Today, I completed all of my last-minute preparations for Akemi’s arrival. I shined my shoes, steam-vacced the theater room carpet, did laundry, organized the dvd room, and, most importantly, bathed the dogs so that they could be smelling their best. Earlier today, on the prospective comic book front, I completed a breakdown of the first four issue story arc which will serve as the springboard to the comic book series and, if all goes as planned, the two hour pilot for the television series (or possibly the first feature in an ongoing film series). Yes, it’s SF. Yes, it’s colorful character-driven action-adventure. And, yes, it’s fun. More details to come…
Yesterday was actually quite nice and, as is customary on sunny days, the dogs congregate on that lone patch of sunlight by the front door and stare at me until I feel guilty and take them out.
Bubba goes nuts for walks. On this occasion, he’s relatively low-key. Maybe the camera made him self-conscious.
Lulu is given to doing this weird landed-paratrooper-behind-enemy-lines-advance.
Umm, yeah. As it turns out, Canada didn’t actually earn that gold medal. It was given to us by the judges (http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/vancouver/blog/fourth_place_medal/post/Aussies-won-t-accept-Canadian-beating-Begg-Smith;_ylt=AjcVUWejt3GkMtMhLLXl4jJAtLV_?urn=oly,219819). Let’s face it – judged events are a load of crap as evidenced by past scandals and suspect scorings. Yes, people generally dismiss the criticisms because they’re too fixated on being happy for the winner who, inevitably, sacrificed so much to get the gold – as opposed to all of the other athletes who sacrificed just as much, came up short, and thus don’t deserve our sympathy.
Speaking of which – hey, look what I found! http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/957381/the_five_greatest_olympic_scoring_scandals.html?cat=14 Of course the IOC is always quick to act in such scandalous instances. For instance, when Roy Jones Jr. was robbed of a gold medal at the 1988 Seoul Olympics “the later 1997 IOC investigation swept the scandal under the rug”. Uh, okay. That wasn’t a good example. However, the IOC proved itself much more proactive when, in response to the 2002 skating scandal, “the scandal was partly defused by upgrading the Canadians to Gold, resulting in two Gold Medal-winning teams that year.” Isn’t that wonderful? We’re all winners! What’s particularly vexing is that these judges face little in the way of any real consequences. In the case of the 1988 boxing scandal, there was no official finding of wrongdoing. In the case of the case of the 2002 skating scandal, two of the judges were barred from participating in the 2006 Olympics. A lousy suspension?! How about replacing them with actual competent and/or ethical judges?
And then there’s this sobering article from The Independent (http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/olympics/james-lawton-vancouverrsquos-quick-descent-from-high-ground-1899592.html) that calls Canada on its poor sportsmanship – among other things.
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