I've got Olympic FEVER!

I love the Olympics.  I try not to use the “L” word too much unless I mean it.  But in this case, it totally fits.  I LOVE THE OLYMPICS.  If not for my annual trek to San Diego every year for geek mecca, I would use my vacation days to stay home and watch as much Olympic coverage as possible.  I would set up all my TVs in one room and have each one set to one of NBC’s many channels covering events.  This is not to say I don’t burn out quickly but I always manage to stick it out to the less impressive closing ceremonies. 

Thankfully the coverage at NBC is pretty good.  They’ll let you know who won handball, who bounced around impressively on the trampoline, and if any weightlifting folks peed themselves that day.  Plus one can always rely on the interwebs to find just about anything Olympics-related.  My biggest problem?  Well that would be avoiding coverage during the day while I’m at work.  I’m usually pretty good at just checking in during my lunch break.  As soon as I’m home though, it’s all Olympics all the time.

I love the background stories telling us what hardships each athlete has had to overcome to reach this international competition.  The more emotional a story we get the better. Of course being in the U. S. of A. we tend to mostly get stories about American athletes.  However, I want to know more about the international athletes.  Sure, I’m desperate to know every blessed detail there is about Ryan Lochte.  Heck, I want to know more about that guy than he knows about himself. 

So I've been trolling the London Olympics page to see what I can find out about the non-US competitors.  Sadly not everyone has a paragraph describing life on a farm with at least one dead parent and/or 15 younger siblings to care for.  I found Oteng Oteng, a boxer from Botswana.  What’s his story?  What hardships has he overcome in life?  Where exactly is Botswana?  Oooh, how about purple-haired Phillip Boy from Germany?  He’s a gymnast and having purple hair makes him automatically interesting, right?  Will NBC tell me anything about him?  Is he a Katie Perry fan and is honoring her with his hair style?  Did you know there’s a trampolinist (is that a word?) from China, er, People’s Republic of China, named Dong Dong?  Hannah Storm should do a story on athletes with redundant names.  I bet there are more than just Dong Dong and Oteng Oteng.  Will they mention that there are 7 athletes named Li competing in table tennis?  Jiao Li (39) and Jie Li (28) are both from the Netherlands.  Are they related?  Will someone please tell me?!?!?! 

If ever there was a year that I wanted to go to the Olympics it was this year.  I love all things English and would have LOVED to be there for all the festivities.  I bet London is CRAZY right now.  Did you know my beloved Brits even have a sitcom about the team responsible for getting the city ready for the onslaught of Olympic hopefuls and fans?  It’s called Twenty Twelve and stars Hugh Bonneville from Downton Abbey and Jessica Hynes from Spaced (one of my other favorite British shows).  It’s funny and frustrating and I love that the Brits can make fun of themselves like that.

The opening ceremonies are tomorrow night.  Will you be watching?  Apparently they’re expecting no rain so I hope that’s true since the stadium has no roof.  Want to know who is expected to perform?  Too bad.  They’re keeping tight-lipped across the pond.  But BBC has some hints if you're interested.