Random Top 10 Redux

[achn2b]

i kinda liked the synchronized diving. but then i've always been fascinated by diving, especially when it's women. i just find it amazing that two people can perform the exact same maneuver in the air in synch, then enter the water at the same time and plane. takes a lot of practice and skill.

now i don't mind gymnastics either, but the trampoline seemed like a waste. and i won't even go into the other phony "olympic" sports like kayakking, or beach volleyball, or race-walking, etc.

[PC]

RACE WALKING is an Olympic sport?? Are you serious??

[Proud]

listening to dashboard confessional should be an olympic sport. it's a lot more punishing than training for any sort of dash, anyway.

[PC]

Yeah really.

DASHBOARD CONFESSIONAL SUCK.

[strawman]

race walking I feel is an admirable Olympic sport...its been in the Olympics for as long as I remember and these athletes compete over a 50km distance..thats gotta hurt!!

get rid of the hand balls, beach volleyball, tennis (fuck those pros have enough tournaments..next it'll be golf!!), is rhythmic gymnastics still there?..out it goes, syncronised anythings, trampolining, baseball (outside of Nth America who gives a fuck), softball, Taekwando..learn Judo if you want to go..

and then theres just the downfight boring sports...
water polo, archery and shooting, badminton and table tennis, hockey, sailing...

still thats only according to straw...honestly I find almost all sport crap to watch...I just have to be doing it or it bores the pants off me....and that includes rugby....OK a live match is just fine....

[Mary]

Another night, another 5 or 6 vodka drinks and several beers and too many shots of kamikaze. It' sthe return of Alcoholic Mary!

But seriously. we saw the Burning Brides. it was a good time. they were kidna just rawk, like queens of the stone age, like down and dirty and nihilistc stooges crossed with thrash. like iggy pop and tom araya had a lvoe child. like raw power and reign i nblood got intoa train wreck with highway to hell and songs for the deaf. or something. all the boston hipsters were out in force, which actually made me feel good cause this fucking city that i so loved once has become such a gentrified boring-ass yuppie haven. nice to see the tatooed misfits come out and drink like fucking chamipions, ya know? ahhh alcohol. come to think of it you shouldn't take any of this "review" (if we can even call it that) veryseriously because fuck, i'd probably think barry manilow sounded like fuckin sepultura this wasted.

boyfriend goes back to sf tomororow, then the shitwill really hit the fan with the parental unit, if indeed there is any shit. which maybe there isn't. god, that's a disgusting expression innit?

as for racewalking - i can grant that it may indeed take athletic prowess, but this doesn't change the fact that it looks relaly fucking idiotic. frankly it looks like all these peope got a bucketload of insects dumped down their pants or something. they look like they're devleoping some kind of new metnally deranged android dance. there's something graceful and elegant about a runner, swiftly conquering the trakc - whereas a race-walker looks like a fuckign waddling duck on amphetamines. ther'es just no aesthetic appeal.

it's still not as fuckign stupid as sychronized diving though.

np: sisters of mercy - first and last and always (song: no time to cry)

cheers,
m

[Mary]

i am so jealous of all these people:

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[/img]

although it does appear that nick has no idea how to spell:

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oh well.

[JesusLooksLikeMe]

lol! It's Nick Quayle. So disillusioned...

[rockysigman]

strawman said:

race walking I feel is an admirable Olympic sport...its been in the Olympics for as long as I remember and these athletes compete over a 50km distance..thats gotta hurt!!

Last night at work, my manager and I got into a dispute about race-walking. Although I agreed that the sport was ridiculous, and made me laugh while we watched it, I could not agree with his assertion that there's really nothing that should make one person a faster speed walker than anyone else.

Anyway, it came down to the time of night where one person gets to go home early. I was allowed to go so long as I raced him down the sidewalk outside. Before we raced I conceded that he would probably kick my ass (he's about 6'2" and I'm 5'4", so his legs are substantially longer than mine) and yes, he did kick my ass, but I proved my point about how not all speed walkers were equal. Also, people walking and driving by had a good laugh at our expense.

[maarts]

I still can't believe how the Olympic soccer teams are all made up out of under-21s, most other sports are made up out of genuine amateurs and on the other side you have fullprofs contesting gold in tennis, basketball, volleyball and hockey. How did that monstrosity come to happen?

