Sweet, Sweet Olympics

What a run. The coverage, competition, and stories were as good as ever. Perhaps part of the allure is that the games were held in China, a place that has become a dominant force in the world but one that we really do not fully understand.

Did China ever gear up for these games. Somehow, I doubt that the UK will expend this type of effort in 2012.

The closing ceremony was kind of boring, at least after the flame was extinguished. I kept waiting for the long range camera shots of the human "flame" as it defeats the purpose to continually show closeups. Also, was the London skyline in the double decker bus made of grass? That looked terrible.

Speaking of terrible, how about the 2012 logo

Poor Bryan Clay - does anyone even know that he won the decathlon? Along with the title of World's Greatest Athlete?

The US mens volleyball team pulled off an incredible victory over Brazil. Those guys were as proud and appreciative as anyone, especially Hugh McCutcheon.

By the way, had the women's indoor team won, the US would have swept volleyball - 2 outdoor and 2 indoor. As it turned out, they won 3 gold and 1 silver.

I turned on the Olympics the other day and had no idea what sport I was watching. Team handball.....kind of interesting.

USA basketball did us proud. Those guys desperately wanted to win. Total class act.

My back hurts from watching field hockey. What a beating.

I can do without synchronized swimming and rhythmic gymnastics

Olympic commercials

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Very interesting article on the Olympics, tv, and Michael Phelps

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Olympic ratings
Who knew 3,600 hours of broadcast television and video streaming could fly by so quickly? Seems like it was only 17 days ago that the Summer Olympics began. But now Beijing is in the books.

NBC broke the U.S. event record Saturday when it surpassed 211 million viewers served. That topped the mark of 209 million set at Atlanta's Olympics. Of course, the Super Bowl does spot the Olympics 16 days.

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Kosier out for 6 weeks

The Cowboys have not needed to re-shuffle their starting offensive line because of injury in three seasons, but that will change.

Left guard Kyle Kosier could miss up to six weeks because of sprained right foot and hairline fracture. He left Texas Stadium on Friday night in a walking boot and had an MRI on Saturday.

Kosier, who hasn't missed a game since his rookie season in 2002, suffered the injury in the fourth quarter of the Cowboys' 23-22 win against Houston.

With Kosier out, Joe Berger will probably start for the first time in his career. Berger, who joined the Cowboys late in 2006 off waivers from Miami, was active for three games last season and saw his only extended playing time in the season finale at Washington.

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Funney!

HBM

So glad that China set-up all of those protest areas

Chinese authorities have not approved any of the 77 applications they received from people who wanted to hold protests during the Beijing Olympics, state media reported Monday.

The official Xinhua News Agency said all the applications were withdrawn, suspended or rejected. Rights groups and relatives have said some applicants were immediately taken away by security agents after applying to hold a rally, prompting critics to accuse officials of using the plan as a trap to draw potential protesters to their attention.

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Meet Emily

Extraordinarily lifelike characters are to begin appearing in films and computer games thanks to a new type of animation technology.

Emily - the woman in the above animation - was produced using a new modelling technology that enables the most minute details of a facial expression to be captured and recreated.

She is considered to be one of the first animations to have overleapt a long-standing barrier known as 'uncanny valley' - which refers to the perception that animation looks less realistic as it approaches human likeness.

Researchers at a Californian company which makes computer-generated imagery for Hollywood films started with a video of an employee talking. They then broke down down the facial movements down into dozens of smaller movements, each of which was given a 'control system'.

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James Bond meets google maps

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Another Step

Redeem Team takes another step

BEIJING (AP) The U.S. Olympic team stopped the pick-and-rolls - and just about everything else Greece tried.

These Americans that looked so lost two years at the world championship when this team was being formed appear to have found their Olympic defensive way.

Batting away balls or swatting shots on seemingly every possession late in the second quarter, the Americans broke open a close game and went on to a 92-69 victory Thursday night to clinch a spot in the medal round.

Their offense wasn't too shabby either as the Americans were able to find the range on jump shots when the Greeks went to a zone defense to slow them down.

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Rangers are toast

BOSTON – The playoff race is now just a faint memory, like a sleep-away camp from a summer long ago. It allows the Rangers to refocus on the original and more tangible goal for this season: developing young players, particularly young pitchers.

