Just watched the men’s and women’s BMX event…this was its first year as an Olympic sport..normally I don’t care much if a new sport makes it into the Olympics, but this time around I’m furious that BMX is being added as softball was voted OUT of the 2012 Olympics. Read below:

SINGAPORE - The International Olympic Committee delivered a shocking message to baseball and softball on Friday (06/08/05): Yer out!

The two sports were kicked out of the Olympics, unwanted by international sports officials who felt they were too American for the world sports stage.

The decision, made during a secret vote in Singapore, is effective for the 2012 London Games, meaning the two sports will have a final fling at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The sports, the first eliminated since polo in 1936, are eligible to reapply for the 2016 Games.

U.S. women won all three gold medals since softball joined the Olympics, at the 1996 Atlanta, 2000 Sydney and 2004 Athens Games. American pitcher Lisa Fernandez, a three-time gold medalist, blamed the decision on IOC president Jacques Rogge.

“Rogge has basically conspired against the sports to get them removed. We had done our job as a sport world wide to show we belong,” she said. “I feel one person, the president of the IOC, a person from Europe, has taken it upon himself to ruin the lives of millions, actually billions of women.”

Crystl Bustos, who hit a record five homers during the 2004 Olympics, said the one-sidedness of the softball tournament should not have been used as a factor. The Americans outscored opponents 51-1.

“If that did play a role in the decision, then that’s pretty pathetic,” she said. “I don’t mean to cut anybody down, but it’s supposed to be the best of the best, and if you get knocked for your excellence, then that’s just not right.”

Two-time gold medal-winning infielder Dot Richardson said the Olympic dream “was ripped away from the 126 countries that play the sport of softball, that just vanished.” Source: MSNBC

What the hell happened to the Olympic spirit? So if a nation/individual wins an event 3 times in a row, its ok to vote it out? So let me guess…by that logic if Phelps repeats his performance in London 2012, will 6 swimming events (since he won 6 in 2004) be kicked out of the olympics because it’ll be TOO AMERICAN for the world sports stage. If that’s the case then for the sake of swimming Phelps should withdraw out of the 2012 olympics…because the IOC president Jacques Rogge has a hard on for successful athletes/nations.

In the words of the former IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch:

“For me the olympic spirit is about three things: Athletes, Sport, and Olympic ideals”

Ok and whats sport about? Well besides participating  and all that good politically correct stuff its about WINNING!  So eliminating a sport simply because a country/individual is dominating goes against the olympic spirit in my books.

Oh and btw for those of you not following the olympics very closely this year…Japan beat the US in the finals this year. OMG how did that happen? Wasn’t the sport too American Jacques?

on winning 8 gold medals at a single olympic game and going down in history as the best olympic swimmer of all time.

Watching the quarter finals of the 100m track event…Bolt just ran the 100m under 10 seconds looking really relaxed..Phelps won his 7th gold medal of the games….by 1/100ths of a second! Damn that was close but superman pulled it off!

While all the attention was on Phelps and the 100m track qualifying rounds did anyone catch what 41 year old American swimmer Dara Torres did today during the 50m freestyle swim? Therese Alshammar of Sweden tore her Speedo LZR swimsuit seconds before the race was about to begin and while everyone stepped out to get on the blocks for the start of the race, Therese stayed behind to put on a new suit. The officials are not required to wait in cases like that, but Torres walked over to one of the main officials and told her about Therese’s suit and asked if they could wait for her to make it back…then she walked to the other swimmers and told them that there will be a short delay.

Seconds before a race, athletes normally keep to themselves so that they can focus on the race…but during those critical seconds Torres demonstrated above and beyond sportsmanship by showing regard for someone other then herself.

Oh and then Torres turned around and won her heat! Can’t wait to see her in the finals tomorrow. Afterwards  she was asked why she did what she did and her response was something to the effect that in the pools the others are competitors, but outside of the pool they’re friends.

Now thats just awesome!

