Checksum Arcanius

I watched just a little bit of the Olympics tonight after getting home from watching the most boring Mariner’s game EVER. 9-0 Devil Rays. DEVIL RAYS! Well, thats what we get for loosing Lou and Freddie and Johnson and Griffey and Arod and…

Well, the Olympics didn’t put me in a better mood either, because the main event I watched (after an awesome sweep of the Men’s 400m by the US) was the Men’s Olympic high-bar. And I have lost all faith in Olympic judging. If judges were in charge of the more quantifiable races, they would never be closer than two or three seconds (20-30% error on the 100m)… In this case, they gave the Russian who deserved at least a Silver and made a good case for the Gold a lower score than the two who went before him who he made look like little children with the power and complexity of his routine. The crowd was right when they booed the decision, and the score adjustment was simply to appease them; it didn’t change anything at all. The Italian’s routine was also incredible, maybe a hair better than the Russians, but not by much. And Hamm’s, or whatever-his-sqeaky-voiceness-name-is, who somehow won the Silver and had the gall to defend the decision as well (easy to do when the same system gave you the gold in the all-around earlier), routine was also lackluster compared to the man’s he followed. How he outscored even the Japanese baffles me, let alone the Russian.

My dad suggested instant replay, and that may really be the way to go. Have the judges watch all the routines in person, then, at their leisure, they watch them again in slow-mo from different angles and all that. Then rank the routines, and give point values to each one. The top ranked ones win, with the points to break ties. Of course, considering how obviously clueless the judges seem to be, and how often manipulated they are, maybe there’s an even better solution… like maybe the crowd – they seemed to know what was up. At least their reactions make more sense.

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