More From Beijing (via the 27" television in my living room in Illinois)

Cesar Cielo (Brasil) - he just finished and won the 50 meter freestyle swim in the Cube ... didn't breathe once in those 21.30 seconds. Which made me twitchy. I tried a flip-n-twist at the pool a few weeks ago and got lost somewhere in the middle, under water. I was surprised just how little air my lungs held and when my feet pushed off what I thought was the bottom and I didn't surface (my guess is I got discomboobulated and I was actually pushing off a wall), I actually began to believe that I was going to have to breath water. I was on my last millisecond when I surfaced. I got out of the pool, dried off and haven't been back. I get a little short of breath every time I think about it - almost claustrophobic, which strikes me as unusual but then again, claustrophobia is essentially the same concept but with solids rather than liquids. Cesar's swim reminded me of that.

Dara Torres (USA) - is 5 years older than I am, on her 5th Olympics (and she skipped 2 in the middle), swam a semifinal in the lane next to a 16 year old (25 years her junior -cough) ... and placed first. Yea, it's only a semifinal, whatever, she had one long vein popping on her perfect biceps.

One last swimming thing: Michael Phelps ... that's all.

Martins Plavins & Alexandrs Samoilovs (Latvia) - started off as the 23rd best men's beach volleyball duo of 24 teams, played the 1st best team ... and beat them. They're so good that they have no equal or near competition where they come from so they practice against teams of 6 on their Baltic Sea beach.

Didn't those Chinese gymnasts look young? Like, really, really, very, very young? I think they looked young.

On the topic of the Opening Ceremonies, a short week ago ... 2008 Fou drummers chanting and thank God they were directed to smile more because that much percussion and that much male chanting coming from a population that dwarfs our nuclear-family citizenry can be quite intimidating ... throw in 2008 white-clad martial artists and you've got a swelling amount of red-state hysteria.

I'm miffed that both softball and baseball were voted off future Olympic schedules - having wasted over 30 minutes watching both the male and female synchronized diving matches, I think softball and baseball got the shaft.

All-in-all though, I am very taken with the Olympics in a way I never have been before and the credit belongs to China. Had the Opening Ceremonies been the same ol' same ol', I would have watched for 10 minutes, turned it off and not probably returned. And perhaps I would have spent all that extra time blogging.

And We're STILL So Much Alike

I give to you two very solid reasons for much of my lack of posting ... from my friend Mel who apparently is living my life on the western side of this state

Let The Games Begin
MIA For a Reason

As I watched the Opening Ceremonies, I thought '"wow, that would make an excellent blog post". Unfortunately for me, I didn't head into the computer room immediately and someone beat me to it, practically word for word. Hmph.

Things That Make Me Go Ooooh

Discovered a new beta search engine today that knocked my socks off and no, it's not Cuil. Found a link to this one in an article about Cuil's crash and burn.

SearchMe

It won't replace the functionality of Google but it'll be good for seeing the pages before linking to them.

Music to My Ears

Our air conditioning is out. Well, not out, per se, but not entirely working, let's say. The ... people ... who put together our condos weren't exactly working on all cylinders (that's me being nice) and so made it practically impossible to reach the filters for our air conditioner. They (the filters) are supposed to be changed 2x a year, we've been here since March, 2005 and this is the first time we've realized we can't reach them because they (the cylinder-less nincompoops - that's me being less nice - that built these condos) put riveted obstacles in the way - to the point where we will have to pay to get these things replaced. It's 86 degrees out there today. Oy.

* * * * * * * * *

On an entirely different subject (I just thought I'd mention the above paragraph so you got a good picture of my environment), I have been inspired to write a post about one of the things closest to my heart: music. But first, let me put some on so I can get further inspired ...

Mmmm Vampire Weekend, hell yea ... let's go.

We'll start with my favorite band of all time and no surprise because in this, I am as normal as a heartbeat: The Beatles. Seriously people, this IS rock music. Everything stems from The Beatles and [rant]don't give me that shit about Elvis or -god forbid- The Rolling Stones. I am firmly in JohnPaulGeorgeRingo camp and couldn't care less about MickDruggie1Druggie2Invisibleman1Invisibleman2 - the Stones would never have left London if not for the initial Invaders: The Beatles.[/rant]

The Beatles are the best selling group in musical history, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame could have been built on them alone. They enjoyed only one year of success in England before exploding into America and starting an audio revolution that would never again (yet) be rivaled. With the exception of Yellow Submarine, every album The Beatles released both in the UK and US held the #1 sales positions for multiple weeks. Between 1962 and 1970, The Beatles songs grew from short, Pop-py sing-a-longs to wandering, mind-bending exercises in existentialism - pretty much, as they grew so did their music ... and so did their audience. A young girl who might have screamed her entire way through a concert in 1964 would later be tripping face to "Dear Prudence" or "I Am the Walrus" as she enjoyed the farther reaches of her wild oats. I believe that is one of the most amazing legacies of The Beatles, that they could grow with their fans and avoid being looked upon as "a band I liked when I was young" of which there are SO MANY. And that they could then speak so clearly to those fans' children, of which I am one.

