August 08

If you haven't seen what the men & women are doing in gymnastics recently then you're in for a treat at the Olympics. Look for coverage of the high bar and parallel bars for men, and the beam, uneven bars and vault for women.
The women's gymnastic event will be China vs. USA. On paper it's a dead heat. American Shawn Johnson will be up against China's, Jiang Yuyuan, for the overall gold, with either American, Nastia Liukin, or China's Yang Yilin getting the bronze.

Two of the most anticipated performances will come from He Kexin on the uneven bars, and Cheng Fei on the vault. Kexin will be performing an extraordinarily risky uneven bar routine, and Cheng Fei will be doing her freaky 'cheng fei' vault, a vault with a start value so high it's off the charts. The judges aren't even sure how to score this vault, so if she lands on her feet, she's golden. You can watch these two perform their stunts here. (3 min)

Kexin should win gold in uneven bars, with her teammate, Yang Yilin, and American Nastia Liukin fighting for the silver and bronze.
Fei will win the gold in vault.

Roman Sebrle, of the Czech Republic, will win gold in the decathlon. He's the best athlete in the world.
Allyson Felix will win the women's 200 metre sprint.

If you can find anyone to bet with, offer even money on Kexin (uneven bars), Fei (vault), Sebrle (decathlon), and Felix (200 metre sprint) vs. field.

Of course, the Olympics aren't all about betting. It's the spirit of competition, naturally (well, sometimes not). And I'll be rooting for Canada in the Olympics. However, Canada's chances to win medals in summer Olympics would be better if their four seasons weren't: winter, winter, still winter, construction.
Canada's chances for medals will probably have to wait until the winter Olympics are held in Vancouver in 2010, where Canada has successfully petitioned the International Olympic Committee to include a new demonstration sport, "Snowball Fighting".

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Joke: A Canadian and an American were sitting in a sauna when suddenly a phone rang. The American lifted his palm to his ear and began speaking into his hand. After he was done, the Canadian asked, "What was that all about?" The American answered, "I have a microchip in my hand. It's the latest thing. It's a cell phone and pager under my skin." The Canadian was left feeling low-tech and out of touch. He excused himself and went to the bathroom and returned with toilet paper sticking out of his ass. The American raised his eyebrows, pointed at the toilet paper hanging out the Canadians' butt and asked, "What's that?" The Canadian said, "Well, will you look at that! I'm getting a fax!"

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"If It Runs On Four Legs You Can Bet It Here" - a sign at the Race & Sports book in Reno's Cal Neva Casino.

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Google tip: let's say you like a song but are too poor to buy it, or too lazy to steal it via a torrent or other peer-to-peer internet thing. Just go to google and in the search bar type:

intitle:"index.of" God Save The Queen mp3

Note: Change the 'God save the Queen' part with whatever song you want, but leave the mp3. Chances are very good that you'll get hits of directories to the song (instead of HTML pages), where you can, at the very least, listen to the song, or, if you have Firefox, easily download it onto your computer. Share this trick with the kids.

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"International golfers rule LPGA, which is not a good thing..." The Canadian Press

Yes, they were at it again in July. Congratulations to Seon Hwa Lee (again), who won the P&G Beauty Arkansas Championship, and Ji Young Oh, who won the State Farm Classic last month.

My brother and I bet on men's and women's golf several times a year and he has trouble following my bets. He complains I'm using too many Jee's, Chung's, Hee-yuns, Kims, Parks and Paks. He says my picks sound like the menu at Uncle Wong's. His choices, meanwhile, are names like Gulbis, Davies, Webb and Inkster. He kicks my ass on the men's tour, but he's just not up to speed with what's happening in the world of women's golf.

I tell him, "Dan, it's a woman's game now." I have to admit, Gulbis is a lot of woman; Webb can hit her irons; and Inkster can chip. Laura Davies looks like a country unto herself. She's cool though - while in Vegas a few years ago she spent the whole night before the final round drinking tee and playing blackjack at a casino on the strip. She showed up at the course ten minutes before her tee time, didn't warm up and went on to win the tournament.

