oh boy, do i have stuff to talk about

with the so-called "redemption" of US basketball, michael phelps beastly domination in swimming, shawn johnson's gymnastics, and a stolen arrangement of the star-spangled banner, just to name a few things, the games of the XXIX Olympiad in Beijing come to a close. This is just the opening topic of this weekends blog.

starting off with the first us men's basketball team not to be called the "dream team" since i've been alive...the "redeem team," as they are called this year, dominated spain in the gold medal game last night (us time). now we get to go back to calling them the "dream team" again...and i expect "dream team V" to medal, probably, as the rest of the country thinks, win it all, again in 2012.

next up, 12,000 calorie phelps. not only are his eating habits ridiculous, it helped him win a ridiculous 8 gold medals this summer, going 8 for the 8 events he participated in, setting at least 6 world records on his amazing run. now, next year, someone, probably phelps himself, will break all those records in different competitions, but it was a very dominating summer that he enjoyed. my 2012 outlook for michael phelps: look for him to not only win 9 golds in swimming, but also to win the triathlon and several other events (maybe even ping-pong)...beast.

i don't normally watch gymnastics, but i still like to know what's going on. so when i heard about paul hamm, and then his brother, i wasn't expecting much from men's gymnastics. then i saw that they got bronze for the team gymnastics...that was pretty cool. can't remember if any of them medaled in all-around, but i seem to think at least one guy did. women's gymnasts, on the other hand, were out of this world for the US. the team just barely missed the gold, and then got gold and silver in all-around. then shawn johnson later in the week got another gold medal. in 2016, there will apparently be a member of the men's gymnast squad by the name of jacob hamilton...if he makes it, i'll be proud of my schoolmate, and i hope elf the best, even if we have to agree to disagree about notre dame.

so, apparently in the tennessean, there was an article describing how the rendition of the star-spangled banner used at most of the olympic medal ceremonies was a direct copy of an arrangement by a certain american composer/arranger. the exact name escapes me, but he argues that the chinese used it without his permission, or acknowledgement, or any of the normal stuff. so there's that story for you.

all in all, this year's olympics were very good. i'd give them, in david slate terms, four and a quarter out of five footballs.

i'll cover the nfl and mlb in my next blog, and maybe some of how my life's been recently...