summer things 8, 9 and 10: leotards, leggings and leopard

#8: Leopard
First things first: BACK UP YOUR HARD DRIVES people.

i am a huge supporter of apple products. i'm a walking apple ad. i have the video ipod, the ipod shuffle for the gym, i'm on my 2nd apple laptop. i pine for the iphone. i have the cute apple store approved neoprene case for my macbook because it's just so hip that i had to have it. and yet.

i went to the apple store w/my roommate yesterday to support her conversion to the apple side of life. while the sales guy was talking her through the differences between macs and pcs, he showed us Leopard, the newest of the mac OS X operating systems. i began to drool as i saw the hot new ways to view your files; i longed to be able to back up files every hour on the hour with the time machine program. i was sold. so i bought it, took it home, and installed it. just to be on the safe side, i backed everything up on my external hard drive.

fast forward 14 hours. i shut down my computer to take it out. when i attempt to start it up, it scoffs at me, preferring to remain in that dreaded blue screen, still loading limbo. i sighed, figuring i'd take it home, use the install disk to start it up, and it'd be fine. right. i get home. doesn't work the 30 times i try it. so i call apple. 90 minutes and 2 phone calls later, i am erasing my hard drive and reinstalling leopard onto my computer. mind you, i bought the program to ensure that i would always be able to back up my documents. barely able to conceal my fury from the tech support on the phone, i repeat silently in my head "at least you backed it all up last night" about 4000 times. sure enough, once the software is updated, i plug in my trusty external hard drive and everything's there where it should be. my sole gripe? i have to recreate my web browser bookmarks (which is annoying because i had a bunch of important work sites saved), and my handy little widget stickies (also annoying--i had some random account/confirmation numbers saved. note to self: always email these things to myself as a secondary back up). but it could be worse. i could have lost 4 years worth of curriculum and thousands of photos and songs.

#9: Leggings
ok. i get that the full body swim suit makes people insanely (and inhumanly) fast. i've watched the world records shatter in almost every swimming final of these Olympics so far. but leggings are sort of hit or miss in the world of fashion, and i feel the same about the full body version of them as a means to a faster end in sports. it's disconcerting to me when, if i'm not paying close attention, i can't tell whether it's a mens' or womens' race simply by looking at the competitors.

call me old fashioned, but i miss the days of knowing that michael phelps is not a chick because he's not wearing a suit exactly like the ones the women's sprinters wore during their relay (and what was up with the pouty attitudes the US women had when they got the silver medal in the 4x100 relay?). speaking of relays--did you all see the insanity that was the men's 4x100 freestyle relay yesteday (sunday)? how is it possible that there are people who move that fast? 100 meters in 46 seconds? it takes me longer than that to decide what to i want to eat when i open the fridge. honestly.

also, if we are going to be subjected to multiple daily interviews with michael phelps, can we PLEASE think of some new, exciting questions to ask him? my guess is that every time he wins a gold medal/shatters a world record/demonstrates his superhuman athletic ability, he's probably going to say that he felt really good about his performance. also, we all get that his life consists of swimming, eating, eating, swimming, eating, drug testing, eating, swimming and sleeping. so stop asking him about his routine and how he eats enough to feed a sizeable army every day.

think outside of the box people.

#10: leotards
so male gymnasts don't really wear leotards, but i couldnt think of any other L-words related to the sport. and the L-alliteration was such a catchy title.

anwyay. i've got full on olympic fever and i'm not ashamed to admit it. it's 1:18 am, and i just spent a solid 2.5 hours sprawled out on the couch, glued to our tiny tv, backseat commentating the men's gymnastics team finals. it's amazing how you don't follow a sport for 3 years, and then over the course of 2 nights you get so involved in the success of 6 (previously unknown to you) athletes that you have sympathy heart attacks every time they look like they might falter. i also find that it takes me about 10 seconds before i fall into this superiority complex where i get all judgemental about the nbc commentators and their snarky attitudes toward the athletes. never mind the fact that they are typically world/olympic champions in the sports on which they comment. i feel like while playing competitive sports can bring out the worst in other people, watching them brings out the worst in me.

despite that, my sense of patriotism has improved since 8.8.08. did you all watch mens gymnastics tonight? it was pretty awesome. the US was not expected to medal, considering that every single member of the team was a first time olympian. but then they got all "fierce, fired up underdog" on the rest of the field and won the bronze. they were so genuinely excited about it, that it warmed my jaded new york heart and got me rooting for the country of my birth.

i even secretly enjoyed the melodramatic montages and cavity-inducing "special interest" stories that nbc does so well to draw the audience in. but don't tell anyone.