The Daily Dose/October 14, 2018
By Gaylon Kent
America’s Funniest Guy
In The News
The 2026 Winter Olympics are scheduled to be awarded next summer and boy, none of the candidate cities appear to be too excited about hosting them. Both Swedish and Italian bids are hampered by governments that don’t want to pay for the Games and Calgary is letting the voters decide next month and no one is betting the rent money Calgarians will want them, either.
We’ve discussed this before: with cities tired of inheriting facilities that are never used again and the financial havoc host cities are now enjoying, why force one city to hold everything? Why not hold the Games all over the world? The same events can be held in the same places every four years. We’ll use the Summer Games as an example.
The Opening Ceremonies and several other events like wrestling and modern pentathlon can be held in Athens the first week. Marquee events can be held in Europe and North America and perhaps the biggest events can alternate continents. Events people only really care about every four years can be held where they have a long history: team handball in central Europe, field hockey in India, rugby in New Zealand or South Africa, you get the picture. When it’s all over everyone can meet in Los Angeles for the marathon, the basketball and baseball gold medal games and the Closing Ceremonies.
Something similar can be done with the Winter Games. Skiing in the Alps, hockey in Canada, figure skating, well, we don’t really care where figure skating is held. Figure skating is not a sport, it’s an activity. Hold it in Iceland if you want.
Holding events in the same places would slash new construction costs by 99.993 percent because they would be held in cities with appropriate existing facilities and voila, the Olympics are affordable again, infused with a fresh vitality it could certainly use.
This would give the IOC a lot of options, too. Events could be spread out over an entire month to maximize media exposure or they could be held over the same three weekend period they are now or the IOC could completely lose their collective minds and hold everything in one week. Instead of the Olympics gathering in one place, the Olympics could commandeer the entire planet.
Today at the Site
Sparrow and The Wife go watch kids play with pumpkins on today’s edition of The Diary of a Nobody. Also, it’s a slow but funny shift at the retailer and there is a barking dog at the hotel.
Then this guy called wondering about tire chains…He’s visiting and he heard it might snow overnight and he must be from the Gobi Desert or something because snow won’t really start sticking for a while yet…I told him this, but he insisted on asking me questions like I was the host of Tire Chain Talk…
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe has The Thought for the Day, some crap about trusting ourselves.
We get up in the morning, look ourselves in the mirror, determine what we should be doing with our lives that day. Those that get on in this world go out and do those things…
On This Date
In 1944 – Nazi Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, linked to a plot assassinate Adolf Hitler, kills himself, which was really the best of the three options he had been given. He was visited by two Nazi generals, told of the charges against him and given the choice of personally appealing to Hitler, going through a trial that would have found him guilty anyway and ruined his family besides, and killing himself, which would ensure his family received no dishonor. Rommel told his wife and son what he was going to do, then left with the generals in a car. After driving out of the village, they pulled over, the generals left Rommel with the driver and Rommel took the cyanide capsule he had been given. Rommel was given a state funeral and the official story was he died from wounds suffered when his car was strafed.
In 1945 – The Chicago Cardinals defeat the Chicago Bears 16-7 at Wrigley Field, ending the longest losing streak in NFL history at 29 games. It was their first win since October 25, 1942, when they had defeated the Cleveland Rams 7-3.
In 1950 – Goodnight Irene, long an American folk standard, by Gordon Jenkins and The Weavers is at #1 on Billboard’s Best Sellers in Stores chart – a forerunner of the Hot 100 – for the ninth of 13 consecutive weeks. A version by Red Foley and Ernest Tubb also hit #1 on Billboard’s country chart that year. The exact origins of the song are unknown, though it was first recorded in 1933 by Huddie ‘Lead Belly’ Ledbetter who had been singing it for years and who always said he learned it from two uncles.
Answer To The Last Trivia Question
The three songs that had spent 21 weeks at #1 before Cruise by Florida Georgia Line spent 24 weeks at #1 were: I’ll Hold You In My Heart (Till I Can Hold You In My Arms) by Eddy Arnold (1947-48); I’m Movin’ On by Hank Snow (1950) and In The Jailhouse Now by Webb Pierce (1955).
Today’s Stumper
What team has the longest winning streak in NFL history? – Answer next time!
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