Today marks the opening ceremony of the 2012 Summer Olympics in London.  I found myself thinking about the games as I was listening to a news report on the radio this morning.  I asked myself, what is there to look forward to in the Summer Olympics?  What sport makes me want to turn on the tube and watch?

The short answer to that question is… well… nothing.  Really.  I have no interest in any of the Summer Olympic events.  The Winter Olympics include the best international ice hockey tournament in the known universe, so that brings me into the games.  The Summer games though… nothing.

The following is a list of events in this year’s games that comes from wikipedia’s 2012 Summer Olympics page:

    Aquatics
        Diving (8)
        Swimming (34)
        Synchronized swimming (2)
        Water polo (2)
    Archery (4)
    Athletics (47)
    Badminton (5)
    Basketball (2)
    Boxing (13)
    Canoeing
        Sprint (12)
        Slalom (4)
    Cycling
        BMX (2)
        Mountain biking (2)
        Road (4)
        Track (10)
    Equestrian
        Dressage (2)
        Eventing (2)
        Jumping (2)
    Fencing (10)
    Field hockey (2)
    Football (2)
    Gymnastics
        Artistic (14)
        Rhythmic (2)
        Trampoline (2)
    Handball (2)
    Judo (14)
    Modern pentathlon (2)
    Rowing (14)
    Sailing (10)
    Shooting (15)
    Table tennis (4)
    Taekwondo (8)
    Tennis (5)
    Triathlon (2)
    Volleyball
        Volleyball (2)
        Beach volleyball (2)
    Weightlifting (15)
    Wrestling
        Freestyle (11)
        Greco-Roman (7)

Some of the events are mildly interesting, but not enough to make me get up and turn on the television.  Swimming and boating races are kinda cool.  All of the track and field events, including the decathlon, are included in the list under Athletics.  The decathlon can be interesting to watch, but really only if there is an American contending (I am a total homer when it come to the Olympics), and the events are spread out so much that I lose what little interest I have.

There are a few events that I might have some interest in, but they will never get the television coverage needed for me to be able to just pop on the tube and see it.  Archery.  I happen to really like archery, but it’s probably not going to get any air time.  If I want to follow it I’ll probably have to go to youtube or something.  Fencing is another one, although I haven’t a clue as to how the rules work.  Fencing may in fact be the summer version of curling.

I am ambivalent about most of the events, but some I just have absolute zero interest in.  Shooting.  Wow.  Guns are an Olympic sport.  Yippee.  Basketball.  I used to be a casual basketball fan.  I remember the first dream team well.  That was 1000 years ago though.  After all this time the idea of professionals on the Olympic team is just boring.  How many games has team USA lost in international competition since Larry Bird wore the red, white, and blue?  One?  I know there was at least one loss because it was a national embarrassment.  Have their been others?  I don’t know.  I don’t care.

The Olympics are a great, historic event.  Well worth the efforts that each host city expends in order to make the games happen.  Any time the world can come together peacefully and make something hugely impressive happen, it makes me proud to be human.  From a personal, sports fan point of view though… if I want to watch an athletic contest over the next two weeks, it’s more likely than not going to be a Red Sox game.  Even though the Red Sox royally suck this year.  Team USA is my team in a broad sense.  The Boston Red Sox are my team in a very real, very personal sense.

Go Red Sox.

Go USA! USA! USA!

Google+ has a trending topic right now, #007riday.  I guess today is James Bond Day, the 50th anniversary of something… probably the release of the film version of Dr. No?  I guess.  Who cares.


I am going to throw out a question to the internets today.  How old should a kid be before exposing him/her to the James Bond movie series?  I am about 55% sure that my step son, who is nine, will flip with glee over Bond movies.  I think my step daughter, who is 11, will like them too although I am unsure if I want to expose her to a movie hero who is such a blatant sexist.  Let’s just say that attitudes toward male/female relationships were very different in 1962, you know?


I often go to commonsensemedia.org with questions like these.  Commonsense says 12-13 years old for the Sean Connery Bond films.  I think that site might sometimes be a tad over-conservative.  I know my step kids have seen much, much more violent movies, and while sex is an undercurrent of all Bond movies, it is not blatantly depicted, even in the more recent films.  Sean Connery kisses and flirts with every woman he sees, but you never actually see Bond getting down to business, as it were.  I think the most overtly sexual aspect of any of the films is just the name Pussy Galore from Goldfinger.  


I freakin’ love Bond movies.  I love them all, even the crappy ones are fun for me.  I want to share them with the kids, especially the Connery films… I don’t want their first exposure to be Roger Moore like mine was.  It’s amazing that I became a big fan when the first one I saw was Octopussy.  


So what do you think, internets?  Are the kids too young for Bond?  Remember, I’m just talking about Connery Bond here.  The Moore movies are, for the most part, too silly.  Dalton and Brosnan are both okay, but Craig is just too violent.  Lazenby… if Connery had played Bond in “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” it would have been the best movie ever.  As it is… it’s not bad.  Tell me what you think.

One more time…

If you’re in Litchfield, NH, or anywhere within the general vicinity, this weekend you should buy yourself some lemonade.  Just do it, you’ll be a hero.  I promise.

