Olympic notes, part 4

• Markus Rogan, Austrian backstroke silver medalist, is a babe. He is also a decent fellow, it seems. When Aaron Piersol's first-place finish was temporarily disqualified, he leaned close to Piersol and said, "Dude, you've got to protest that." He did this even though he stood to become the gold medalist if Piersol was out of the way.

• New discovery: trampoline! Another Olympic sport I had no idea existed.

• Chilean Nicolas Massu defeated the slightly inbred-looking American Taylor Dent in the men's tennis semifinal through a combination of beautiful shot placement and hilarious gamesmanship. Every point Massu served, he started with four balls and weeded them down to one. He stopped in midgame for drinks of water. He stalled and loitered and dawdled in order to pace the match to his liking, and the ref never even blinked. I think it was driving Dent nuts.

• I think the U.S. women gymnasts have been plucking each other's eyebrows. Overplucking them, actually. Carly Patterson's eyebrows in particular look very oddly shaped and a little diabolical. I know it seems obsessive to notice something like that, but NBC keeps doing EXTREME close-ups and it's hard not to see it.

• I have been enjoying the VW Touareg commercials the network is playing during the Olympics, because they feature Richard Buckner's song "Ariel Ramirez," which is gorgeous. I don't have the album it's from (which is called Since and is the follow-up to Devotion and Doubt, which I do own), but I think I might buy it now. The CD, not the Touareg.

Apropos of none of the above:
There's a storm rolling in. It's supposed to thunderstorm for several days, then rain for several more. Good thing I mowed the lawn yesterday. (And yes, Ed was out there one-upping me today! We avoid eye contact, but we definitely communicate.) The s.o. and I were going to go sell some things at the local flea market tomorrow morning, but obviously that's not happening in this weather. Guess I'll keep doing the only things I've been doing lately--painting the house, working, and watching sports.