2 0.lympic 0.bservations, Gr-8!

Yeah, you like that silly AP/ESPN headline!?! Sometimes those headlines on ESPN.com really try too hard.

Today has two main Olympics stories (Phelps and USA Basketball) with 8 mini-Olympics thoughts squished in between...

First and foremost, I wanted to save this until the last of the blog, but sometimes I can go on and on and you wouldn't make it that far down the page -- MICHAEL PHELPS IS AMAZING!

It's easy to get caught up in hype as it happens, but we are witnessing the most dominant swimmer in our lifetime. Not just a swimmer, but he is right up there with Jordan, Barry Sanders, and Tiger as the best athlete of our generation! He just dominates. And he is well on pace to win 8 gold medals thanks to teammate Jason Lezak's amazing sprint to the finish in the 4x100m freestyle relay final. That was the most exciting swimming event I have ever witnessed! Get your pens out Disney script writers, here's your new movie: "Down with the Frenchies!" Then we'll eventually get the "Down with the Frenchies 7: Competitive Eating," direct to DVD release at Wal-Mart.

So please, he swims Thursday, Friday and Saturday night. If you have plans, have someone TiVo it for you. Just watch and witness history. It's been 36 years since Spitz's record seven gold medals. It could be another 30-50 years before someone challenges Phelps. Relish it!

1) So women's diving got a little more interesting with the shower scenes in between each dive, but it's just plain homophobic with the men's diving team. But I guess you have to please the female audience. I wish more women's sports cut to shower scenes in between game action. Except softball of course.

2) The Olympics need to cut down on the number of overall sports. It's just too much. Badminton? Field hockey? Sailing? ("Take me away from here!") Keep it simple: swimming, track and field, gymnastics, rowing and a few of the basic team sports with basketball, volleyball, etc. Luckily baseball and softball are being eliminated because they aren't really world wide sports. Only a small fraction of countries play baseball or softball.

3) But since we deal with the over-saturation of Olympic sports, if I were a semi-decent collegiate athlete, but wanted to stay in sports after school, I would totally join the U.S. handball team -- which is totally the wave of the future (awesome combination of soccer and basketball). Plus, if you won a gold medal in some obscure team sport, you could always Penelope (one-up) someone at any party. "Oh, you had seven wisdom teeth removed? Well, I won a gold medal!"

4) Even though the U.S. gymnastics team got beat by a bunch of 12-year-old Chinese girls, it still allowed for about 50 great Chinese jokes like "Yeah, I just won the Gold Medal, now my father won't get shot!"

5) I almost bought into the human rights hype as a lazy excuse of not to watch the Olympics, but the games aren't doing the Chinese any favors. The thought of millions of children publicly defecating around Beijing actually opens the eyes to millions of people of how bad communist China really is. Hosting an Olympics isn't doing the country any favors. It's just unlocking dark secrets for the world to see and makes us dislike their politics even more.

6) Someone needs to get rid of Bob Costas once and for all! He keeps showing up. Please keep him on HBO where nobody watches. I really, really dislike the man. He gained his fame in the 1992 and 1996 Olympics, but during the 1997 & 1998 NBA Finals as Jordan torched my Jazz, he starting calling him Michael on every possession. I'm sorry Bob, but you and Michael are not on a first name basis. Please call him Michael Jordan or Jordan. You didn't go to high school together, and even if you did, you were calling him Master as he gave your short, nerdy a$$ a swirly in between classes.

7) I also want to b-slap the color commentator during the women's gymnastics finals. He gave the U.S. no love, yet applauded the Chinese 10-year-olds at every turn. I think he even squealed like a little girl during one of the Chinese girl's routines. I swear they hired him straight from the set of "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy."

8) The other night, I was able to watch women's judo without any announcers or commentators. If you don't know the rules of judo, it just looks like two women fighting, and winner face plants her opponents and proceeds to give her a wedgie! We have a winner!


I think Team USA (no longer referred to as Dream Team) will win gold this year because of the additions of Chris Paul and my man, Deron Williams. Bringing those two off the bench (Jason Kidd only played 5 minutes with a fork sticking out of his back against Greece) will propel this team to the Gold.

Basketball is truly an international sport now. It may be the second most important worldwide sport, still way behind soccer. I heard someone on the radio say it surpassed soccer, but he's an idiot. We're still 100 years away from that.

But yes, Kobe, Lebron and Dwayne Wade will lead "Redeem Team" to the Gold and everybody will be happy for another four years. That game against China on Sunday morning was the most watched basketball game of all-time, which is good for the NBA and all of its problems that David Stern refuses to fix.

And to honor the Olympic games, I suggest we all eat Chinese food for breakfast, lunch and dinner until the torch fades. Who's with me?