From the Nashua Telegraph, written by Cameron Kittel and published today, Thursday July 26, 2012.

Litchfield family to host Alex’s Lemonade Stand this weekend to raise money for cancer research

LITCHFIELD – After a successful fundraiser last year, 16-year-old Casey Bissett will host another Alex’s Lemonade Stand on Saturday and Sunday in Litchfield to raise money for cancer research.

The Bissett family will host the lemonade stand on Saturday and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. at 6 Carlisle Drive. It will be held in honor of Casey’s younger brother, Justin, who died from brain cancer in 2007. He was 7 years old.

Last year, Casey held a similar event and raised $1,200. Her goal is $1,500 this time around.

“The more money we can raise, the better,” said Darlene Bissett, Casey’s mother.

Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation is a registered charity and has raised more than $55 million toward finding a cure for cancer. It has funded over 250 research projects nationwide. The organization started in 2000 by 4-year-old Alexandra Scott, who held a lemonade stand in her yard to raise money to find a cure for children with cancer. She died in 2004 but the foundation has evolved into a national fundraising movement with thousands of supporters across the country.

This is being put on by a great kid in memory of another great kid. You should really go and help out. Really. You should really go. You should.

If you are near Litchfield, NH this weekend you should go to this fundraiser. It’s a great cause, it’s run by a great kid, and it’s in memory of another great kid. Please go and help out.

http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/news/969274-196/litchfield-family-to-host-alexs-lemonade-stand.html

I’ve been forcing myself to use Google+.  The way I see it is simple:  If I don’t use it, who will?  There are a lot of photographers posting pretty regularly.  There are a few celebrities posting pretty regularly.  There are no people that I actually know posting regularly, or semi regularly, or ever.

I’ve been cross posting from here to Google+ and I have seen a small increase in traffic to the posts I send there.  Granted an increase of one or two hits per posts is enough to really stand out.  I sent a post to the private page yesterday and was happy to see that the interface between the two applications respected my privacy settings. 

On the Explore page they have a top 10 trending topics list, just like Twitter.  Many of the topics are photography related and I occasionally throw a post or two to contribute.  Strange though that I never, ever see my posts in the search feed.  Ever.  Even when I set it to show the most recent posts and then dig backward, I don’t see anything I’ve posted.  That pisses me off.

Continuing on the topic of the trending topics, many of the regular people who show up in the feeds have a high-and-mighty, Google-is-better-than-everyone-else attitude.  It shows when Apple, or Facebook show up in the trending topics.  Many people post about how crappy things at Facebook and Twitter are, and how Google is so much more tech savvy and worldly and refined than the other networks.  I wonder then how those people can explain the almost constant inclusion of Justin Beiber, or Selena Gomez, or Kim Kardashian, or Kristin Stewart, or Lady Gaga in the trending topics list.  I guess the upper crust just pretend those don’t show up constantly.  More likely there is a shit load of hypocrisy. 

I want Google+ to succeed.  I want Google+ and Facebook to compete with each other as equals so that each company pushes the other to bigger and better things.  That’s not going to happen until people start using Google+.  So go use Google+.

I haven’t watched this in 20 years.

This video was the first I had ever heard of Smashing Pumpkins.  I thought they were unbelievable.  Most of my friends thought I was weird.  Two years later they were one of the biggest bands on Earth and most of my friends still thought I was weird.

Most of them still do.

Last night I took a couple of pictures of a rainbow over our house.  I had been hoping to go outside and try and get some pics/video of the swarm of fireflies, which hopefully would be back again.  I also have this itch to take the 12-string, a mic, and the iPad outside into the yard and write/record a song or two.

Chances are neither of those things will ever happen.  Why?  Because while the plans are valid, the resources involved are not.  Time and energy.  Those are the resources required.  I ain’t got either of ’em.  When I get home I just want to hang around with my beautiful wife or, if it’s a kid night, my beautiful wife and my wonderful step kids.  I just don’t want to use what little time I have, or what little energy I have left, on… anything.  Anything other than lazy family time.

I could probably accomplish so much more in the evenings on weekdays, but I just enjoy sitting down to a nice dinner with my family, and then spending some time together in the living room, and then turning in and maybe reading a little with my wife.  It sounds so simplistic and lazy and quiet… but I really love it.  I really love them.  I’ve been bitching a lot lately and I may not be giving the impression that I am the happiest man alive… but I am the happiest man alive.

I caught the last fading moments of a rainbow behind our house tonight.  I got one crappy picture, and one really crappy picture.

For the whole morning I’ve been convinced that today was Wednesday.  How the hell did that happen?

This training at work (and getting here an hour early) seems to have messed with my whole perception of the universe.  Suddenly Tuesday is Wednesday, Rick Nash plays for the New York Rangers and Ichiro Suzuki plays for the New York Yankees.  Suddenly I am completely a highway commuter who listens to traffic reports on the radio even though he knows they are all wrong.  Suddenly I have a car in the shop today and the other car goes in the shop a week from today.

Four days left until I am back on my normal schedule.  Four.  Days.

I can hack it.