Saturday, September 23, 2000
ONLINE EXTRA
Time warp leaves Online Man feeling flush
SYDNEY -- It was halfway up Dobroyd Head in the paradise suburb of Manly that Online Man had a thought, arguably his first of the Olympic Games.
(Actually, The Man has had many Wonders, but few out and out Thoughts. Such as: Why does the water in the toilets here flush counter-clockwise? At home, it goes the other way. Is it a southern hemisphere thing? Is it an Olympic joke to make dumb Americans study their toilet bowls? I don't know.)
Anyway, Online Man was thinking:
Since the Eastern time zone is 15 hours behind here, why does he have to do any work at all? Why bother to attend any events? Theoretically, The Man could: (1) Go pubbin' all night, while (2) watching the events on TV. Then, (3) sleep until 9 the next morning (6 p.m. the previous day for you, mates), (4) get one of the four Sydney papers, (5) steal the quotes from the winning athletes and (6) write a riveting account of things as though he were there.
This way, Online Man could cover these Games while determining the exact number of bubbles in a bottle of Toohey's New.
Theoretically.
How nice is it here? The locals consider a trip to Bali or Fiji the way we'd think of a trip to Myrtle Beach. Sydney has 70 beaches, all of them white sand. Every beach The Man has seen is clean enough to pass a health department inspection.
The water at these beaches looks like the National Geographic pictures of remote tropical islands: Light green, dark green, deep blue, clear as glass. Much better than that dump where they filmed Survivor.
Fifteen minutes from downtown Sydney's 4 million, non-Olympic people, The Man is walking 10 kilometers (six miles) along beaches and up thickly vegetated hills. Tropical birds swoop and make exotic noises. Wild parrots forage for whatever it is wild parrots forage for.
The Man has never seen a wild parrot. He thought they hatched from the bottom of wire cages in pet stores, between the orange peels and the bird seed.
The Olympics, here: Could we do this every year?
The Man would be remiss if he didn't follow up on that wacky weightlifting competition:
After two more Bulgarian weightlifters were kicked out of the Games for being terrible cheaters, running the team's total of steroid freaks to three, the International Weightlifting Federation expelled the team from the Games.
Two other Bulgarians are competing for Qatar. This is because Qatar paid each of them $1 million to compete for Qatar. Online Man isn't making this up. Who could make this up?
Anyway, after Bulgaria was expelled, the two lifters withdrew from the competition, claiming stomach distress. The official explanation was that the pair ventured outside the Athletes Village and ate some bad food.
“Uh, I'd like a Big Nandrolone to go, please.”
Qatar Weightlifting Federation president Yousef Al-Amana asked the team doctor to elaborate for the media, but the
man said no, claiming, quote-unquote “tiredness.”
After this, The Man could use a nap himself.
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