Daniel's TV Blog

I hate the Olympics. But I'll get back to that. With the Olympics starting tonight, I've been thinking a lot about the 1984 Olympics. At the time, I loved the Olympics. I think that was the best year ever and its been going down hill from there. I was 13 and living in Thousand Oaks, CA while the LA Olympics happened. Being so close made the whole experience so magical. It was like the entire population of LA decided to work together to make the best Olympics ever. People drove less. Traffic flowed better. Pollution was lower. And everyone was just nicer. My dad worked for GTE at the time and they were contracted out by official Olympic sponsor AT&T to do some of the telecommunications. GTE was a phone company which later became part of Verizon. My dad was the manager of the communication center for Paulie Pavilion which is in UCLA. That was the location for the gymnastics and tennis events. He got to see all of the events live, when he wasn't in the control trailer. I got to see one of the rehearsal events. It was confusing and boring but I convinced myself that I loved it. But UCLA was just one of the many varied locations for the Olympics. One of the great things about the LA Olympics was the massive distribution of events. The opening and closing ceremonies were at the USC Coliseum. Water Polo was at Perperdine University in Malibu. That's like 45 minutes away. Rowing was way past my house out in Ventura County and wrestling was way out in Anaheim in Orange County. When visiting UCLA, the security was higher than current post 9-11 standards. There were guards everywhere. Double fences surrounding the Olympic village were patrolled by attack dogs. I would learn later in life that the Munich Olympics had a rather nasty terrorist attack and they didn't want a repeat of that which only 12 years prior. It's too bad the retards in Atlanta 96 didn't care so much and they ended up with a bombing. Suckers. The LA Olympics was also the beginning of the pin trading phenomenon. My dad had a bucket full of GTE pins which he traded each one for dozens of cool pins from around the world. He still has that collection. On a recent trip, my dad indicated he is ready to liquidate his collection. I think I'll be eBay-ing the pins in four years during the London games. The final reason I loved the massive US medal count. The retards in what used to be called the "second world" decided to boycott and we cleaned up. It was a great childhood experience. I used to love the Olympics.

But now I hate the Olympics. Mostly I started to hate the Olympics because of Nancy Kerigan and that boxing chick. I completely lost faith in the entire system during the Utah crapfest where the Canadians were cheated from their medals by the French judges. Of course these are both Winter Olympics, but I still hate the summer Olympics. I consider the Olympics the biggest supporter of state sponsored child abuse in the world. If you enjoy watching that, you might was well enjoy watching parents slapping their kids in a K-Mart. Actually the slapping is much better since it doesn't cause permanent damage to the child's body like the stress of those massive gymnastic flips can cause. I think the Olympics should have an age limit of 18. Mary Lou Retton won her gold at age 16. Even if there is an age limit, it wouldn't solve the problem since the kids would still train too hard while under age. But the final reason I hate the Olympics is: they are boring. Enjoy your boring polluted Olympics. PS, my cousin is completing in Beijing and yet I still don't care.

Labels: Olympics