Homer, Alaska - Oped - Some proud, puzzling moments from summer games in Beijing 09/03/08

Story last updated at 7:08 PM on Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Some proud, puzzling moments from summer games in Beijing

As many of you know by now, every two years my editors and clients spare absolutely no expense to ensure that I cover the Olympics. This year the Beijing games were no exception, when they summarily disallowed all of my reimbursement receipts up to and including nacho dip for the chips. One was snarky enough to suggest that since Jane and I traveled around China a bit, including Beijing, in 2005, that I should still have enough residual memory to add color commentary without going back there.

The only color that I could remember while touring Beijing was wicked smog and a buffet containing more moving delicacies than critters terminated by tempura. That argument went over like parboiled silk worm on a stick so I ended up in front of the old Panasonic again heroically scribbling down highlights for the three of you who follow Unhinged Alaska.

The games started off with a spectacular opening ceremony including an estimated several trillion Chinese putting on stunning displays of precision formations they had been practicing 24/7 for four years at a wage structure that should have inspired Nancy Pelosi to personally picket the stadium parking lot. To top it all off, one of the cutest little ladies of the evening wowed the crowd with an excellently lip-synched song that nearly sent Britney Spears sobbing back into seclusion.

Once the contests fired up, the NBC, MSNBC, USA, OXYGEN and CNBC channels offered almost 24-hour daily coverage of everything from track and field to competitive shoe tying. I wore out two remotes, an emergency back-up TV and a rented 64-cup coffee maker that chugged out enough Columbian "Black Death" Espresso to keep the entire population of Alaska awake for two weeks yet still missed stuff.

I was flag-waving proud of all of our athletes whether they brought home a medal or a souvenir pin from the Olympic Village. In fact, I cheered for every world participant who worked hard to get there although I was a bit perplexed how a couple of the diminutive Chinese female gymnasts acquired day passes from their pre-school classes.

To be truthful, there were some sports that were a genuine challenge to watch without fastening my eye lids open with duct tape. I really admire anyone who can finish a 26-mile marathon without power hurling a major internal organ (the only way I could complete one of those things is with a local area bus schedule), but who wants to watch it from the starting line to the last lap in the stadium? Come on NBC, your announcers sounded like they were approaching mental hypoxia trying to stir up excitement as some of the runners approached a water station.

"Look Ralph, the Kenyan is nearing another table. Do you think he'll request his special energy solution now or will it just be common water? He's been on the road for over an hour and a half, do you think he'll switch? Ralph? Ralph? ...Uh? When did he fall off the chase car? S#!+."

You guys could have covered five other events while doing updates on the race. Good grief, a documentary on embroidering costumes for the synchronized swim teams would have been a better break than a solid two-plus hours of waiting for someone to keel over from the heat.

Let's not even discuss your nail-biting reporting on racewalking or the exciting-as-watching-Jello-congeal coverage of how the officials scored the boxing matches. Some of your people gave the impression they couldn't beat themselves in a game of checkers and pronouncing two syllable words were as much as a mystery to them as the DaVinci Code.

All in all, this summer's Olympic Games rocked. Phelps, the human dolphin, went blasting through the water like a barracuda with an attitude. The man vacuums down 12,000 calories a day yet his body could be used as an ironing board. The last guy I knew who ate like that was a lineman I played football with way back in the day. He ended up modeling canvas logo suggestions for Good Year blimp customers.

The rest of our men were just as dedicated and aggressive whether they were shooting hoops or targets. Our lady athletes were fearless competitors, too, whether they were whacking volleyballs or sticking a landing and none them arrived to the stadium in strollers. It doesn't get any better than that.

One last note, NBC, I know your big corporation has really been pushing "going green" in support of Al Gore's, "We're all honkin' doomed" global warming raves. So why then did you go to the extreme of chilling the outside air surrounding your external television stage sets?

Wait, I get it. Not only didn't you want your broadcast stars to break a sweat, but it also was an attempt to slow down the progress of receding glaciers in northwest China. Thus you weren't required to purchase a boatload of carbon offsets because you switched to global cooling, unlike Uncle Al who supposedly has to cough up coin every time he flies off somewhere to preach the evils of not conserving fuel.

I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it. I still don't.

Nick C. Varney can be reached at ncvarney@gmail.com.

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