And now some closing statements about the Olympics

• Spain made it a game in the men's basketball final against Team USA. Too bad I couldn't watch it with some good commentators on the line... On the Netherlands channel you've got self-proclaimed basketball guru Mart Smeets (I mean, I know you've played ball, and you probably know more about the game than the average joe, but you don't have to lay it down so thick. That's very condescending. And any run-the-mill American newscaster will blow you out of the water, by the way...), and on the Belgian channel they were quite biased against the Americans (I mean, sure they're arrogant, but at least make some effort to stay a more or less neutral journalist...) I can't judge the German, French, Spanish and Italian channels, because frankly they speak to fast for me to understand.
• So you think that human rights are violated in China? Or that Tibet should be free? Of course, all very important. And probably something to put on someone's agenda. But let me ask you... if you are invited to someone's home do you immediately go out of your way to insult the host? Dare I remind you you're talking to Chinese?
  
• Race walking is NOT A SPORT, people. It doesn't even qualify as an art. It looks insipid, it has no practical value, and what are the viewing numbers? Frankly I find it completely ridiculous that it is considered Olympic, when the IOC cut baseball and softball from the list.
• Is it a coincidence that the Russians pulled out from Georgia at the end of the Olympics? I can just imagine what the Russian athletes would say, when they get back to Moscow... "You did what!!?"
  
• The Netherlands women's hockey team should have a sequel to their 2006 DVD documentary "GOUD". It should have more close-up shots of Fatima, and Naomi, and Ellen, and Eefke, and Maartje P., and Eva training... however I can do without the passive aggressive shite of the first DVD. I can also do without the Dr. Phil sessions, the righteous indignation of coach Marc Lammers, and that silly mouth guard of Maartje Goderie. Nobody's buying that fake slit. Especially if you're built like a twig.
• Merel Witteveen has the most dreamy bedroom eyes I have ever seen on pretty much anyone.
• And while this has been going on, football season is starting! Hooray!
  

Hilarity at the Games

• I didn't catch this at first, but the Brazilian beach volleyball players playing for Georgia are called GEOR and GIA. *HILARIOUS*
  
• ...Too bad the Russians don't play ball very well... that would make for a fun match card...
  
• ...Next games in London we should also hire some Brazilians to play our beach volleyball games. We can call them HOL and LAND.
• Usain Bolt won his third gold in the 4x100m relay, he was the third runner after Nesta Carter and Michael Frater, and before Asafa Powell. The Jamaican quartet ran a world record...
  
• ...Bolt was so fast, he finished before the final runner of the Dutch team! *HILARIOUS*
  

More Sport Observations

• Van den Hoogenband would make a very good sports commentator, judging by the reaction he gave at the finish of the 10 km swim event. He is very much in the same league as Jack Van Gelder. Yes, THAT Jack Van Gelder.
• The Olympics track and field competition is becoming a lot like the WWE. Usain Bolt is quite nearly like The Rock. Confident, cocky, entertaining... and absolutely the best at what he does (and again... we'll have to wait until a couple of weeks after the Olympics when he proves clean). If Jacques Rogge thinks it's disrespectful... well... that's very Vince McMahon. You got the heels (Thanou), the divas (the high jumping women), and the tragic faces (Liu Xiang); so it won't be long before we get the same shitty soap operas, like on RAW.
  

The Biggest Star in Beijing: Phelps versus Bolt

It took Michael Phelps two Olympic Games to finally get to his desired goal, win eight gold medals in one Games. In little over a week he showed he could carefully choose his events so that he was always the favoured to win. Despite two close calls Phelps did earn his legendary status...

...but it took Usain Bolt just under ten seconds to achieve his legendary status. He showboated his way to the starting block, and then completely humiliated the rest of the field, pounding his chest and spreading his arms wide. Spectacular 100m world record, and "the Lightning" Bolt even looked like he could go even faster.

Bolt achieved so much more in much less time than Phelps, and unlike Phelps Bolt didn't get to choose between as many events where he could win gold ("let's see, I'm gonna pick several obscure disciplines nobody else wants to do anyway"), and his competition was potentially much better (Gay, Powell). So for me (at least until the doping affair comes out) Bolt is the man of the Olympics up to this point.

Everybody makes mistakes

People think they are entitled to a lot of things. Entitled to get what they want, and that other people understand what they mean, and they will help them with anything and everything. I don't think that's possible.

When you set requirements for the things you want to have or things you want accomplish, and find out you can't do it yourself, you bring people in to help you. You ask them of they can do what you want, and what they want for it in return. They can then do their proposals and ideas.

If you ask several proposals, you're bound to get several different ideas. That's a given, unless you standardize your requirements, and make the granularity of your requirements real detailed, and everybody understands what it all means. Those are a lot of conditions that need to be true.

More than likely thus you're gonna find that the proposals you're getting are not going to be exactly what you want. What I've found is that people become quite emotional in that case: people get insulted that the proposal clearly not understood their needs. And they berate the people behind the proposal.

Now, there's two things happening here. Proposals can be mismatched because the expectations between the two parties client and supplier are fundamentally different. A supplier can also be lazy, but let's keep a good mind about people for once. Proposals can also not match because a client's requirements have changed, have become more detailed. Anyways the proposal itself becomes the basis for discussion, so that more accurate descriptions can be made.

However when the emotion factor kicks in, you get accusations like "Why didn't so-and-so understand my needs? I was clear enough, wasn't I?" or "This guy clearly doesn't know what he wants." Now what I've found in business are the following points:

• a client cannot assume a supplier will surrender all his resources at a moment's notice just to help the client; clients often overestimate their own priorities over that of other clients
  
• clients must ask specifically when they find something lacking; getting angry because someone didn't give you what you wanted, when in fact you didn't ask for it, and you only assumed that people understood, is naive.
• suppliers that don't work like you want them to, should be told as such
  
• everybody makes mistakes
  

My Boy Pieter

Pieter van den Hoogenband (na de halve finale 100 m vrij):

"Ik heb niet meer het lichaam van Sidney."

This weekend's sports observations

• A silver medal winner in swimming called "Silver", a shooting gold medal winner called "Pang". (I'm sure I wasn't the only one who noticed.)
  
• Also, a weightlifting champion called "Jaroenrattanatarakoon"...
• What's worse, she actually wanted to be called like that.
• China is counting the medal table based on the number of gold medals
• USA is counting the medal table based on total number of medals
• Michael Phelps is counting the medal table exactly like the Chinese
• Gullit just quit the L.A. Galaxy. All over the Kalverstraat and PC Hooft in Amsterdam, shops rejoice... Estelle is coming back home!

Declaring the Olympics Open...

Or rather... it doesn't matter how good you are in what you do, China can do it better... and there's more of them than there are of you.

If you watched the opening ceremony you should have noticed that China can coordinate the movements of thousands of people at the same time into an artform. That's communism for you.

Didn't I already say I didn't get money?

Hmm... we actually have an anniversary for a financial event, as if it was a natural disaster, or bombing. Last year around this time banks around the world started feeling the crunch. Suddenly they found out that:

• some people can't actually pay their mortgage anymore
• banks are playing around with money that isn't really theirs
• people make incorrect assumptions, and give trust where it isn't warranted

In poker terms, the blinds went up, and everyone has to go all-in. Except everyone has a dog for a hand.