Olympics/China commentary, nachos

[sarea]

Brief-ish commentary on the Olympics/host nation, and then I will probably leave it alone. I wasn't planning to follow the Olympics, because a) it's never really been all that interesting or compelling to me; and b) I deliberately wanted to avoid it this year due to China being the host country. As someone with Chinese ancestry it really bothers me that they are still so backwards in terms of human rights and individual empowerment, and that the entire country is run by a bunch of corrupt dipshits. (My dad goes to China at least twice a year for business, and he rants about the corruption.) China/Chinese people are ruled by their pride and how things look -- thus they want to always be the best at everything, win all the gold medals, etc. etc. Yet it's totally contradictory, because what they do to get what they want to look good is what makes them look bad! And yet they don't seem to care about this. The little girl lip syncing thing? The evidence that's been found that at least 2 of China's female gymnastics team is only actually 14 years old, 2 years below the Olympic minimum? SO TYPICAL. China is so busy doing everything they can to "look good" that they are willing to lie, cheat, and steal to do it -- which HELLO, LOOKS BAD. But for some reason they don't understand this! Ugh, it makes me want to tear my hair out.

That said, it's impossible to avoid the Olympics if you go to any news sites at all (which I do, multiple times a day), so I did catch the men's 4x100m freestyle relay, which was amazing. Am I the only person who thinks Phelps is a little bit of a pansy for preferring to be the initial leg rather than the anchor leg? In my mind, a true champion is the one who's willing to stand up and take the pressure, be the go-to guy, the clutch player, the one who, with everything riding on the line, wants to have the ball in his hands in the last 5 seconds so he can make it happen. /shrug Maybe I've seen too many sports movies, but being the initial leg and yet supposedly the best swimmer seems like a big cop out.

I'm excited because tomorrow I'm going to a farmer's market and buying pig fat. That's right, LARD. But more on that later.

I made my own corn tortilla chips for the first time yesterday! And okay, it was really simple. But I've never done it before, and they were reallllly good. I ate them with fresh salsa and green sauce (tomatillos + avocados) that I made as well, along with carnita meat, cheese, and tomato. In other words, nachos. Yummmm. (Did you know that in Texas, apparently true nachos are made INDIVIDUALLY, chip by chip? While I commend the effort, and I'm sure they're delicious, it seems on the extreme side of 'too much time on your hands.')

Why is the plural form of the word avocado 'avocados' and not 'avocadoes'? Same with nachos and tomatillos, though I suppose those aren't originally English words so that's an explanation. But what's the rule/exception to the rule with avocados? Or is it the same reason, that the word avocado is actually Spanish or something?

Edit: Apparently, there is no reasoning for it. The original Spanish name was ahuacate. But a bunch of U.S. farmers just decided to name the fruit 'avocado' and that the plural form was to be spelled 'avocados' instead of 'avocadoes.' How lame is that?

Comments

[pipperstorms.livejournal.com]

first, that sounds really tasty. But on the relay thing, I don't think the swimmer choose who swims in which order, the coaches do. But I could be wrong, who knows.

[akscully.livejournal.com]

I know on the 4x100 Jason Lezak, the anchor, had anchored the last two Olympic relays and I think usually was the anchor in the world championships so maybe moving him out would be sort of insulting? I think the relay is his thing and he's been doing it for years so it's kind of his place of honor.

[elle-blessing.livejournal.com]

As someone who's done relays before and played sports at an extremely high level (national finalist competitor in collegiate women's soccer), I just wanted to say that Phelps probably didn't have a choice about what leg he was. The coach makes those kinds of calls. And dude, you don't argue with a coach no matter how good you are. Then they just want to show you that they're in charge. And you swim/run/jump/breath when and where they want you to.

In other news, I totally agree about China. I'm not really watching much either and am all meh when I see the news channels hyping the country every time I turn the TV on.

As for the market... is that the Thursday market thing on Queen Anne Hill? I was in walking distance of it for over a year and never went, but it did look pretty fun/cool ...

[http://users.livejournal.com/_____faith/]

Re: Phelps

He didn't anchor because he just swam another final just a couple of hours earlier :) It would've been too tiring to 1) swim the relay to his fullest potential and 2) to anchor with his full effort and tire him out for the next day.

[jade-okelani.livejournal.com]

Hey, I'm boycotting the Olympics this year for the same reason!

And everyone was talking about how GLORIOUS the opening ceremonies was - and then word came down about how someone had already been killed at the games. How you describe the Chinese government is my reasoning entirely. The Burma situation alone is just - guh.

People who randomly name things usually are quite lame.