johnguinness's Diaryland Diary
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
She thanked a dentist?
Six in the morning. I just finished a walk that didn't go well, but it was my fourth time out for exercise this week - one up on last week, so I'll be proud until I stop sweating.
Kim Clijsters won the Australian Open in a tough three setter. She said that a few weeks ago when she first got to Australia, she chipped a tooth, and a dentist got her in and did a good, quick job so she could make her scheduled practice. She was grateful at the time, and he told her that if she made the A.O. Finals, she should thank him. So she won a grand slam tourney and something like $2.5 million, and the first person she thanked was a dentist.
Then she moved on to her uncle, who was in the stands, and thanked him for his ongoing sacrifice. It turns out that he was at a tourney she won, wearing "the ugliest pair of green pants I've ever seen," and she's superstitious, so any time he goes to watch her, he has to wear those pants. So all the Chinese people watching Li Na and I got to see the ugly pants on live TV. good times.
Slickdeals.net had a thread for cheap magazine subscriptions, so I looked for Tennis, and got eight issues for $3.48. That will be a good month and a halfly reminder that I'm a fan again.
Spartacus: Gods Of the Arena was actually pretty decent last night. It was hardly gay at all, and light on the soft-core porn, but they made up for that with a threesome at the end. No one got their heads or legs cut off the whole episode.
The Contador press conference was a pretty big deal. His attitude has changed a lot since this all happened. I'm one of a handful of people who leave him messages in the fan club at his website - I hope he reads them, because I gave a lot of feedback.
He said that he's had more than 500 doping tests. They've taken him away from family dinners and birthday parties, and he's even had to walk out of a movie theater when they contacted him for a test. But he didn't complain, because he believed in the system. Now he doesn't. He realizes that WADA and the UCI are out to get him for political reasons, and he needs to fight them head on. He said there were "dark forces at work".
He and his lawyers have eight days to submit documents and try to convince the Spanish Federation to find him totally innocent so he can start racing while the other groups appeal. They've already decided he's innocent of doping, but after WADA and the UCI, who weren't supposed to say anything during the process, kept bad-mouthing and belittling the Federation in the press, and threatening to appeal their decision, they came up with the standard you're innocent so we'll only ban you for one year instead of two routine.
He said that he's not fighting this because of the 2010 Tour de France victory, or for money (maybe two million Euros in missed salary so far), but because he's innocent and wants to clear his name after it was dragged through the mud for months.
A lot of journalists who actually went to the conference, watched the video, or read what he said, are standing up for him. Three vile women, two of whom have large followings, resurrected the same trash they contributed last October. There are more stories like this one popping up all the time, for the same microscopic amounts of the same substance.
Anyway, I'm not following races, or riders, or teams, and don't care if I never watch the sport again, but I've been defending the guy for nineteen months now, and reading articles about him in all languages, and there aren't many of us who are vocal about it, so I'm following the process and offering support.
I refuse to go back to the bike forum. Some people will never get it. Some will hopefully pay attention to the risks he's taking for no gain. I mean, the way it is now, he could accept the ruling, miss some salary and be racing again in August. Instead, he's willing to risk an extra year of ban, plus a fine of more than three million Euros to the UCI, in order to fight the system for an appeal that probably won't settle until August anyway. The people who understand what's going on have to at least consider that he might be innocent.
I was kind of tired and stressed out over it all yesterday morning (I left a comment on a golf article, for gosh sakes. The guy had compared his hero, a golfer who broke a rule on TV that he's supposed to call on himself, but instead someone saw it on TV and reported him - this guy was held up as a hero, and Contador was meant to be the villain), so I cashed in my Lotto winner and used a BOGO coupon for Dairy Queen Blizzards. The banana split one really hit the spot.
I was still wound up in the afternoon, and couldn't sleep, so I had Papa Johns deliver a pizza. That worked.
Today my big plan is to use the other coupon. Sunday is twelve weeks before Easter, and I want to lose a bunch of weight so I can wear some clothes I've never had on before - Old Navy closeouts that were too small when I got them. So I'm getting a nice Blizzard (OK, two) and switching off of Australian time. Then hopefully I'll get settled into a daylight routine, get a new water heater, get some food stamps, and get some positive momentum going.
Have a great weekend.
7:01 a.m. - Saturday, Jan. 29, 2011
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|