I love this Visa commercial -

Narration by Morgan Freeman:

“Maybe it is not where an athlete is from that makes us root for them. Maybe it’s not the flag on their back or the anthem we hear when they win. Maybe it is simply that they are human and we are human, and when they succeed, we succeed.”

Link to Video

So last night while watching some swimming heats and finals, got into a discussion with SP (Yes I have reduced you to your initials muhahaha) and she was talking about how female swimmers don’t look very attractive…..I countered by saying that Stephanie Rice is pretty hot hehe (Isn’t she?)….but she disagreed saying that her body is disproportionate….and wouldn’t believe me when I told her that all good swimmers have disproportionate bodies..including mighty godly history-making stars-and-sun-controlling Michael Phelps. Read an article a few days ago about how his inseam is shorter then usual (He’s 6′4 and wears a 32 inseam…I’m 6 feet tall and wear a 32 inseam), how his torso is wider allowing him to ride higher in the water, how his arm span is longer then usual and so on…

Couldn’t find the exact article that I read, but found another one and posting it here for the other Phelp fans (who probably know this already)…and to win a bet I made with SP

BBC article on Phelps

Of course its not just his physique that makes him superman…its his work ethic. Phelps trains 365 days a week and 40 percent of the time trains twice a day! So the next time you see him win a race almost effortlessly…don’t just credit his physical build!

Btw how cool was the 200m butterfly race where he won even though his goggles were full of water and he could barely see!

As he came off the pool deck, Phelps disclosed that his goggles had filled with water, adding, “I could not believe how close to me those guys were.”

“I can’t see anything,” Phelps said to his coach, Bob Bowman.

Later, after the relay, Phelps admitted he was bothered with the goggle problem even though he broke his own world mark.

“As soon as I dove in, they filled up,” he said. “I was more or less trying to count my strokes, hoping I’d be dead on at the turns,” he said. “I’m disappointed because I know I can go faster, but there was nothing I could do. I handled it the best way I could.”

Source: Phelps flies to Olympic gold medal mark

Sorry for the strong language in the title of this post, but that’s an accurate depiction of how pissed I am right now after finding out that one of my favorite parts of the opening ceremony - the footsteps of history - was  was computer generated! WHAT THE F***? SERIOUSLY WHOS F***ING IDEA was it to broadcast fucking f*** videos to the world?

Yeah I understand that it was done because of the level of difficulty that would have been involved with filming it live, but if you wanna pull that move off have a BIG ASS sign on the footage saying that its computer generated so that the tv watching audience doesn’t later feel like a bunch of idiots (I sure feel like an idiot right now) for Ooo-ing and Ahhh-ing over computer generated footage.

Chinese officials say that its ok in their mind, because they know that the fireworks were there. I say there’s no case in which its acceptable to show computer generated images without telling the audience that what they are seeing is not actual live footage.

I find it sad that they ruined an otherwise pretty awesome ceremony with those fakes. A few posts back I wrote something to the effect that this might be the best opening ceremony so far…well forget that..4 years from now the only things I’ll remember about the 2008 opening ceremony will be:

1) Fake footsteps of history footage
2) Lin Miaoke, the little girl “singing” during the opening ceremony was miming because Chinese officials decided that the original little girl who was supposed to sing during the opening ceremony wasn’t cute enough. So they replaced her, but used her recorded vocals.
3) Hot female athletes during the parade.

So forget Beijing 2008…best opening ceremony so far is still SYDNEY 2000! They didn’t see it necessary to use computer generated images to impress the world.

“The fireworks were there for real, outside the stadium. But those responsible for filming the extravaganza decided in advance it would be impossible to capture all 29 footprints from the air.

As a result, only the last, visible from the camera stands inside the Bird’s Nest was captured on film.

The trick was revealed in a local Chinese newspaper, the Beijing Times, at the weekend.

Gao Xiaolong, head of the visual effects team for the ceremony, said it had taken almost a year to create the 55-second sequence. Meticulous efforts were made to ensure the sequence was as unnoticeable as possible: they sought advice from the Beijing meteorological office as to how to recreate the hazy effects of Beijing’s smog at night, and inserted a slight camera shake effect to simulate the idea that it was filmed from a helicopter.

