2012 Olympics - Judge for yourself

Type in the words “Judged events at the Olympics” into Google and some 5.8 million links come up. OK, so I did not use “quotes”, but its amazing the sensitivity around this topic. Personally, I don’t profess to being an Olympic guru. I, like most, watch them every four years (or every 2 years if you watch both Summer and Winter Olympics). Like most, I scream at the screen “Hey, her legs were nowhere near as straight on that entry,” pretending like I know what I am talking about. Everyone knows everything in the comforts of your home watching on TV, but its still fun to do. Which leads me to this topic. The subjectivity in judging at the Olympics is beyond brutal. Yes, I said it. BRUTAL. Here are a few examples:

1 – This Chinese swimmer in the gold medal of the 1500m freestyle dives into the pool ahead of the whistle. The judges are shocked. Why would he do that? Even the TV commentators are saying its pointless to jump the gun on such a long race, since this one goes for a while, so being in the pool a millisecond faster is useless. There is a rule that ANY false start, and the lucky person is disqualified – that is of course unless it’s the guy who everyone expects to win the Gold. So the swimmer simply gets jumps out of the pool, resets himself, claims his dog ate his homework, and boom, we start again. So what happened to this automatic disqualification? I guess it only applies to the guy from Antarctica standing on the start with water wings, since we know he won’t win. Gotta love the selective application of their own rules.

2 – In the gymnastics Vault final, where there are 2 vaults total for the medals, and the American favourite is up. She’s a sure thing for Gold, even the NBC coverage (8 hours delayed from the rest of the world) says everyone is vaulting for silver. So her first vault is fine, lots of twists and flips, delightfully executed as the TV guys say. “She should be happy with that one,” as if the athlete needs someone to tell her that. Now on her second vault, she literally lands on her butt. No perfect landing, pretty much how 99% of the population would land after trying to do the flips and flops these athletes do. Recognizing her error, she immediately stands up, throws her arms up as if to say she planned that, and walks off, trying hard as possible not to start crying. She won silver. Now I am no gymnastics guru, nor do I understand the judging, but this seems a bit odd to me. If it was the best of two, OK, buts it’s the total score of the two. The girl who won Gold did not land on her butt, so I can justify that medal, but the poor girl who won bronze is probably thinking WTF!?!?!? I landed on my feet. Sure, my flipping and flopping was not as “difficult” as hers, but at least I pulled it off. I could go on regarding more Olympic examples of questionable judging, but at the same time I was proud of the diving judges who gave some guy a zero for entering the pool on his back. “He won’t be happy with that one,” said the TV guy.

And we're back....

OK, after much procrastination and urging from people who needed something to read while visiting the bathroom, I have decided to blog again. Its been a tortuous decision, since to put it straight out, nobody is reading this except me, and those few people I told. Hi people!

That said, I have decided that even though I am truly only writing to myself and my friends, maybe, just maybe, some complete stranger will chime in with a comment saying "I read your blog... and it sucked," or something similar. I'd rather deal with haters versus ignorance.

I read the Ken Levine blog, considered one of the top 25 blogs per Time magazine. His blog has the theme of how to get into television and the behind-the-scenes stuff for potential writers. Yet my blog is about...well...me venting. While very interesting to me, perhaps not super exciting for you the reader. So I will try to mix it up every now and then.

What harm can there be? You're already doing your business in the bathroom as you're reading this right now. That's the effect I have on people.

What the....

Well thus endeth another season of Celebrity Apprentice, with some country singer I have never heard of until this show came on winning over Marlee Matlin. Kudos to John Rich for proving that country musicians are just as smart as anyone else (a fact I never questioned - see Trace Atkins from previous Celebrity Apprentice shows), but that many male country singers REFUSE to remove their stetson's. Must be the killer hat head or something. I mean come on now - do you sleep with it on too?

This is not the blog to recap the show - there are many others for that. Instead, a couple of random observations from the show.

- First off, what is the deal with Lisa Rinna's boobs? Literally every shot of the jury showed her fun bags in the background. You could not concentrate on anything anyone even said when all you saw was boob in the background. Heck, even my favourite fake boob person on this show Ivanka was jealous. Meat Loaf was crying over them. I was waiting for Trump to ask her boobs who he should fire.

- Where was Dionne Warwick? Now I am a child of the 60's and I love Three Dog Night. My mom played that "Joy to the World" LP (kids, these are those big round discs you had to play on a record player before tapes and CDs came into existence) endlessly. To see Dionne pull the me only stunt during the show put new meaning into her hit "One is the loneliest number" song. Then to not show up for the reunion. Unacceptable. Maybe she was helping care for Jose Canseco's mom.

Speaking of boobs again, anyone watch Survivor this past season? Maybe it was just me, but this season, I seemed to notice the camera angles of many scenes aimed at, how shall I say, naughty parts. Yes, we all saw Philips pink gonch. Erase that memory from my mind. But we also saw many upshots of the female hoo-haw from different angles. Butt shots, crotch shots, you name it. Yes there was always underwear to cover what would become an R-rated shot, but my gosh, I thought I was watching Girls Gone Wild - Survivor style.

Was I the only one who noticed this?

Wow, has it been that long?

