there is a photo essay which appears to correct that gaffe. All of the ethnic groups are portrayed in professionally composed group portraits, with the subjects wearing traditional dress and often carrying traditional instruments or tools.

Learn something. Oh, and notice how the photo essay includes ethnic minorities of Taiwan. Hm.

Recall too that reportedly only half the population in China speaks Mandarin.

Thoughts on 60 Years of Chinese Communist Rule

In recent days, the Canadians (long famed for their politeness and likeability) have nevertheless taken the lead on speaking the unvarnished truth about nasty regimes in the world. Let me wave a maple leaf in tribute, eh!

So, in contrast to the recent wicked stupidity of some Americans cheerleading for China, I give you this piquantly appropriate look at 60 years of Chinese Communism as expressed by Canada's National Post. Here is a piece of it:

. . . life in the PRC means having no freedom of religion or expression, and experiencing the full powers of the arbitrary police state, even if they are used more sparingly. China has enormous ecological problems, and the one-child policy -- the hallmark of the PRC's second thirty years --has wreaked havoc with its human ecology. State regulation of family size -- breeding licenses, forced sterilization, coerced abortions -- is a massive, systematic violation of human rights, even if human rights advocates prefer to avert their eyes.

. . . The epic tragedy of the PRC is proven by simply looking at what the Chinese have accomplished wherever they do not live under Beijing's rule: Hong Kong until 1997, Taiwan, Singapore, not to mention Vancouver and Toronto, as Canadians well know.

The second 30 years have been far better than the first thirty for the PRC, if only because the regime no longer engages in the mass slaughter of its citizens. China is no longer the worst place in the world to live. But compared to what might have been, the PRC is the last great failure of the 20th century that endures into the 21st.

Recall too that fully two-thirds of China's population -- some 800 million rural people, half of whom do not have access to safe drinking water (400 million people? that's more than the entire population of the US) -- still live in poverty far from the shiny, impressive new urban centers that Beijing likes to show the world (remember the 2008 Propaganda Games -- er, I mean, Beijing Olympics?). They're the invisible people, ignored by the outside world and exploited and ill-treated by Beijing and government officials (like this) and often pay a terrible price for the "new China" (recall "cancer villages"). Who remembers them?

Beijing Olympics Rewind: IOC Now Investigating Chinese Women Gymnasts

As reported by the New York Times. Better late than never? Also did anybody actually believe for a moment that the gymnasts weren't underage?

Amusement of the Day: Dave Barry Looks Back at 2008

The end of the year is fast approaching, so it is time for retrospectives! Humorist Dave Barry has his all ready. Do take a look. Here's a piece of it:

A mesmerizing speaker, Obama electrifies voters with his exciting new ideas for change, although people have trouble remembering exactly what these ideas are because they are so darned mesmerized. Some people become so excited that they actually pass out. These are members of the press corps.

*Giggle*

Here's even more:

Internationally, the big story is the Olympic games, which begin under a cloud of controversy when journalists in Beijing, who were promised unfettered Internet access by the Chinese government, discover that no matter what address they enter into their browsers, they wind up on Chairman Mao's Facebook page (he has 1.3 billion friends). But even the critics are blown away by the spectacular opening ceremony, which features the entire population of Asia performing the Electric Slide.

The games themselves are dominated by swimmer Michael Phelps, who wins eight gold medals, thus putting himself on a sounder financial footing than the U.S. Treasury.

Barack Obama, in a historic triumph, is elected the nation's first black president since the second season of "24," setting off an ecstatically joyful and boisterous all-night celebration that at times threatens to spill out of the New York Times newsroom. Obama, following through on his promise to bring change to Washington, quickly begins assembling an administration consisting of a diverse group of renegade outsiders, ranging all the way from lawyers who attended Ivy League schools and then worked in the Clinton administration to lawyers who attended entirely different Ivy league schools and then worked in the Clinton administration, to Hillary Clinton.

The end of the story contains this glorious caveat: "Dave Barry is making most of this up. But not all."

Beijing Olympics Watch: Thousands of Peasants Face Man-Made Drought

SURPRISE. Not really:

THOUSANDS of Chinese farmers face ruin because their water has been cut off to guarantee supplies to the Olympics in Beijing, and officials are now trying to cover up a grotesque scandal of blunders, lies and repression.

In the capital, foreign dignitaries have admired millions of flowers in bloom and lush, well-watered greens around its famous sights. But just 90 minutes south by train, peasants are hacking at the dry earth as their crops wilt, their money runs out and the work of generations gives way to despair, debt and, in a few cases, suicide.

In between these two Chinas stands a cordon of roadblocks and hundreds of security agents deployed to make sure that the one never sees the other.

The water scandal is a parable of what can happen when a demanding global event is awarded to a poor agricultural nation run by a dictatorship; and the irony is that none of it has turned out to be necessary.

. . . About 31,000 people around Baoding are said to have lost their homes or land.

Disgusting. Read the whole thing. More here with a slideshow that should make you cringe.

But haven't I been telling you forever that the shiny face of Olympics-ready Beijing conceals an entire underworld of misery that the CCP big shots don't want you to see? that they feel no qualms about steamrolling over their own people? that the vast populations of invisible peasants are the ones who suffer the most? Besides, man-made disasters are a fine old tradition in Communist China, doncha know?

PS: Hey, Obama, do you still want the US to emulate China in our infrastructure? Wise up.

Fun Video of the Day + Satire Alert: Usain Bolt Celebrates!

Yes, yes, IOC big shot Jacques Rogge wasn't impressed with the Lightning Bolt of Jamaica's post-race antics, but plenty of other people were . . . including the wits who produced this amusing video. Enjoy, as my humorous farewell to the Beijing Games:

Beijing Olympics Watch: What's In a Name?