In men's golf news, The Canadian Open was held last week and no one showed up. Sure, a few fans turned out, but where were all the top players? The event was won by Chez Reevie, from Kansas, ranked 400 in the world. A part-time pizza delivery boy for Domino's, Reevie won enough in the event to pay the tax, plus take the kids to the county fair and buy them all a Slushie.
The event was marred by the RCMP, who tackled Reevie's friend to the ground on the 18th hole; his friend was trying to celebrate the victory by dousing Reevie with a Super Big Gulp with Vodka (from Brandie's on Lakeshore), and the police mistook him for a Sikh terrorist from the Dixie Gurdwara Apartment complex in Mississauga. True story.

The PGA frowned on the incident, and has handed over next years' Canadian Open to the Cranbrook WackyPutt, located at the Ponderosa Motel and RV Park, in Cranbrook BC, next door to the Kootenai Indian Reservation. It's a championship par 36, 18 hole mini-putt course that measures 425 feet and has a slope rating of 5. They've repaired all the rips in their artificial turf and have put a new battery in the windmill hole. The event will culminate on their redesigned 18th hole, the signature hole, a spectacular winding putt through the simulated cleavage of Pamela Andersons' breasts.

Drinking Molson's will be encouraged during the event, and John Daly has promised to attend.

Canadians can be so sensitive about their identity, aren't they? Last time I flew to Canada (from SF) the stewardess asked me if I wanted dinner, and I asked her, "What are my options?" And she said, "Yes or no."

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Imagine this: let's say you bet on the Mariners vs. the Tigers last month. The game goes into extra innings. The score is 1-1. You're watching the game on TV and you need to win your bet, otherwise the kids don't eat and the rent doesn't get paid. Then, in the 15th inning, with fresh pitchers in the bullpen, the Mariners manager calls for a change in pitchers, but instead of putting in a major league pitcher, he opts to put the 2nd string catcher, Jamie Burke, on the mound instead. True story. The first batter hits a double. Then Burke threw a pitch to the second batter that missed the plate, missed the batter, and missed the catcher. It flew over the umpires head and hit the backstop. The runner advanced to third. The next pitch was a 60mph duck and the batter hit a sacrifice fly to end the game. Now your kids don't eat and your rent doesn't get paid.

And Pete Rose, baseball's greatest player of all-time, still can't get into the Hall of Fame.

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"The women's locker room will closed today at 9:30am for maintenance. Use your digression. Men at work." A sign at my 24-Hour Fitness gym.

"The basketball court is closed due to recent events..." A sign at my 24-Hour Fitness gym. ('recent events' are code words for 'someone pulled a gun'. The gym's located in Richmond, Cali, so you have to expect that kind of nonsense at the gym on occasion. You just need to learn to duck.)

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Beginning in the 1980's, and the reign of horror-freak, Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe began a land redistribution movement to steal back all the land that whites stole from them during Britain's colonization. Whites were 1% of the population, but owned 70% of the land. The whites either fled, or were physically booted off their land by machete wielding natives. The farms went into the tank and soon there were massive food shortages. Tourism overtook agriculture, which isn't a good sign since no one visits Zimbabwe. Currency problems and hyperinflation are now the latest rage. In July it was reported that Zimbabwe was about to run out of paper to print money. Zimbabwe has announced it will attempt to rectify the problem by dropping ten zeros off its currency. As of last week, 100 billion dollars couldn't buy you a loaf of bread. It is estimated that their inflation is at 12.5 million percent, but 80% of the population is unemployed so they won't have to worry about what their paycheque will be worth next week.

In other world news, Iran has been accused of photoshopping their missile tests. Look here to see how it was done.

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Kathryn dance gallery.

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The files that appear below are usually in the 60-70mb range in size. If you want to view the file, I'd recommend clicking the link, then wait a couple minutes to let the video load into your browser before hitting the play button. These are progressive downloads, and if your connection is at all slow, or if the server is slow on my side, the video will begin to play and then halt. So you may need to be patient. Enjoy!