The Olympics, Cars and More

I really should be asleep now, but for a variety of reasons am awake and thought that I would spend a few minutes relaxing here.

The San Francisco Gate has an article about the IOC's decision to cut baseball and softball from the Olympics.

"The IOC has two suggestions for baseball if it wants to return to the Olympics after the 2012 Games: Put in place tougher doping rules, and put major leaguers on the field.

"The message is clear," International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge said. "The IOC wants clean sport, the best athletes and universality."

I am sorry, but this made me laugh a little bit. Perhaps I am mistaken, but I had been under the impression that the Olympics were really supposed to be about amateurs and not professional athletes. Now I realize that the games are big business, but call me a sentimental old fool for hoping that we could try that.

As for tougher doping rules I wonder if the IOC can say that with a straight face.

Softball must increase its global appeal to win back its place, Rogge said. The sport also was hurt by its perceived ties to baseball.

Both were tossed out Friday, the first cut from the program in 69 years. They will be played at the 2008 Beijing Olympics and can reapply in 2009 for readmission at the 2016 Games.

"In the case of baseball, the best athletes are not competing and the major athletes perform in an environment where doping controls are not what we have in the Olympic world," Rogge said in concluding a weeklong IOC session.

Rogge said both sports had not done enough since the 2002 meeting in Mexico City, where the IOC put off a vote on dropping baseball, softball and modern pentathlon.

"Both sports should have read the writing on the wall in Mexico," Rogge said. "They could see that the IOC wasn't happy with the way the sports were being organized."

The thing that really kills me about this is that when I look at the list of events there are a group that do not have that little appeal we could call universality, they just fall short. For that matter all you have to do is look at ticket sales of past games and you can see that the stadiums they are played in are virtually empty.

On a side note I think that one of my goals is to create a sport that will be played in the Olympics. As the creator of the game I can set it up so that I am the world's greatest player and ensure that I win the gold medal, repeatedly.

I know, some of you think that this would be unfair but based upon the high standards established by the IOC I expect that they would have no problems with it. They have so little experience with corruption.

On the vehicle front we are in hot pursuit of a couple different cars. The thing that really kills me about this is that for the amount of money we are going to have to spend I want certain options/elements to be part of my car and I am having trouble finding them.

Thanks to the magic of email I am doing much of the negotiating electronically, but still am frustrated that I cannot find a dealer that will sell a car like the Jetsons. It is so frustrating trying to find parking, I'd love to be able to just push a button and watch it shrink into a little briefcase.