“Seeing how it worked out, it was still a bit too bright compared to the actual fireworks,” he said. “But most of the audience thought it was filmed live - so that was mission accomplished.”

He said the main problem with trying to shoot the real thing was the difficulty of placing the television helicopter at the right angle to see all 28 footsteps in a row.

One advisor to the Beijing Olympic Committee (BOCOG) defended the decision to use make-believe to impress the viewer. “It would have been prohibitive to have tried to film it live,” he said. “We could not put the helicopter pilot at risk by making him try to follow the firework route.”

A spokeswoman for BOCOG said the final decision had been made by Beijing Olympic Broadcasting, the joint venture between the International Olympic Committee and local organisers that is responsible for providing the main “feeds” of all Olympic events to viewers around the world.

“As far as we are concerned, we let off the fireworks - that’s what’s important to us,” she said.

Mr Gao said he was worried that technologically literate viewers who spotted the join might be critical, but comments online suggested more admiration of the result.” (Source: Telegraph)

Michael Phelps shakes hands with Alain Bernard of France after the U.S. won the men’s 4×100m freestyle relay final at the Beijing Games.

Even after Bernard trash talked about smashing the US team.

French swimmer Alain Bernard mouthing off about the 4×100m relay four days ago:

“The Americans? We’re going to smash them. That’s what we came here for,”

Team USA made em eat their words by smashing the world record with a time of 3:08:32 (shaving 3 seconds off previous world record)!  What an incredible finish…on the last leg World freestyle 100m record holder Bernard was leading by a good meter or so when Jason Lezak (oldest member of the US swim team) caught up and beat him. French team was speechless afterwards…great job Bernard..looks like your cockiness brought out the best in Team USA. Keep up the great work!

Best finish I’ve seen at the olympics so far. Speaking about finishes…was heart breaking to see Katie Hoff beat by 7/100ths of a second in the 400 meter freestyle, but she has more events coming up and hopefully she picks up some gold!

Update: Found a cool visual of each leg of the race (source: la times)

Most Olympic sprinters are anxious for the gun to go off…so they can peel off the starting blocks and race down the track towards history…but for Dana Hussein there was always a very real possibility that the gun going off was a real gun and not a starters pistol.

“When she was training, the sniper shot the first round, and it crossed near Dana and hit the tree. She dove for cover,” Abdul-Rahman (her coach) says. “Then another round hit the field.”"

What the?

That’s because she’s the only Iraqi Olympian who remained within Iraq to train while the other 3 male athletes in the team trained overseas. You gotta admit that just qualifying for the Olympics is a difficult feat, but to qualify for two events while training under such hostile conditions….someone give this girl a medal already!

“If I leave this sport, I think life will stop,” she says. “Life must continue, even with the security situation so bad, because I have ambitions. I love this sport too much.”

Now that sort of dedication is sexswey!

She almost narrowly missed out on the Olympics when the IOC dismissed the entire Iraqi squad after the Sunni-dominated Iraqi National Olympic Committee was dissolved by the Shiite government. Iraqi squad was later allowed into the 2008 games and she’ll be competing in the 100m and 200m. While I almost always cheer for American sprinters (besides the 100m meters mens event..where I’ve also cheered for Trinidad and Tobago’s  Ato Bolden in the past and this year torn between American Tyson Gay and Jamaican Usain Bolt) this year I’ll be cheering for her…for all the hardships she endured just to get to the games…plus shes cute

Time article on Dana Hussein - #99 on list of 100 Olympic athletes to watch
NPR article on Dana Hussein

Watching the Olympics opening ceremony…pretty magical (thats an understatement). Loved the footsteps (of fireworks) leading into the stadium. Was left speechless when I saw that the printing blocks were controlled by people instead of computers. The bit where the blocks depict the great wall turning into a field of flowers was awesome! For some reason bought Coldplay’s Lovers in japan live performance in mind haha…guess it was the colors.

