h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Yes excuse me Baltic states, I'll remember that now, dont know why I would have forgotten that.

Please forgive my ignorance

It must be quite the same nowhere from that distance, methinks.

Do you have any news from the olympics. Our broadcasts just dont cover some of the sports the Estonians are good at. I haven't seen any mentioned yet.

So far there wasn't any to mention, they keep failing. But today one got bronze medal in judo (100+) - Indrek Pertelson.

My Chinese friends are very happy, their team has done well, although not as well has they had hoped.

Have you heard about some of the judges and their mistakes? One swimming judge claimed an American swimmer made an incorrect turn and he was quickly reversed. One gymnastics judge started their judging with the wrong value on their card and this let the American get Gold in the "best all around" when it should have been a Korean.

So much has been made about the Olympic being in the same country as it started in, well the ancient olympics were not very close to what we have today at all. The ancient Greeks only gave the prizes to the winner (no second or third at all) in fact they publicly embarrased those who came less than first. Even the original olympics had cheating they were flogged immediately. Of course they all participated without any clothes originaly also.

Well I hope you can see enough of your athletes. We have 5 hours in the morning, 5 hours in the evening (all on one channel) then late at night we have three other cable channels that start at 11pm and go until 7am the next morning. I do not watch it all nor even half of it.

I think they show it way too much on TV. Oh well, so people do want to see it. I don't.
Still, today we got silver medal, or rather Jüri Jaanson got it, rowing, single scull, or however they call it.

Right or not the American culture is based upon marketing (sales). Nothing succeeds unless it is marketed correctly and anything can succeed if it is marketed correctly, both sides are equally true. We as Americans so concentrate on youth and the appearance of youth we are vulnerable to the marketing that depends upon that ideal. It is a sad state of affairs here.

There are some people here who claim that just getting into the Olympics is a victory and the prizes dont really mean a whole lot, that kind of sentimentality is not the main stream though. (unfortunately)

In another sense all physical feats of athleticism will go the way of the dust so ephermal they are. We can enjoy them for what they are but not to depend upon them for anything special in the long run. This represents my thinking more than any other. When I was much younger I was able to lift weights now that I am older I am happy to just get around the city. My true worth as a person is not tied up in my physical body anymore.(was it ever?)

I'm happy that Estonia got a medal. Just a few minutes ago I watched Lithuania beat the US in basketball. Their team was rated so highly that this feat was not considered an upset. The whole world of international baskeball seems to have leveled upward, that's good.

Seems like for US basketball players Olympics is not profitable enough event. For Lithuania it was a big day.

There was an Estonian who had trained in Iceland I saw in the gymnastics competition (Pommel horse I believe). For some reason he was unable to train in his own country and he represented Iceland not his native country (like so many others recently).

As far as basketball, I think that the "big" names in the NBA just didn't want to take a chance that there might be a problem in Athens. The US team was not the best basketball team the US could have put on the court. It has mostly rookies and lesser names from the NBA(only one big name, Iverson) The other situation is that the European teams have improved greatly and managed to keep their players at home instead of having them migrate to the US and play for the NBA. The US team seem to be able to make the final round even though it has lost twice already so we still have a chance to win gold. Parity will come sooner than later.

There is quite a great number of Estonians living everywhere around the world, mostly since WW2 and their children etc. Quite some of them have made to the Olympics. I am not sure though, if this was the case.