Much as I’m not paying attention to the Olympics, it’s pretty hard to totally ignore them. Whether it’s the daily medal wrap-up, or stories about how people on Twitter are mad at NBC for tape delaying the “big” events so they can show them in prime time (note to Twitterers out there: they’ve always done this, partly because many of us have jobs and can’t sit around and watch the Olympics all say, but mostly because they paid, like $1.8 billion for the damn games, and they need to get their money back. Second note: I’m assuming that if you use Twitter, you have access to a thing called the Internet, where NBC is streaming all the events live, and on-demand replays. Though I think you need to have cable or satellite with MSNBC).

This morning on the way in to work, I heard a story about a 16-yr old Chinese swimmer who suddenly swam faster than Michael Phelps and set a world record.

China has become embroiled in the first doping controversy of the London Games after one of the world’s most respected coaches described the swimming prodigy Ye Shiwen’s gold medal performance as “unbelievable” and “disturbing”.

The American John Leonard, executive director of the World Swimming Coaches Association, said the 16-year-old’s performance was “suspicious”….
[…]
Ye was more than seven seconds faster in the Olympic 400m individual medley final than she had been in the World Championship equivalent last July.

Leonard said that although this vast improvement was possible, it would be very hard to achieve. “But the final 100m was impossible. Flat out. If all her split times had been faster I don’t think anybody would be calling it into question, because she is a good swimmer. But to swim three other splits at the rate that she did, which was quite ordinary for elite competition, and then unleash a historic anomaly, it is just not right.”

I found this story interesting, not because of the “doping” thing. Because of this kid’s name, Ye Shiwen, which is pronounced, “Yay! She win!”

I mean, with a name like that, how could she lose?

If you live in India, there’s a pretty good chance you’re not reading this right now, mostly because half the country – so far – is in the dark with no power, including the capital, New Delhi. That’s about 600 million people (which is twice as many people as we have here in the US).

They’re investigating the cause, but, if it’s anything like the power company around here, I have no doubt that the cause will be “squirrel in the transformer” (which is electric company code for “our shit’s old and falling apart, and we fired 2/3 of our maintenance crews so we could increase profits”).

Well, time to get busy, I guess.