Random Olympics Note No. 1 If...

Random Olympics Note No. 1
If I owe anything to this year's Olympics coverage, it's a bit of gratitude for prompting my little sister to call me up yesterday — something she hasn't done for a while. "Have you been watching the Olympics?" she asked. "Some Asian team mopped the American women's volleyball team. And Puerto Rico dusted our men's basketball team." When I pointed out that she'd used two housekeeping metaphors, she came back with, "Well, they need to clean it up then, because that's embarrassing. They beat us in basketball, girl. Basket. Ball. And have you seen how tight security is? They have that athletes' village on lockdown. They've got guards and cameras everywhere. They're probably looking in somebody's window right now."

Synchronized Diving Competition
Of course gold-medal winners Li Ting and Lao Lishi barely made a splash in most of their dives. Your average fourth grader weighs more than they do. And I'm not trying to take away from their accomplishment. Those women have skills. They earned that medal. But, hey, I know I'm not the only one who looks at their suspiciously undeveloped figures and thinks the Chinese officials added a couple of years to their ages. Ditto for their women's gymnastics team. If all of those girls are truly over 12, I will apologize in Mandarin. (I should probably learn to speak Chinese anyway. It is the money tongue of the future.)

Lipitor Commercial
They need to quit it. Yes, Grandpa was in great shape. But for that many women to admiringly check out an old man at the pool, he would have to be drying off with a towel made of money.

Fatal Fathers
First Oxygen launched Snapped!, the show — with the best title ever! — about women who kill. Now A&E's using the Laci Peterson tragedy to shape this depressing documentary about men who murdered the women who were carrying their children. One of its four tragic cases: Jennifer Montroy. She fell in love with troubled ex-con Joseph Peck (he worked nights at her dad's restaurant) and helped him put his life back together. How'd he repay her? By marrying her, squashing her dreams, killing her spirit and eventually bashing in her skull with a hammer. Apparently, the documentary points out, homicide is the leading cause of death for pregnant American women. Yeah. Um. Sometimes it's better not to know.

Random Olympics Note No. 2
If I never hear the phrases "Ian Thorpedo," "Phelps" and "eight Olympic medals" again, I will be a happy woman.

The Casino
Tim and Tom say seeing Tony Bennett perform on the Golden Nugget's showroom stage is one of the proudest moments of their lives — as if they weren't paying him to be there. I mean, no disrespect to the iconic Mr. Bennett (who sent poor Matt Dusk over the I-can-die-happy-now, gushing edge), but these days he's not that busy.

Not-So-Random Olympics Note No. 3
I hope they had oxygen around for the commentators during the men's 200-meter freestyle race with Ian Thorpe, Michael Phelps and Pieter Van den Hoogenband. They got so excited over this race among the fastest swimmers ever to assemble in one race (or something like that) that I could have sworn I heard one of them hyperventilate.

Jurassic Park III
I turned to ABC looking for In the Jury Room. But now I'm asking myself this question: There was a third Jurassic Park? And William H. Macy was in it — playing Tea Leoni's husband? How'd that happen?

Growing Up Gotti
OK. So, Victoria Gotti — the same lady who couldn't keep a beer keg out of the party her underage son threw on her property — took the boys and five of their friends to Miami. Once there, she had the nerve to try and lay down the law as if she runs the yard back home. I know she meant well. But that just didn't make sense.
Other things that didn't make sense:
1) Why the boys would bully their driver/chaperone Jeff into helping them try to shave the eyebrows and head of main chaperone Brian, aka Quack-Quack. "You do us this favor and we won't mess with you," they threatened. "If not... you're going to be looking in your bags.... " I mean, I just don't get that. Is removing someone's facial hair supposed to be fun?
2) That hotel security did not ask the Gottis to leave the premises after that 4 am disturbance — which was one of many, I might add — as they would have done with other less "connected" guests.
3) That Victoria (a gossip columnist for Star magazine) punished Quack-Quack for saying her son Carmine had "a couple of cocktails" by scaring him into thinking her brother Peter Gotti was coming down to handle the situation he started by spreading that "rumor." She played it like a Punk'd prank, using the boys' help. That totally undermined Brian's authority. And it made her look like a hypocrite. How are you going to get on the boys for pulling mean pranks when you use them to do the same thing? I'm just saying.
I'm also wondering how Victoria gets the "facts" for her column. In tonight's episode they showed her filing copy on deadline and calling in tidbits. But they didn't show her doing any actual reporting. Where do these items come from?

VH1 News Presents: Jenna Jameson's Confession
"Money made me do my first boy-girl," the self-crowned Queen of Porn says during what has to be the saddest channel-surfing moment of the night. Why? Because the "money" Jenna was talking about was only $1200.

Road Rules
Who's this new girl?... What do you mean they got rid of Ibis?! Dang. I go on vacation for four days and all kinds of stuff happens. Road Rulers vote off the praying girl, the cute dreadlocked bartender gets nookie on North Shore, Raza gets killed on The Grid. Goodness gracious. Can't a girl go to Mexico without missing all the good stuff? Supongo que no.

Olympics Gymnastics Competition
Let's hear it for our boys winning the silver! Blaine Wilson and the Hamm twins (especially Morgan) know they carried that team. But if Al Trautwig keeps talking over all the good parts during tomorrow's women's team finals, somebody's going to have to stop me from looking up his home address. For real. He was working my last nerve with his pretentious comments tonight. Gymnastics is my favorite Olympic sport and he was ruining it. Sometimes I turned just to get away from him. I mean, seriously. He must have stayed up writing that crap. After a while I had to start jotting them down. They were that over-the-top.
Among the Trautwig lines I love to hate:

"The Romanian men are knocking on the door of greatness that has eluded them...."

"He knows that this is the routine that defines who he is as an Olympian."

"He's got to be all about redemption for what went wrong."

"We are at the point where these steps are dream killers."

Mo' Betta Blues
Apparently the folks at WE think any movie starring Denzel Washington is appropriate women's entertainment. And they would be right. Ah, remember when Spike Lee made good movies?

Airline
How sweet is the Southwest Airline's Adopt a Pilot program? And I say that with no sarcasm. Forget fourth graders. I'm a grown-ass woman and I would still love to crawl up the cargo conveyor belt of a commercial plane, check out the private pilots' lounge and hang out with fly guys. I have many questions to ask those men. Especially the single ones. But I digress.