I have a natural aversion to anything that appears to be over-hyped. The upside, is that I don't buy a lot of stuff I don't need, simply because it it heavily advertised. When you think of it, the same marketing geniuses who are spending millions to try to get you to buy a Big Mac, Coke or a Hummer aren't even trying to sell you spinach, tap water or a Miata. They know you'll probably purchase those sort of things on your own, without being told to do so. The downside is that I am usually the last person on the technology train, sitting calmly in the waiting room of Luddite station. I still don't own an I-pod, a car made in the 21st century or a phone that does more than send and receive telephone calls. I don't text. So it was somewhat surprising that I find myself suddenly drawn to the second most hyped event of the year (apart from the Presidential Election); the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing. I had planned on being an Olympics Agnostic. That is, willing to admit that something was going on out there, but refusing to get caught up in it like everyone else. Then, last night, I watched a bit of the Opening Ceremony. Not the full four hours, you understand, but just enough to get a feel of it. Despite the beautiful images, and mixture of color and culture that was not computer generated, I still refused to be taken in completely. This morning, I found myself fascinated watching a Frenchman and an Irishman play badmitten on the channel where MSNBC News was supposed to be. I was suprised to find a sport with the power of tennis and the finesse of ping pong, could fit into a space about the size of my dining room table (with the leaf in) and keep my interest. The Frenchman won, so I changed the channel and found some women's soccer (Brazil and North Korea) on Channel 4. Here was a sport, unlike the WNBA, in which the woman's version may actually be better than the men's version. There was no doubt that the women were much more entertaining than the men in Beach Volleyball (Russia and Australia on the USA Network). "Ozzie Ozzie Ozzie, OY OY OY!" Surprisingly, I find the Olympics to be the perfect thing for somebody with attention deficit disorder as the events change and my remote heats up. They're riding bikes through the smoggy streets of Beijing right now, and. later, women will be fighting with sabers on MSNBC! I am going to get absolutely nothing done this weekend...I can already tell.
***UPDATE*** So guess who else is in Beijing for the big event;
As soon as the sports-obsessed networks stop referring publicly to people with intellectual interests as "nerds" or "dorks" -- that's when I'll try to look at the Olympics from their perspective.