And after another night when the ERA shot up and another young pitcher (Luis Mendoza) had to hand the ball to manager Ron Washington before the game was even halfway over, and an 8-4 loss in Boston dropped them to just one game above .500, the Rangers are forced to consider the season's most important questions:

Are the young pitchers gaining the kind of experience from which they will grow or are they simply getting hammered?

"The question isn't whether they are making progress," assistant general manager Thad Levine said, choosing his words delicately, "it's whether they are making enough progress."

For the seventh time in 11 starts this year, Mendoza failed to make it through five innings. Washington came to get him after he allowed the first four batters of the fifth to reach base. The last batter he faced, rookie Jed Lowrie, lined a two-run double to give Boston an 8-0 lead.

It also pushed the starting rotation ERA to 5.69. The ERA has pushed higher on each day of the current road trip, during which the Rangers have won just once in five games and have seen their deficit in the wild-card standings bulge to nine games back of Boston

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Federer shocker

BEIJING -- Roger Federer's bid for his first Olympic singles medal ended Thursday night when he lost to American James Blake.

With the sort of lackluster performance once unthinkable for Federer, he was eliminated in the quarterfinals 6-4, 7-6 (2).

The upset was a stunner in that Blake had won only a single set in their previous eight matches. But the top-seeded Federer is battling a year-long slump that has left him stalled at 12 major titles, two shy of Pete Sampras' record.

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Julia Child the female James Bond?

Famed chef Julia Child shared a secret with Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg and Chicago White Sox catcher Moe Berg at a time when the Nazis threatened the world.

While Julia Child was cooking pheasants, she was also part of an international spy ring during World War II.

They served in an international spy ring managed by the Office of Strategic Services, an early version of the CIA created in World War II by President Franklin Roosevelt.

The full secret comes out Thursday, all of the names and previously classified files identifying nearly 24,000 spies who formed the first centralized intelligence effort by the United States. The National Archives, which this week released a list of the names found in the records, will make available for the first time all 750,000 pages identifying the vast spy network of military and civilian operatives.

Among the more than 35,000 OSS personnel files are applications, commendations and handwritten notes identifying young recruits who, like Child, Goldberg and Berg, earned greater acclaim in other fields -- Arthur Schlesinger Jr., a historian and special assistant to President Kennedy; Sterling Hayden, a film and television actor whose work included a role in "The Godfather"; and Thomas Braden, an author whose "Eight Is Enough" book inspired the 1970s television series.

Other notables identified in the files include John Hemingway, son of author Ernest Hemingway; Quentin and Kermit Roosevelt, sons of President Theodore Roosevelt, and Miles Copeland, father of Stewart Copeland, drummer for the band The Police.

The Big O

This was the amazing race

How ridiculous is it that 5 teams broke the world record in this race, which means 2 countries broke the WR and did not even medal. I know virtually nothing about competitive swimming but that has to be the greatest relay race....ever.

What transpired during the final 50 meters was the stuff of Disney movies. It was the kind of thing that should land Lezak a co-starring role with Phelps on cereal boxes and network morning shows. And if Phelps does complete the great eight and pocket a $1 million Speedo bonus, he should cut a check for one-eighth of that total to the guy who kept the quest alive, Jason Lezak.

Cullen Jones, Jason Lezak, Michael Phelps and Garrett Weber-Gale set a world record (3:08.24) on their way to winning the 4x100 free relay.

"His last 50 meters were absolutely unbelievable," Phelps said.

The 32-year-old Lezak, a three-time Olympian who has been an American anchorman nearly as long as Ted Koppel, steadily closed in on Bernard. Lezak hugged the lane line, drafting off Bernard like a NASCAR driver. It was a welcome change of tactics for a guy who is accustomed to being drafted upon by trailing swimmers.

"It was an amazing thing to watch. I was saying to myself, 'If anybody in the world can pull this off, it's Jason.'"

In the final stroke, Lezak pulled it off. He thrust his right arm for the wall, desperation and determination meeting perfect timing. The lunge beat Bernard by an eye blink. Lezak somehow touched first, as the fans and his relay teammates both exploded.

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Cowboys struggle

"Overall, we obviously didn't play well enough as a team," coach Wade Philips said. "But any time you have turnovers and penalties, those things are really going to hurt you.

"We're not happy with losing, but I think we can learn a lot."

