I watched most of the prime time olympics in Beijing this summer.  Here are my thoughts in no particular order:

• Why do the women get to use music for their floor exercises, but the men don’t?  Is music too “girly” for men gymnasts?  They could always pick songs like “Welcome to the Jungle” or “Hot for Teacher” which I think would be win-win for both the gymnasts and the viewers.
• Women’s beach volleyball is only broadcasted in prime time for the dirty old men of the olympic viewing audience.  This watchability factor for them increased exponentially  when the gold medal match was held in the pouring rain.  In WHITE bathing suits.

• 

  Slippery

• The behavior of the American Men’s gymnastics team did not impress me.  Every  time the camera showed them (not during their event) most of them were very oaf-ish, doing “We’re number 1″ and “Yeah, USA, baby!” into the camera.  I know they are adolescent male athletes, and so oaf-dome is expected, but it just annoyed me.  Behavior like that reinforces a negative stereotype of Americans to the rest of the watching world.
• Does anyone care about cycling?
• I wonder if the trampoline athletes are just failed gymnasts.  I am impressed when a woman flips on the balance beam and lands on one foot.  I am not impressed when a woman flips and lands on both feet on a large springy resilient surface.  Sorry, but really, how hard can that be??
• Michael Phelps was awesome and it was especially cool that he won so much because he used to be bullied quite alot growing up.  I love it when the underdog wins.  But did that annoying blond woman really have to talk to him every stinkin’ time he got out of the pool?  I started to feel bad for him because she would grab him and say, “Wow, how does it feel to win…again?” and eventually he ran out of things to say and just started saying to her, “well, I’m really just speachless at this point.”