Was trying to compare it to previous olympics when I realized that I don’t remember much of the previous games besides who lit the torch during the opening ceremony haha and some random stuff.

Torch lighter was Muhammad Ali back in Atlanta 1992…Cathy Freeman in Sydney 2000…don’t remember the name of the torch lighter in Athens 2004, but I remember that the Olympic flame was shot to the torch on an arrow. Vaguely remember the song “my island home” being sung by Christine Anu during the closing ceremony of the 2000 games…because I loved the song :)…and Gloria Estefan singing “Reach” during the 1996 games..but nothing else about the last 3 opening/closing ceremonies.

So even though $300 million was spent on the 2008 opening ceremony will anyone remember it in 4 years time? Or will this be the one that lives on in everyone’s memory? Definitely shaping up to be the latter.

Ok enough blogging…time to get back to the opening ceremony

(Still don’t have net at home…writing this on neighbours unprotected wifi network)

Japanese horror flicks (or english flicks based on Japanese movies or directed by Japanese directors), horror manga and Japanese survival horror video games…love em all! So I was super excited when I heard that the Japanese video game Siren: Blood Curse was going to be released for PS3 on the PSN (playstation network) as a download. The game developed a small following in the US even before it got released here, with many ordering the japanese version from asian websites.

Game is set in the Japanese village of Hanuda where an American TV crew has arrived to research and film an exposé on the legend of a “vanished village.” What they witness is an attempted sacrifice by a cult..the tv crew get lost in the confusion afterwards and the game allows you to play from the perspectives of seven different characters as they try to find the other crew members and escape from the undead members of the village and some sort of religious cult (haven’t gotten too far into the game to get the full storyline).

One cool feature of this game is what the developers call “Sight-Jack”, which lets you see from the perspective of the undead (as they’re attacking you..or as they’re lying in wait). What you can see from the view of the undead? But Shiva, doesn’t that make the game too easy? No, because 1) The view is some what grainy (old film like) and black and white so while it helps a lil, it also creates tension because you see your character in half the screen and the undead’s view in the other and go “Oh shit where is he looking at me from?” 2) You don’t always have the time to go into “sight-jack” mode to scout out the nearby areas. You can’t afford to waste time looking through the perspectives of the undead while theres one clawing at your feet.

Other cool feature that adds to the psychological horror is that if there an enemy is close by, these reddish (for blood?) spots glow around the screen…which once again adds to the “Oh shit, what the hell is going to happen next” feeling I mentioned in the above paragraph.

Other feature (or lack of a feature) that makes this a kick ass horror title is the lack of good weapons. Think back to resident evil 4…yeah those zombies were fast and did a lot of damage, but how secure did you feel behind the back of a rocket launcher? Pretty secure right. Now think back to the Fatal Frame series of games where you’re alone in a haunted japanese village with nothing but a camera as a weapon..yes a freaking camera (you could seal the spirits of ghosts onto film by taking a picture of them)..now thats some scary shit! This game is the same in that some of the seven playable characters have no weapons besides measly sake bottles!

Ok enough of me going on and here..heres two screen shots from the game. Check the game out if you have a ps3. It comes in 12 downloadable episodes for now. I’m somewhere on episode 4 right now and loving it so far.

This undead nurse in the screenshot below wasn’t too hard to get around, but if she spotted you, you were dead in a spilt second as your character (the little girl hiding in the picture) has no weapons and no way to defend herself.

These guys below were some of the creepiest undead I’ve seen in a video game. They have butterfly wings coming out their eyes and theres also a pair on their head….what the..

Moving this weekend and everything has either been packed up or service has been disconnected

So no DSL until AT&T installs new phone service on Monday next week. No tv until Sunday evening (yay for directtv doing installations over the weekend)..and no ps3 until it’s unpacked.

Thank god for the iPhone!

Update: Wrote the above on the iPhone a few days ago, but didn’t publish it. Since then the tv has been hooked up and the ps3 unpacked. Now just waiting for DSL and tivo