The lowlights included:

■ Three pass interference penalties that contributed to three San Diego touchdowns.

■ A series of special teams miscues on returns and coverage that created field position troubles.

■ A miscommunication between Brad Johnson and Patrick Crayton that led to an interception San Diego turned into another score.

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Oh yeah, there was a Major in golf this past weekend

Three weeks after playing what many believed to be the back nine of his life to win at Royal Birkdale, an exhausted Padraig Harrington was hoisting the Wanamaker Trophy and becoming the first European-born golfer since 1930 to win the PGA Championship.

That the Irishman did so while basically on fumes is the amazing thing.

Harrington was despondent on Friday after shooting 74, saying, "I'd just run out of steam. I did my best to be ready for the week, but clearly I'm not." On Sunday, he recalled, "I just couldn't get off the golf course fast enough. I was probably the only guy who finished bogey-bogey and thought he was doing pretty well.

"I was probably thinking of putting my clubs away for a week, which is something I almost never do."

Padraig Harrington shot a pair of 66s over the weekend to clinch his third major championship victory.And yet if we have learned anything about Harrington, 36, it is that he is one of the most resilient players in the game today. He is not as gifted, nor does he possess the same skills as a Tiger Woods or a Phil Mickelson or even a Sergio Garcia, who was the tough-luck loser again on Sunday.

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Greatness is gone

For all the great things that he did over his career, I will always remember Isaac Hayes as "The Duke" in Escape from New York and as the voice of South Parks "Chef".

Isaac Hayes, the musician, composer and producer whose innovative sound changed the shape of pop music and whose shaved head, bejeweled outfits and regal demeanor embodied African American masculinity in the 1970s, has died. He was 65.

Family members found Hayes unresponsive Sunday afternoon next to a treadmill in a downstairs bedroom in his home just east of Memphis, Tenn., said Steve Shular, a spokesman for the Shelby County Sheriff's Office.

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Olympics start this week

Olympic Opening Ceremonies moved

The opening ceremonies will start at 6:30 p.m. Friday on NBC, in what the network is calling a "special early start time." Olympic competition actually begins earlier with some soccer matches on MSNBC, including the U.S. women's team playing Wednesday. But the big China-is-great production number, otherwise known as the opening ceremonies, will be the focus of the 4 1/2 hours on Friday.

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Favre back in the mix

Almost six weeks to the day after Favre told Green Bay Packers coach Mike McCarthy that he was seriously considering ending his retirement, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell announced that he was reinstating the legendary quarterback at noon today and ordered the Packers to make room for him on their 80-man roster.

And it appears not only will the Packers take Favre back, they will allow him to compete with Aaron Rodgers for the starting quarterback job. A source close to the Packers told the Journal Sentinel on Sunday afternoon that it was understood between both parties that Favre would have a chance to compete for a starting job.

Before that can happen, however, Favre must meet with McCarthy

Some teammates thoughts
"He wants to play," cornerback Al Harris insisted.

"That's really all you can do is open it up," cornerback Charles Woodson said. "He's reinstated so at that point, once they did that, you've got to give him a chance to win his job. So I think that's only fair. We'll see what happens."

“I love him,” said Driver, who has made three Pro Bowls with Favre throwing him the ball. “That’s one thing I’ve always said. We have a very, very close relationship, so it’s good to have a close friend around, and that’s the biggest thing to me.

“Everyone back home’s saying, ‘Have you met Brett?’” rookie tight end Jermichael Finley said. “I’m like, ‘Nah, man. He hasn’t showed up.’ It’s going to be great to meet him.”

“The only person I really worry about is Aaron, and I think he’s handling it real well,” receiver James Jones said. “However they play it out, they play it out. Aaron’s a man. He’ll handle whatever situation. If he’s the starter, he’s going to handle that as the starter. Something comes up where Brett is the starter, then (Rodgers) will handle it that way. He’ll be fine.”

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25 things you never knew about Metallica (unless you have never read or seen anything about them

Also, Metallica finally revealed the last piece of the Death Magnetic puzzle, announcing their new Rick Rubin-produced album will be available worldwide on September 12th. While most albums are released in Europe on Monday and the States on Tuesday, Metallica are keeping with the unorthodox nature of this album’s release, giving the world Death Magnetic on a Friday. We assume that Friday will also see the release of the playable Death Magnetic for Guitar Hero III.