Today pretty much concludes Olympics viewing, except for men's basketball (at 2:30 a.m.) and water polo. Saw Argentina win the gold in men's soccer. Saw some men's diving. Happened to catch the last round of dives. A USA guy hit the water shaped like a 7 on his last dive. Now, I'm no Klaus Dibiasi, but even I know when you hit the water shaped like a 7, that ain't a good dive.

And no one calls a field event better than Dwight Stones. So, what does NBC do with the women's high jump? Gives it short shrift, that's what. Women's jumpers, of both the high and long varieties, have the best female athletic bodies going and they show, I don't know, six jumps. Idiots! I want more jumping shown from London, dammit.

Other than that, I saw a bunch of Kenyans win medals. Men's marathon, men's 5,000, men's 800, women's 1500. Thank goodness, the USA won both 4 x 400 relays, that was good stuff.

So, with the Olympics winding down, what did we learn? Change the scoring in boxing! No trampolining. No BMX racing. My reply to the greenlighting of "action sports" to increase viewership among the young, is why not have competitive eating? You could have a different food item each day for two weeks, ending with hot dogs. That is how preposterous some of these events are. And with 2012 from London, how about more live events? Of course, by then, who knows how they will be delivered.

This may be my favorite moment from the games.

Cuban taekwondo guy, a former gold medalist mind you, gets banned for life for kicking a judge in the head! You get a minute for injury time and he took longer. The dude's coach later said the ref was too strict. Hah!

(I take no responsibility for the soundtrack.)



Leona Lewis sings and Jimmy Page plays "Whole Lotta Love" later. And even Becks shows up.

Meal of Links

I like Obama's choice of Joe Biden as VP. Sure, he can be verbose. But he's got the judiciary and foreign relations credentials that look very appealing. Probably forces McCain to go with Romney, but he knows.

Toronto's infamous bike thief is behind bars. Reminds me of that Flobots song I hate, "I can ride my bike with no handlebars, no handlebars..."

Creep factor ratcheted up to high last night. So much so, I had to turn the Olympics off and watch. Why? Because IFC decided to show "Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer". In primetime, no less! That's usually slated, literally, for the graveyard shift. But there they were at 9:30 p.m. Henry, joined by his friend Otis once in a while, littering the Chicago landscape with bodies. Apparently, the entire police community of the Chicagoland area was on sabbatical for months at the time. This is one of the disturbing movies ever.

Siskel and Ebert review "Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer"



Exercise Yard

What's to say about the Browns? They didn't look so good today. I will stick by my guns and say it's only exhibition season, let's not panic yet.

We have to realize we didn't have some starters at the skilled positions on offense. That will be more worrisome against the Cowboys in the opener, but not today. Brady Quinn looked so-so. And not much happened on offense. They really didn't show a lot, either, but the execution was not good.

On defense, the first-string looked pretty good against the run, except for one bad pursuit that resulted in a 35-yard TD. That also happened late in the game on a 40-yarder. What remained shaky was the pass defense, especially at the corner. Not ready to say we are in serious trouble there, but that may be an issue come September.

I'll be at Thursday's "playing for spots" game.

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49 Down: Tomahawk twirler in a memorable "Tonight Show" segment (6 letters) Answer: Ed Ames