Here's a great little piece about turning English names into their Chinese versions at the Beijing Games. Check it out: it has audio files too so you can actually hear what you're reading about.

FYI: "Michael Phelps" turns into "Maikeer Feierpusi." Really!

Beijing Olympic Watch: Sports Reporter Vulture! Plus a Rant

This sports writer is apparently grinning with malicious glee at the idea of the US being toppled from its Olympic dominance.

While trumpeting about Team China, he goes on and on in this vein about Team USA:

Although the USA achieved more medals than in Athens four years ago, the American public were growing increasingly restive by the comedy of errors and big-name drop-outs: a softball team that flunked taking a fourth successive Olympic title; Tyson Gay, the world champion, not even getting to contest a sprint final; Daniel Cormer, captain of the US wrestling team down before he even got out onto the mat, embarrassingly carted off to hospital because he became dehydrated trying to make the weigh-in.

. . .The USA might be pretending not to have noticed, but there is a new Olympic order of priority led by China, whichever league table you want to read.

Well, OK, I grant that mentioned athletes, all of whom were carrying heavy expectations, did not do well. I grant that two US track-and-field relay teams crashed out in the qualifying heats because they failed to pass the baton successfully. I grant that US sprinters got outpaced by the amazing Lightning Bolt of Jamaica. I grant that American divers got massacred by the Chinese. I grant all that and more.

But. BUT. BUT.

DESPITE ALL THAT, despite all the supposed and actual failures, Team USA still won 110 medals -- the highest number of medals of any nation in the Games. I wouldn't start playing the funeral dirge for American sport yet! The writer even concedes that Team USA won more medals in Beijing than in Athens. Yet for him this isn't good enough at all. We're failures, don't you get it! FAILURES!

Only a sour Brit could make an achievement like 110 medals sound like total, abject, prostrate failure. I really find the title of his piece revelatory: "America refuses to accept defeat in Olympic medal count." Why should we "accept defeat"? We weren't defeated! We won 110 medals, of which 36 were gold. Oh, sure, you can retort that China won more golds (51 out of a medal total of 100), but I think it's ludicrous to start crowing that America is doomed in international sports. Oh, please. This sports writer, and people like him, are vultures.

Of course, I've been hearing a lot of whining (or should I say, "whinging") from British journalists about winners at the Beijing Games. Here's an example. Perhaps success really does breed carping envy. Pfft. Apparently now, when you lose, you win. But when you win, you lose. And there are some people so sour, petty, and bitter that they really seem to root for, thirst for, dream of, and lust after the failure of others.

So what do you want me to do? Do you want me to apologize for the glorious successes of Kobe Bryant and the Redeem Team of basketball? For the utterly amazing Michael Phelps? For the American relay swimmers who won gold in the most exciting relay to ever hit an Olympic pool? For Russian-American gymnast Nastia Liukin?

Call me just another ugly American yahoo, but I've still got my foam "We're Number One!" finger and I'm waving it while celebrating the achievements of a great Olympic team that boasted members from all kinds of backgrounds, nationalities, races, colors, ethnic groups, etc.

I'm not denigrating in any way the achievements of Team China, which had some truly splendid athletes. But I'm not about to let this British writer unjustly trash Team USA.

While I'm at it, let me offer my congratulations and best wishes to ALL the athletes who took part.

Friday Fun + Quirky Asia Files: the Lego Olympics

Look at this cute Lego lunacy, created by some Hong Kong fans! The entire project required 300,000 Lego bricks and 4,500 people who had nothing better to do than play with 300,000 Lego bricks.

I still don't like the Bird's Nest stadium, whether it's the real version or the Lego one. The Lego Water Cube is rather cool-looking, though!

Satire Alert: Michael Phelps Returns to His Tank at SeaWorld

The Onion is hilarious.

Beijing Olympic Watch: Fourth Medal for Taiwan

Congratulations to Sung Yu-chi, who won the bronze in tae kwon do in the men's "under 68 kg" category.

This is Taiwan's fourth medal (they've all been bronzes) for these Games. You'll remember the other medalists.

Beijing Olympic Watch: Even the Horses Are Doping

Oh, my!

Beijing Olympic Watch: Third Medal for Taiwan

Congratulations to Chu Mu-yen, the defending Olympic champion, who took bronze this time in the men's tae kwon do competition (category: under 58 kg).

Folks were hoping he would repeat his golden moment from Athens, but a bronze is nothing to laugh at! This is Taiwan's third medal (and third bronze) in these games; the other medalists are women weightlifters Lu Ying-chi and Chen Wei-ling.

Beijing Olympic Watch: Turn In Your Application to Protest and Get a Free Trip to a Labor Camp!

Last time I had complained that no applications for licensed protest had been approved by Chinese authorities.

Now the whole mess of free expression takes a turn. Two elderly women applied to protest, and not only did they not get approval -- they get sentenced to a labor camp too. What a bargain. Blurb:

Two women in their late 70s have been sentenced to a year of "re-education through labor" after they repeatedly sought a permit to demonstrate in one of the official Olympic protest areas, according to family members and human rights advocates.

The women, Wu Dianyuan, 79, and Wang Xiuying, 77, had made five visits to the police this month in an effort to obtain permission to protest what they contended was inadequate compensation for the demolition of their homes in Beijing. During their final visit, on Monday, Public Security officials informed them that they had been given administrative sentences for "disturbing the public order," according to Li Xuehui, Wu's son.

. . . The repeat arrests and detentions of aspiring protesters who appeared to follow official procedures for registering their complaints are perhaps the most striking example of how the Olympics have so far failed to force China to relax political controls, even for the short duration of the games.