OK, so I decided to take a nap back in November, then magically fell into this dream where I was an innkeeper for a cottage in Vermont, and there were these three brothers, two if which shared the same name...Darrel...

Enough of that. Anyone who did not recognize the above did not watch TV in the 80s, or was it 90s I dunno.

Well I am back, energized, ready, blog ready. I even watched a wealth of Celebrity Apprentice and Undercover Boss episodes, but we won't talk about that right now. Although Ivanka's boobs continue to mesmerize me.

I have one basic, somewhat rhetorical question. Who the heck brings their newborn kid to a playoff game, then complains that its too noisy? Maybe its just me, but perhaps the raucous crowd environment and crazed drunken behaviour is perhaps not the best setting for ensuring "bebe" can get some night-night time.

Chances are, these are the same people who decide to stand in the middle of the concourse to talk, despite the fact they have clogged access to thousands of drunken idiots wanting to take a leak - me excluded of course. I'm just saying.

Undercover Boss no more!

OK, I have officially had enough.

In earlier blogs, I wrote about the television show Undercover Boss, which at the time was a novel idea of disguising the President or CEO of a company and placing them into the lowest ranks of the organization, to see if he/she could actually do the front-line tasks they were expecting the peons to excel at.

Sort of a take on Michael Moore's idea of trying to get the CEO of IBM to come out in front of the office and format a disk (for you young-ins a disk is a thing you put computer data on, like a DVD today). Of course, since many of the executives they showed were unable to do the tasks in a timely fashion, if at all, watch the hijinks ensue. Some of these tasks included cleaning toilets, moving pallets of inventory, greeting customers etc. Great television, right?

Well the formula of the show is now a broken record:
- Show CEO in home environment - see them as great family people whilst relaxing in a lavish multi-zillion dollar estate. Put wife in apron while working 3 inch stilettos and no concept of where oven is. Replace family dog with TV poodle.
- Put funny moustache or hat on CEO and send to seedy hotel in the sticks. Show Tiger Woods sneaking around in the background. Oops, did I write that.
- Show CEO being assigned to extremely keen and uber-positive trainer, then failing at the most mundane tasks. Show trainer waving finger in shame.
- Show CEO going on extended 3 hour coffee or lunch break where CEO becomes corporate psychologists and asks trainer personal questions about their life. Listen to sob story. Change channels for 10 minutes
- Repeat last 2 steps at least 3 times. Insert clip of CEO back at seedy motel washing face with grungy facecloth which would normally not be used to clean gum off shoe. Show CEO running off camera to makeup room.
- Show trainers back at head office with CEO, acting completely stunned as CEO unveils ruse and offers lavish gifts.
- Show corporate event where fake office staff laugh at the hijinks which ensued in the ruse on big screen.
- Show extreme affection between CEO and trainers. Ensure contracts are signed beforehand to limit unlawful touching of subordinates.
- Ignore fact that lying and tricking employees during this television ruse is a complete violation of corporate values, and under normal circumstances, would result in termination.
- Show updates on screen of happiness and bliss which followed. No mention of share price fluctuations.
- Throw up.

Now I liked this show in the beginning, and I know these hardship cases are likely valid. I'm all for supporting the hardworking little people out to support their families. But the show formula never changed except for one episode with Hooters, where some line manager was an absolute chauvinist, and another with a distribution company where a customer service rep was rude (she is clearly the only one in North America).

Otherwise, every company was the same. Lots of hardship case employees who work hard and hope for a better life, but rarely say anything bad about their employers. Put up your hand if you cannot find someone in your company who might have something less than positive to say about management. It is like an infomercial for the company, but without Tom Vu or Billy Blanks and a bevy of skanks in the background.

I know its Sunday television, and I know its supposed to be feel good, but do you really think every company is this way? Or that none of the employees ever watch this show on television and catch onto the ruse as its happening. I am almost motivated to support Hooters, since they at least had the stones to allow their company to be slightly embarrassed. Since I hate their food, probably not, but kudos to you Hooters, for at least being real. Well at least some things are real at Hooters.

This is what happens when my friends go watch tennis....

Knock and Beware

I work for a big company, and as such, because of job and stature, have been provided an office. I like to think my hard work and great contributions resulted in the office being provided, although chances are everyone above data-entry person gets one here since we have a big building. Regardless I am the Donald Trump of my area, or so I tell people.

Every once in a while, I need to close the door to my office. Whether its to eat lunch, work on confidential projects, talk to someone on the phone, whatever the case. Everyone has their reasons.

What is perplexing to me is how often someone actually comes and knocks on the door even if it is closed. So lets think about this for a second. Door is open, people can come in and I can go out. Since my door is more often open than closed, its should be obvious that when its closed, privacy is required. Door is closed means do not disturb. If I wanted to be disturbed, I would not close the door.

I know, petty blog, but it baffles me how often this happens. And every time someone knocks on the door (which is almost daily), the first comment out of their mouth is "Sorry to bother you". No you're not. if you were sorry, you would not have knocked. Was I away the day they taught people that respecting people's privacy means respecting when a door is closed? Now if the building was on fire, or someone was injured, sure, knock on the door. Today, it was "can I borrow your stapler?" I guess everyone with open office doors do not have functioning staplers.

I think its time to be quiet now.