Functionally ReTodded

Slack.

That’s what I’ve been.

Slack.  Slack.  Slack.  Slack.  Slack.

Slack.  Slack.  Slackety Slack.

I’ve been so slack in fact that my buddy MadSapper has repeatedly requested blogaterial, chastized me for not producing said material, and he even went so far today as to send me a list of ten topics that I could yammer about in my blog.

You see, the biggest issue for him is that Tyler Durden only writes a few pithy sentences, and those are not enough to get him thru his morning coffee and cereal in a coffee cup.

Fine.  I get it.  I need to write more.  For you, for me, for the seven people worldwide that read my blog.  Well, I’m pretty sure five of them are just checking in here in hopes of seeing another picture of me in my boxers with an adult diaper on, like this one:

Or maybe you come here to see cute pictures of my urchins, like these:

Or, you might want to hear me rant about something.

And that’s what I shall do.

Unless you live under a rock or in an undesirable part of China, you know that Michael Phelps won eight gold medals in Beijing.  EIGHT.  In one Olympics.  Oh, and I forgot to mention that all eight resulted in World Records.

Amazing?  Absolutely.

Along the way however, former Olympic great Mark Spitz (owner of the old record but still a very impressive seven gold medals in a single Olympic games), has had a lot to say about a lot of things.  He’s been mad because NBC or US Swimming didn’t take him to Beijing.  He’s complained that he’s been ignored.

It’s always sad when guys get all shitty if their record is about to be broken.  Don’t believe me?  Look at those assholes that played for the 1972 Miami Dolphins (Mercury Morris in particular) that get together and drink champagne on the day the last undefeated team finally loses.  That’s a pretty high level of dickishness.

But yesterday, Spitz came out on television and said "If Michael Phelps and I both were in our primes,  I think we would tie."

Yep.  Mark Spitz said he would tie Michael Phelps in a race (or I assume, races).

Now, if there were only a way to compare apples to apples, like maybe taking the times of the events they swam in common to see how that would work out.

Here’s a chart showing the events the two had in commen during their respective "peak" Olympics, and the times they swam:

So in the 200m freestyle, Phelps beat Spitz time by almost ten seconds.  That’s in four lengths of the pool.  2.5 seconds per lap.

In the 100m butterfly, Phelps edged Spitz by just under four seconds, or about eight percent.

In the 200m butterfly, Phelps beat Spitz by the narrowest of nine second margins.

In the 4 x 100m freestyle relay, Phelps’ team eked out an 18 second margin of victory.

In the 4 x 200m freestyle relay, Team 2008 America edged Spitz’s America by a paultry 36.5 seconds.

And in the 4 x 100m medley relay, Phelps noses Spitz (that’s funny cuz Spitz is Jewish) by 19 seconds.

Wow.  When you look at those numbers, one thing really jumps out at you, and that’s that Michael Phelps would have gotten a better race from a modern day Golden Retriever than Spitz. For real.  I bet Michael Phelps in street clothes (not including shoes) could beat Spitz in the 200 butterfly.

Seriously,  I cannot stand people that can’t be gracious when the inevitable happens and their once unbeatable record is broken.

Hey Mark, take a humility lesson from Hank Aaron.  Stop acting like a petulent child.  Maybe US Swimming and NBC didn’t invite you BECAUSE they were worried that you’d act, well, kind of like how you’re acting now.

My friend John sent me this:

One thing that completely slipped my mind when scheduling my return trip to Canada was the fact that I would be reunited with my favorite Canadian and, dare I say, my man crush.

No. Not Jacque Villenueve. Not Patrick Roy. Not Dan Aykroyd. Not Alan Thicke. Not Geddy Lee. Not Rick Emmett. Not John Candy, Rick Moranis, William Shatner, Keaneu Reeves, Donald Sutherland, Matthew Perry, Michael J. Fox, Mike Myers, Jim Carey, Martin Short or Kiefer Sutherland. Not Bryan Adams, Neil Young, Tom Cochrane, Gordon Lightfoot or Robbie Robertson.

No it’s none of those Canadian men. It’s Mike Holmes, the host of one of the greatest television shows ever:

Holmes on Homes

Seriously, I am pretty sure I could sit and watch 150 episodes of this show in a row. The guy shows up on the scene where someone / someones are in the midst of a home contractor crisis, either thru fraud, neglect or even not knowing better, and here comes Mike, with his team of amazing contractors, and they not only solve the problem on time, but also they do work that 99.9999% of the world’s contractors could only dream to achieve.

Then, during the show, he takes a moment here or there to indignantly shit on the person/persons that did the prior work.  And at the end, while giving the homeowner(s) the tour, he takes moments to dig another knife into the poor saps who had their work profiled on his show.

And another thing I like is that he’s not the guy that stands on the side whilst everyone else works.  He’s putting down tile, putting up fixtures, doing structural changes, etc.

If you can’t decide what ou should buy me for Christmas this year, think no more.  Buy me one (or more) of the past seasons of Holmes on Homes on DVD .  I’ll even let you watch it with me if you’ll promise to be quiet.