Olympics Google Doodle

[mmcv]

Today's Google Doodle is in celebration of the start of the Olympics and contains a number of addictive games that I'm having to try very hard not to play while in work...


https://www.google.com/doodles/doodle-champion-island-games-begin

Though is it just me or did the Olympics sneak up on us a bit? I knew they'd been rescheduled from last year but it was only a couple of days ago I found out they were starting up!

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

Wuz wondein

[hammurabi70]

Hard to say as we each have our own take on it. I gave up athletics after Mexico 68 when I realised success was driven more by coaching using drugs than smile talent and have not taken much interest in them since.  I do think that health issues have predominated over other issues but for those keener on the topic will undoubtedly have been aware of them.

[fred.]

Well I only got notification of the refund of my tickets yesterday- so was very aware of them!

Always a big event in our house.

[fsn]

I hate sports - all of 'em.



That is all.

[Ithoriel]

I hate sports - all of 'em.



That is all.

Wot he said.

However, I'm fond of manga art and have been aware of the Olympic manga-style country avatars, and therefore of the immanence of the games, for some considerable time.

[DecemDave]

manga art

I think you found the 2022 Pendraken Painting challenge!

[mmcv]

However, I'm fond of manga art and have been aware of the Olympic manga-style country avatars, and therefore of the immanence of the games, for some considerable time.

Very good! Yeah, I am generally interested in Japan and Japanese culture (more so than the sports for sure). Indeed we were due to go travelling in Japan for a month in 2020 but...well... you know. So was somewhat surprised that I'd not seen anything about it on my usual news feeds etc. My wife would be more inclined to be watching regular TV but she wasn't aware of it either until it was mentioned on the One Show a day or two ago. Maybe my general dismissal of sports overrode my algorithms interest in Japan!

I hate sports - all of 'em.

I'm much the same. My dad despaired at trying to make me a football fan like him for many years, thankfully my little brother had a bit more of an interest so took the focus off me! I did briefly follow some sports (e.g. MMA) from time to time but wouldn't really keep up with them now. Interest wanes quickly on them.

[Ithoriel]

There aren't many things in my life that I regret but one that I really do is not taking up my Aunt and Uncle's offer to put my cousin and I up at their expense if we could get ourselves to Japan. Among other things we would have spent a week living in the temple complex at Nara and visited Himeji Castle.

Even Interrail from the UK, on to Moscow, Trans-Siberian Railway then supercargo on a freighter from Vladivostock to Japan and back (cheapest route we could find) would have cost more than a year's grant as students.

We decided we'd be broke for years paying that back so opted not to go.

Jokes on us, we were both broke most of our lives anyway

[Raider4]

It's been in the news a fair bit recently, but mostly of the "will it even go ahead" type stories, so I'm a bit surprised that anyone's surprised it's on now?

I'll watch - or at least start watching¹ - most sports.

Not interested in anything that:

i) involves animals
ii) involves judges giving scores for "artistic merit"
iii) requires music (usually goes hand-in-hand with (ii) above anyways)
iv) involves judges giving scores anyway. Makes the "sport" subjective, not objective.

Will try and look out for the cycling, triathlon and the athletics.


¹Will quickly realise if it's worth watching or not

[mmcv]

We ended up putting the money we were planning to use for Japan towards moving house, which worked out okay in the end, but will likely be a good few years before we can even think about planning the trip again. Had organised spending time in Tokyo, Fuji, Kyoto, Hiroshima and Osaka and lots of visits out elsewhere too. Hopefully, we'll get to do it someday!

It's been in the news a fair bit recently, but mostly of the "will it even go ahead" type stories, so I'm a bit surprised that anyone's surprised it's on now?

I got sick of following the news to be fair. Rarely watch TV news. Tend to have a few news/current affairs aggregators for the major headlines, just somehow this one slipped by me, and a few other people I mentioned it to were also surprised that it came up so suddenly. But then probably low interest in it so never hit their radars.