Adam@Home by Rob Harrell for March 02, 2010

Weasel!!

and slipping on banana peels is real old…

Joe, the whole point of competitive sports is to determine a winner. Otherwise we’d just give everyone medals.

This time, Canada won, USA lost. Deal with it.

now if we could have real playoffs in college football….

would adam and laura been that enthusiastic if canada had lost the gold medal round in hockey?

I lift my coffee cup to the Vancouver Olympics. I’ve never been so into an Olympics since maybe Los Angeles in 1984.

And a lot of the sports I really enjoyed this time we’re either new or new to me. Snowboard racing, the moguls, curling, nordic, speed skating … hockey was amazing.

bravo!

“A tie is like kissing your sister.” - David Daugherty

If there must be co-champions (which is an oxymoron anyway), cut the gold medal in half. Each gets to wear one, but with the constant reminder that there’s someone out there that they didn’t manage to beat.

Speaking of ties, I don’t think Adam is wearing one. It’s just his normal unbuttoned button-down over a white tee, but seen in not quite profile…

As to a college football chamionship, I think everyone should just abandon the idea that a national champion can or needs to be determined. There are simply too many teams for any sort of meaningful playoff or tournament system, given the inadvisability of teams playing more than one game a week. The only way I can see it working is to jettison half of the regular season, and devoting every game from October 1 onwards to single-elimination.

Sure thing, Joe-Allen. It was a tie, and both won the gold medal, and the Russian guy won the platinum medal in finger skating, and now I’m going to get in my flying car and go to Mars to eat bubblegum pie.

Good thing she loves you, Adam.

I liked sports better when we were kids and made up our rules as we went along—sorta like Calvinball.

Dateline: Bern, Switzerland, 1 September 1944

“No clear winner having been determined after a regulation 5 years of play, a team of judges made up of representatives from neutral countries has declared World War II a tie. Combat activities on all fronts in both European and Pacific Theatres of Operation having halted precisely at 5:00 PM GMT, with the worldwide, simultaneous radio broadcast of the whistle being blown by Spain’s General Franco, the official results from Switzerland were eagerly awaited by supporters gathered in living rooms and watering holes from Pearl Harbor to Palestine. Reaction to the announcement was mixed.

“General George S. Patton, speaking on behalf of the Allies, had this to say: ‘Around June, when Operation Overlord really kicked in, we felt like we were getting our second wind and could pull out a decisive W, but the clock was against us. I think if we could have had more time, we could have shown the Axis team what we were made of, but we knew when we took the field that we only had 5 years to finish them off, and we fell down on the job. You win championships by playing the full 60 months, not just the last 2.’

“In a short statement to the international Press, Axis skipper Dolphie Hitler seemed relieved by the prospect of a split title. ‘The Allies are a heck of an organization, everyone knows that. Our guys played their hearts out, but so did theirs, and at the end of the day it was looking like the whole War was theirs to lose. We’re fortunate, I think, that the whistle blew when it did, and we held out as long as we had to. I think I can speak for my good friends Benito and Hirohito that there’s no shame in standing on the podium next to the likes of Mr. Roosevelt, Mr. Churchill, and Mr. Stalin. Every nation in this fight put forward Gold Medal effort, and I hope we can put on just as good a show for all you folks in World War III.’

“When asked how this experience compared to his own memories of the 1917 Great War medal awards (Roman numeration having not yet been adopted), when he was a member of the Silver-winning Central Powers squad, Mr. Hitler paused to collect his thoughts before continuing. ‘That was a tough loss. We felt – we still feel – that the officiating was against us, and rebuilding was a long and often painful process. As a former player, I felt that I personally had something to prove, to the world and to myself. Would it be nice to retire as sole champion? Of course. But if we came out of this match at 0 for 2, I believe it really would have broken our spirits, as a nation, as ein Volk, and as individuals. But I really don’t want to go there now. Now it’s time to reconnect with our families and enjoy the gains we’ve made over the last five years. We’ll do some soul-searching, but you can take it to the bank that we’ll be ready to storm the field next time, in Moscow. God bless you, and Deutschland Uber Alles! No further questions.’

“Six million Jews were unavailable for comment.”

Actually, if the game had been allowed to end in a tie, the US squad had already beaten the Canadian team, so they should have been awarded the gold medals. But since the intent of having a competition is to determine a winner, the game was played until the Canadians scored again. Bravo to them, the Vancouver Olympic hockey gold medalists.

Athletic competition is combat, sublimated, stylized, and ritualized. If there is no winner and no loser, there is no competition. If it is not a competition, it is merely exhibition or exercise. That’s what makes the difference between, for example, Olympic Figure Skating and the Ice Capades, or the New York Marathon and a 26-mile jog through Central Park. Or the guy doing Tai Chi in his front yard and the winner of the No Rules, To-the-Death Kung Fu Tournament on Skorpion Island.

If there are winners, there are necessarily “non-winners”, and of course anybody who even makes it to Olympic levels of competition has won a lot more often than they’ve lost over their careers, but the goal is the top spot. That’s what drives them. That’s why they’re there. There are plenty who are good or even great, but by definition only one can be the best. Superlatives are absolute. “There can be only One.”

“Conan! What is best in life?”

“To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women!”

It seems children easily become chosen prey. In the Name of Jesus Christ, Satan get behind me.

The only ones who take the Olympics seriously are the athletes, the people who stand to make money off them, and the people who put money down on them.

The white stripe is Adam’s T-shirt. I H8 when people con me out of my coffee.

Furienna, swedish? Congratulations with your winners :D