Saturday Olympic Eleven

1. Bob Costas is a goober.

2. The trouble with Phelps' eighth gold medal was it was all they talked about during the race as if the other guys didn't really count.

3. I like the arrangement they use of the Star-Spangled Banner. The bridge has some chords I hadn't thought of.

4. What the hell kind of country has an anthem with a word like "spangled" in it? Aren't spangles in the glitter and glue aisle at Michael's?

5. The Water Cube English-language announcer sounds vaguely Australian. I wonder if he's Chinese and learned English down under. Well, if you have to choose an accent, there are worse.

6. Latin American soccer is superior to the European variety.

7. Soccer needs smarter television direction - more replays, say in the upper half while the action continues in the lower half.

8. I don't get Americans who claim soccer is boring. We like basketball. We like hockey. We like baseball. Soccer / football has fast running like basketball and similar overall layout as hockey and as much athletic grace as baseball. There's nothing not to like except those long-haired prima donnas rolling around the pitch pretending to be in pain and all that needs is an anti-grandstanding rule with a penalty of, I dunno, chaining the guy to the ground for two minutes, something like that.

9. A sport that involves chains and shackles would have to be popular.

10. I honestly don't give a flip about American men's basketball. Who the hell's idea was it to send multi-millionaire man-child professionals to the Olympics?

11. We should all believe in God for four seconds just so we can thank Him there is no Olympic golf.