I have no objections to the wide body of sports being contested. Jeez, if we stuck to the strict Olympic agenda back in the days of Baron Pierre de Coubertin, we would be finished in a weekend.
Besides, I like to have a look at sports that you generally won't see on television unless you're forced to. I was particularly engrossed in the rowing today.

I have tried the race walking- it is bloody difficult! Respect for anyone who can walked this cramped style- you all must have achilles tendons made of iron!

And Mary, never mind the fact Nick Cave can't spell, if that cup in the second photo doesn't contain vodka straight up, I'd be very shocked!

[RocDoc]

Wow, I'm amazed that strawman is as much a sports-kvetch as that other 'straw-person', Phil.

Not even rugby? In NZ? Ouch.

Pretty darn chauvinist, you.

~

For the record, TEAM handball is a very popular European sport with professional leagues and such....and is actually VERY entertaining a in a typically American violence-and-maiming-are-very-cool-manner...which, on a side-side-note, so is Australian Rules Football(which is simply NUTS!).

But the handball is a hockey-lacrosse-style sport where a ball has to put into a guarded floor-standing net by guys running around a wooden-floored court somewhat bigger than a basketball court...with the ball needing to be passed(or bounced every several steps which a player takes, rugby style)and thrown past the goalie into the roughly 4X8 foot net.....there is body-checking, diving for passes...simply a bloodybloody high-speed action sport which I loved the first time that I saw it...

[phil]

Wow, I'm amazed that strawman is as much a sports-kvetch as that other 'straw-person', Phil. ...

OK ! Just to set the record straight ...

I love all kind of sports ...

Played hockey(goalie)
football(running-back, punt return AND defense)
Nowaday I'm cycling,
plays ultimate Frisbee
and of course SKI every chance I get ...

What I don't care about is the sorry state
of PROFESSIONAL sports today
and the ridiculous amount of money
paid to PROFESSIONAL athletes ...

[Mary]

Yes, Nick does look utterly sloshed in that picture, doesn't he? I suppose I didn't even notice last night. Being so wasted myself, I just assumed he looked perfectly ordinary. I rather hope he is sloshed, otherwise there's no excuse for his total inability to spell. Especially "loneliness" - that would be like if I couldn't spell enlightenment or something - dude, you've built your entire bloody career off the word loneliness!!! At least spell it right!

On the other hand given that Nick is supposedly a recovering alcoholic who can no longer touch alcohol, it would be a little worrying if he was rippin' back straight vodka while "teaching" a poetry class in 1997.

Rocky that story about race-walking with your manager was heee-larious, although if the only thing that determines the superiority of one race-walker over another is height, that's a bit of a sham for a sport! I've actually always been convinced that my mom could kick olympic race-walking ass, based on our little excursions to the shopping mall when I was like 8 years old. She would zero in on the particular shop she wanted to go to, take a big breath, and then fucking blast across the mall like she was escaping impending Armageddon. 'Twas ridiculous.

anyhoo we just dropped the boy off at the airport. (the sun was not a very agreeable presence this morning, unsurprisingly. i've got all the window shades drawn right now... owww.) i'm going to try to take a rather more, uh, relaxed approach to the next few days in boston... no more drinking for a while at least

Cheers,
M

[rockysigman]

I've posted a similar list before, but just to show my gratitude, here are ten bands that I've gotten into directly as a consequence of posting on the RS boards:

1) The Clash (Ken and Mary)
2) Wilco (Ken and Ferdman)
3) X (Mary)
4) Guided by Voices (glenh)
5) The Smiths (CWA)
6) The Libertines (Rileydog I think)
7) Big Star (I don't remember--probably Mary)
8) Elvis Costello (Ken I think)
9) The Replacements (Ken and bowiglou)
10) Neko Case (Mary)

[RocDoc]

...I honestly have zero problem separating the amount of money any athlete in my favorite sports makes from theMY enjoyment of their performances...especially in a team sport where there's a need to work together as components of a whole.

I can separate that and I can enjoy it, where seems obvious it colours it horribly for you...why?

Hockey
Basketball
Football
Soccer


....all qualify and I don't lose a bit of enjoyment (or sleep) in my 'anger' over their salaries...

One has nothing to do with the other.

Kvetch.