Swim Fan

While I was looking through pictures for yesterday's wildly successful man-or-woman feature, I came across Australian swimming gold medalist Stephanie Rice, seen at left, who was obviously not fodder for gender bender quiz.

Further study has revealed that in addition to being my type, she and I also have in common a love of costume parties and bowling.

I know this from these photos, which were taken off her once-public but now-private Facebook page.

Olympics Quiz

One thing I tend to be good at is identifying men from women. But those schmancy new swimsuits that the Olympians wear make it tough. See if you can correctly identify the gender of these seven athletes:

You can click on the image to make it larger. The answers are in the comments.

Mitt Romney, Olympic Hero

I spotted this picture online of (Omni-)President Bush at the Olympics. It seems former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney always knows where the cameras are.

Beach volleyball is hot, hot, hot!

Finally, President Bush and I have a common interest: We both love Olympic women's beach volleyball.

Take a look at these pictures from over the weekend, where Bush bumped, humped, and sweated his way to Olympic glory.


I will add one final thought: I feel less creepy watching women's volleyball in these Olympics, since I am now a member of a very accomplished advanced-beginner/low-intermediate intramural coed team, The Mini Ditkas.

It's Olympic Time

This will be the first of many Olympic-themed posts, and also the laziest.

Barcelona retains its title

The organizers of the 2012 Olympics in London have kept alive the tradition of creating stupid logos and mascots. Here's what they were able to come up with:


And as if that wasn't bad enough, now the Olympic Committee has had to remove the animated version of the logo from it's web site because it was triggering epliptic seizures.

The upshot is that those cute little Barcelona dogs remain as the best Olympic mascot or logo of my lifetime.

Goodbye, U.S. Women's Curling Team (2-7)

It was an appropriate way for the U.S. women's curling team to end their Olympics: They conceded their final match of tournament play to Great Britain after just the sixth end.

The match as a whole was a fitting summation of their nine round robin games. They started slow, showed some resolve and climbed back into it, then lost focus and gave up halfway through.

I really wanted to love the U.S. women's team, but the losing made it tough. They came in as medal contenders, but were 1-4 before they knew it. What's worse, they smiled after every loss, like they lacked the competitive fire or killer instinct you expect in an athlete. U.S. captain Cassie Johnson even said at one point "I can always go home and say, 'I'm an Olympian.'"

On the bright side, the U.S. men are surprising medal contenders, and the women's team members are young enough that they'll be back in four years. Hopefully they'll be much more seasoned and honed with the killer instinct, or at least as much as someone from Minnesota can be honed with the killer instinct.

Also on the bright side, the women's second lead Jessica Schultz has a curling stone tattooed near her butt.

Why do male ice dancers look so smarmy?

I can't help but think of Jesus from The Big Lebowski.

Separated at Birth: Olympic Edition

The Olympics have a lot of "Hey doesn't he look like..." activity.

Short track speedskater Apolo Anton Ohno on the left. Dirty singer Dave Navarro on the right. I wonder if Ohno has ever dated a Carmen Electra lookalike.



Champion snowboarder Shaun White is 19 years old. Carrot Top is twice his age, which explains why Carrot Top's hair is twice as crazy. Give the young man time.



Figure skater Johnny Weir, Willy Wonka has nothing on you.







Earlier separated-at-births here.

Torino '06

It's forgivable if you didn't know the olympics are next month in Italy, because the winter games usually fly under the rader, especially when they happen in a place that isn't America (or even Canada).

But what is not forgivable is those mascots, Neve and Gliz, as they're apparently known. They look like marshmallows to me. They couldn't have come up with something, I don't know, a little less stupid. Or cuter? Maybe a panda eating pasta? Or the pope on skis?

Though I suppose I can't complain too much, because the last time the U.S. was lucky enough to host the Summer Olympics we totally punted when it came to creating a mascot, with Whatizit.