Despite all the great new bands I've been exposed to and fallen in love with in the years since I first built my appreciation for The Beatles, I will always consider them my favorite because they will always be the best. They are the Michael Jordan of rock and roll.

Holding the second spot in my heart, and a close second at that, is Phish. For this one I have my college friends to thank. One friend brought over the album "Rift" one night in our last week at school. He bought it for the album art and thank God for great album art because Phish pretty much defined my 20s and early 30s and has infiltrated so many parts of my life, I'd be a completely different person otherwise. I think some people find something a little pathetic about that statement but really, it is no different than saying a god or a faith defines you: it's all subjective, it's all opinion and it's all individual to the person and therefore nobody else's business to judge. I am defined by my faith and that is in music and not in air.

All-in-all, I've seen many Phish shows. We'll leave it at that. I could count them down (I have before, I've forgotten before) but the count is for competition purposes only. "Many" is as good a count as any.

My first Phish show was 8/10/1996 at Alpine Valley, WI. It was the first Phish show for many of my friends and, unbeknownst to me at the time because I hadn't yet met him, my husband. The experience and music both had such an amazing impact on me that I came ->thisclose<- less than a week later to heading to Plattsburgh, NY - ticketless and solo - for the tour-ending Clifford Ball Festival. I had my boss on-call, I had a ride from Detroit to NY - I was missing the ride from Chicago to Detroit and that, in the end, was what undid my plans. I still regret that.

Until their quote-unquote end in 2004, I based most of my vacations and family visits around Phish shows which makes me a bad daughter, I know. But they were THAT important to me. I met Jason because of Phish. And when they return (note the when and not if), I will find a way. Despite the facts that I'm in a new job now with a much stricter vacation policy and that we have goals now that require savings accounts and that the economy is such that both driving and flying are financially tough ... I will find a way.

In the meantime, I am satisfying myself with new music that excites me and makes me wish - just a little - that I was in high school now and therefore didn't look quite so silly as a thirty-something woman blasting The Killers or The Raconteurs in public. I have three favorite stations programmed on my car radio that fulfill most of my needs when not on commercial: WDRV for its devotion to the 60s and 70s (and sometimes 80s but only the good 80s), Q101 for its love of the Alternative (which is now mainstream, of course, as alternative must always become one day) and XRT for the blend of both and some new stuff to boot. XRT introduced me to Vampire Weekend which I started playing at the beginning of this (went through that self-titled album then onto Yellow Submarine during The Beatles portion of this posting and now I'm into The Killer Hot Fuss for what probably should be the wrap-up since I am supposed to do other things today).

All-in-all, I would say that of all art forms - even writing, says the writing major - I find more comfort and a Home in music. Some songs can tell a great story while other songs can influence a heartbeat and give my restless toes something to do. When I was younger, I went everywhere with my walkman (yes, I know that is a brand name but, like xerox and tivo, it has become the term for all in its category and, while I never owned a brand-name Walkman, I did own several of its competitors) and I couldn't even begin to impress upon you how exciting it was for me to graduate to a portable cd player and let's just say that my iPod is my 2nd best friend (behind Jason, of course) and, despite a 60 GB capacity, is nearly full with so much not yet on it. I like music too much for 60 GB to properly express.

There is music I dislike, certainly: a flat twang or an overplayed song (cough-stairway-cough) or what I call noodling which is a state of guitar-play in which the tune meanders hither and thither without actually going anyplace, and the only noodling I will put up with is Trey Anastasio because I know that eventually, he will go somewhere.

But for the most part, music is one of those subjects that I like to keep an open-mind on because I don't want to miss the best stuff each era has to offer by being mired up to the knees in my own era. My inspiration on this is my own mom who opened herself up to my music when I was a teenager and even though I won't have a child to do the same for me, I think I will succeed just fine on my own.