Nike/Tiger Woods Ad

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I hate the idea that I'm still discussing Tiger Woods on here, but it's hard to not hear about him lately (and since November) so here goes:

Have you guys seen the latest Nike ad featuring Tiger Woods? If not, here it is:


What do you guys think of it?

I, personally, think it puts creepy to a whole new level. And to use a dead person for personal gain - how terrible! Not to mention your own father! How demeaning. Was this suppose to gain him sympathy votes?



P.S. Don't forget to leave me a comment below on your thoughts! As always, I'd love to hear from you.

Tiger Woods' Fifteen Minutes of Negative Fame

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Normally, I do not take the time to write about an athlete and his (wrong)doings... but for a week now, all i keep hearing about are the million variations in the story and it's driving me crazy.

1. first i hear that Tiger Woods has been involved in a "serious" car accident (near/outside his home).
2. then i hear that Tiger Woods' wife used golf clubs to break the rear windows of Tiger's car to get him out of the car after the car accident.
3. then i hear that Elin (Tiger Wood's wife) was actually hitting Tiger's car (aiming for Tiger) with the golf clubs after the two had been fighting about Tiger's possible infidelity- and was not trying to get Tiger our of the car after his accident as earlier reported. news surface of Tiger's affairs with two other females.
4. at this point, Tiger has refused to speak to the police i think like three times. Suspicious? sure.
5. more rumors continue to spread.
6. then, five days later, today - Tiger Woods issues another statement saying he has let his family down, and regrets the "transgressions" among other things, but does not admit to an affair or offer any other information. 

Let me get this out - i do not think athletes/celebrities/politics, etc. owe us (the public) anything about their private lives. If Tiger Woods had done something in his athletic field or something that would directly effect athletics (like steroids), by all i means i would be pressing for more information or an explanation. However, it is not.

Famous or not, your actions have consequences for not only you, but for your family members too unfortunately. While it saddens me that yet another person has not only let their own family down but embarrassed them publicly, i still do not think it is the right of the media nor anyone else to press on this matter for the sake of his family.

If Tiger Woods is indeed guilty of what is claimed, you can not honestly tell me that Tiger did not know he would be caught. Politicians, athletes, celebrities are hounded every minute and every thing they do is released to the public (from what they are wearing and eating to anything extraordinary), so it was only a matter of time before such news would come out. nonetheless, it is hard to fathom why people do the things they do. I'm sure this is what Woods will be remembered for (unless he does something worse in the future), so i don't understand why he would risk all of his success.

And another point, I don't know why he denied the claim/lied (only to later confirm it). Like we weren't going to find out ? Come on people, in this day and age of technology, we find out things the instant it happens in so many cases.... so lying is only making it that much worse. Like i said, they owe us nothing... and they don't have to say anything or release statements to the public, but lying to the public on their free will... is ridiculous.

The bottom line is - What politicians, athletes, celebrities, etc. do in their private sphere should be their own business. Until it effects or comes into their public sphere, it should be left alone. And no, i am not naive - i don't think this will ever happen... but it is wishful thinking.

I do not know the complete truth of what Tiger did or did not do, but i'm sure i'll find out soon - simply by opening a newspaper or reading the news online. Why such things are "breaking news", i will never understand.

Oh well, happy Wednesday everybody! Until another (and more intriguing) story breaks...

Olympic Highlights

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The highlights of the Olympics from my point of view so far:

Men's 4 x 100m Freestyle Relay Final in swimming: in what was a very exciting race, Jason Lezak helped secure another gold medal at the end of the race. According to the Yahoo! Sports Blog (I know - I can't believe I was on it either!),

"When he dove into the pool as the anchor of France's 4x100-meter relay team, [Alain] Bernard had a .60 second lead over American Jason Lezak. Even though the 32-year old Lezak is one of the best sprint freestylers in the world, the .60 lead held by Bernard should have been insurmountable. Bernard held the world record in the event. A world record holder with a sizable lead... you do the math."

And of course in my favorite sport - gymnastics:

In the women's team final, the U.S team finished with a silver medal as the Chinese dominated the game throughout. My favorite was undoubtedly the Chinese performance on the last rotation in the floor exercise as it was incredibly great and they had so much fun with it. It was absolutely amazing to watch. In the Women's Individual All-Around Final: American Nastia Liukin won the gold, American Shawn Johnson won the silver and Chinese Yang Yilin won the bronze.

Then, in the individual competitions:

U.S. gymnast Nastia Liukin and her rival He Kexin get the same exact score on the uneven bars, but of course this is like the one sport that only awards one gold. With the IOC tiebreaker rules, Kexin won the gold medal, leaving Liukin with the silver medal. I read in an article that the reasoning was that: "Both scored 16.725, but He got the nod because her execution marks were closer to a perfect 10 than Liukin’s." I found that pretty unfair - if they both got the same score, they both should have received the gold medal, like in most of the other sports. What is even more wrong is that Kexin had more visible mistakes!

Throughout the gymnastic competition, there was talk if He Kexin was even old enough to participate and it'll be neat to see what comes out of that report. Several reports have He being as young as 12 years old.

And now onto specific people:

Michael Phelps: Outrageous. Wow. Incredible. I don't even know where to begin with him. 8 gold medals, 7 world records.. what a week for him! With the eighth gold, Phelps eclipses Mark Spitz's record of seven gold medals and seven world records set at the 1972 Munich Games.

Earlier this week I read something on the Yahoo! Sports blog (I know - I STILL can't believe I was on it either!) that I found to be so true:

The biggest accomplishment for Phelps might not be the eight golds, or the seven world records or the $1 million bonus from Speedo. The greatest feat for Phelps was that, for one week, he turned everyone in America into a swim fan. People who couldn't tell you the breaststroke from the butterfly were hanging on each of his races, cheering on Phelps like they were lifelong fans.

I mean I am definitely not a sports fan in general, except for watching Rutgers Football games and the Red Sox here and there, but I got really into swimming this week. The excitement was incredible.

Usain Bolt: Jamaica's 21-year-old Bolt breaks own world record to win the gold medal in the 100m dash without even trying finishing at 9.69 seconds.

Constantina Tomescu: a 38-year-old Romanian runner, won the marathon with like no competition. Her closest competitor at the end of the race was 22 seconds behind her as she held a steady and large lead for a good part of the marathon-- and for sometime in the race she was even leading by over a minute. At 38, she is the oldest Olympic marathon winner.

Dara Torres: Proving that age is but a number, 41-year-old Dara Torres, lost the gold medal and won the silver medal by one-hundredth of a second — the same margin that helped keep possible for Michael Phelps to break Mark Spitz’s record. Torres won the silver medal in each of her three races this week.

And finally, Bob Costas himself as the host. He is incredibly funny and such a great host. I've definitely enjoyed his remarks throughout.

The idea of the Olympics is so incredible: to watch the best of the best from each country compete with one another. Even people like myself, who aren't into sports at all, get so into it.. it's amazing.

What I love even more is how for two weeks it's like a bonding time. With each of our increasingly busy schedules, it's been neat to make time to sit as a family every night to watch the Olympic events together.