shanmonster | Olympics

How is it that synchronized diving is an Olympic sport, but caber tossing is not? And how come all those enormous men in the strong man competitions aren't strutting their stuff at the Olympics? I want to see a men and women built like banks throwing telephone poles and hauling city buses with their teeth.

I watched my first little bit of televised Olympic sports yesterday, and I was not very impressed with the floor gymnasts. Yes, they can do positively stupendous stuff with their flips and layouts, but what the hell is that so-called "dance"? I have raw newbies coming to my dance class who have more grace than that. These gymnasts aren't dancing as much as they are twitching jerkily with over-arched backs. It looks painful and utterly lacking in grace. But every now and then I'd see a gymnast who did have flow in their dance elements, and they invariably scored much higher than the gymnasts who danced like Parkinson's and scoliosis sufferers stepping on hot coals. Send some of these gymnasts to my dance classes for some remedial work, and I'll betcha they'll be getting much higher scores. Hell, it happened to a figure skater I know! Her scores went up appreciably after a month or two of dance classes.

And if the gymnasts toss a few cabers while they're flipping around on the mats, that would be even better....

In completely unrelated news, while biking today, I had to slam on the brakes because a baby bird of some sort was standing on the path. It was brown and half fuzz, half feathers. It stared at me like a worried toddler, then darted into some nearby bushes. I've never before seen a bird with such an expressive face.