Back By Popular Demand

Tonight, the Folk Choir, band, and cheerleaders performed with a selection of Irish people ranging from not-really-famous-but-we'll-call-them-that-anyway to pretty-darn-famous at Notre Dame's Welcome Home Pep Rally to a sold-out O2 Centre. It was, put simply, incredible. (My life continues to not be real.) Hopefully, some of you reading this watched it live on YouTube! You could do that, because we are very important and were the featured video on YouTube's home page tonight. [Note: by "we" I clearly mean the Folk Choir. Just us. I'm certainly not referring to the Folk Choir and Joe Biden, because he was not there. The statement that he was going to be there was a vicious rumor or, as I like to call it, lie. Thanks, Anuna.] The show began at 8:30 Dublin time, but the performers, of course, had to be there far earlier for rehearsals and such. Given the length of the show, we were there for a grand total of 12 hours. In these twelve hours, many wonderful things occurred - so many wonderful things, in fact, that you even compile a list of them. A list of, perhaps, the...top nine of them. 

And folks, compile a Top 9 I have. (Mostly because everyone has been telling me all day to write one, and threatening unspeakable violence against me should I not write one. So.) 

9. The following moment during our first rehearsal of "Fionghualla" with Anuna, the famouser-than-us Irish choir we sang with: *Anuna director gives pitch* *Anuna soloist comes in, apparently flat* Anuna director: "Could you sing the note I gave you, please?" *Anuna soloist tries again* Director: "Could you sing the note I gave you, please?" *Anuna soloist tries one more time* Director: "Could you sing the note I gave you, please?" 

8. That time when my friends and I asked the High Kings for directions to the merchandise stand, because someone in our group (cough Lizzy Lou cough) did not realize that they were pretty-darn-famous people and not, in fact, custodial staff. 

7. The following conversation backstage before the show: 

Steven C. Warner (our Folk Choir director): "One family gave $450,000 to bring us and the band and everyone over here." 

My dear friend @NashtyGetNashty: "That's more than my house." 

Me: "That's more than my house twice." 

YEAH THAT'S RIGHT I JUST INCLUDED MY OWN JOKE IN MY TOP 9; I DO WHAT I WANT. 

6. That time that I did my homework during our downtime. Ha ha, just kidding, that never happened. 

5. Each and every band rehearsal, during which we geeked out completely, despite having seen them, eh, a couple of times before. 

5B. Reuniting with my two favorite Vision mentors/ND trumpets. Normally, this would rank at about an 8 on a Top 9, but this time, IT WAS IN IRELAND. 

4. The host's witty banter with actual famous person Martin Short. Why was Martin Short there, you ask? Good question. Well, what did he say, then? Haven't the foggiest. I could, however, see his ten-foot-wide mouth moving on the Jumbotron from backstage, and, judging from crowd reaction, it certainly seemed funny. 

3. That time during one of the band's rehearsals when we were loitering in the back of the arena with some Anuna guys, doing all of the game day cheers, and earned the following comments from our Irish friends: "What are you all saying?" Go Irish, Beat Navy, of course! "Oh..we heard 'Go Pirates, Be Naked.'" Hm. No, Anuna guys, that was not what we were saying...but you can be sure it will be from now on! 

2. The entirety of our "You Raise Me Up" performance with relatively-famous guy Anthony Kearns. Apparently, we couldn't even remotely be heard, but whatever. It was awesome. My favorite part of this was when none of us cried. Oh, wait.

1. Our entire time onstage for the finale with the pretty-darn-famous High Kings and the not-famous-but-famous-enough-for-a-Wikipedia-page-apparently Notre Dame Marching Band. My favorite part of this one was looking out just as the Alma Mater started to see two of my dearest friends from Howard Hall and one of the few other people in the world who is both Domer and Berry - the girl who gave me my first experience staying overnight in a Notre Dame dorm - sitting, swaying, and singing along just a few rows from the stage. And again, here, I didn't cry. Oh, wait.

So tonight was the best ever, and tomorrow is the game. For the sake of avoiding brutal embarrassment for both the Notre Dame family and seemingly everyone in Ireland, we had better win. 

So Guys, I'm in Ireland

If you know anything at all about Notre Dame or its athletic program, you've probably heard by now that, this Saturday, we are playing in a little football game against the Naval Academy...in Dublin, Ireland. Perhaps, dear reader, you are one of the 33,000 Americans headed over to ND's namesake country this weekend for said game. In yet another display of my life's complete ridiculousness, I am one of those people. I, along with 35 other representatives of the Folk Choir, am in Dublin for the weekend. To...sing, and stuff.

Wednesday morning, we left campus bright and early to begin our second journey this year to my (and, for this weekend at least, seemingly everyone else's) homeland. That went about as well as any trans-Atlantic flight can go, so, largely unpleasantly. During our layover in Atlanta, we led the people of Gate E26 in a rousing rendition of the Alma Mater and fight song, which earned us a pilot coming over to us and throwing a Navy Football poster into the middle of our group. (Because apparently the other team has fans, too.) Then came the Atlanta-to-Dublin flight, on which our presence was announced to the plane like we were some sort of celebrities or, like, the Glee Club or something.

We arrived this morning at some time I couldn't even begin to wrap my head around to an airport filled with ND and "Emerald Isle Classic" balloons and paraphernalia, an Irish guy on stilts in an Uncle Sam costume spouting off spirited greetings in a moderately offensive American accent, and more red, white, and blue than downtown Logansport on the Fourth of July. To say the least, it was a little strange. We sang for a mass at the insanely beautiful Gunne Chapel at Maynooth Seminary and returned to Dublin proper for a rehearsal with the director of the choir we're singing with at tomorrow's pep rally.  Here, we learned two things. Firstly, none of us has any clue how to stand. Secondly, Joe Biden - yes, that Joe Biden, the Vice President - is apparently coming to town for the Emerald Isle Classic festivities, too, including the pep rally where we're singing. So...there's that.

That's about all there is to say for now. Look forward to more posts as the weekend goes on. Go Irish. Beat Navy.

The Cutest Thing You'll Hear All Year

Tonight, it was proven that, on occasion, Sarah Cahalan can, in fact, be a hopeless romantic. Before you get your hopes up (I'm lookin' at you, Mom), this story is not about me. Nay, this tale involves two star-crossed freshmen, a rubber duck, and levels of cuteness unparalleled by anything this campus has seen in years.

The story begins earlier this evening, when I returned to my dorm to find two young gentlemen struggling to get in the front door. I caught them out of the corner of my eye as I bee-lined for my usual side door and decided I'd take pity on them and let them into the dorm. After all, I vividly remember my  (embarrassingly long) time as a freshman who didn't understand how swiping into other dorms worked. So I let these boys in and explained what they had been doing wrong. They thanked me and, as I turned to walk away, asked me if I could help them with something. Having nothing better to do and being in an oddly charitable mood, I said I'd be happy to, and they started in on their story.

For those of you who don't know, this weekend at Notre Dame was Freshman Orientation, better known as Frosh-O. An integral part of the Frosh-O experience is serenades, a strange, awkward tradition in which the freshmen learn choreographed dances to various love songs and recent pop hits and perform them for freshmen of opposite-gender dorms. While Show Choir Sarah loved serenades, most freshmen find them to be nothing but ridiculously awkward. (Which, of course, they are, which is why Frosh-O is so much better as a staff member who can sit back, watch, and mercilessly laugh.) This fellow, however, had used one particular serenade as a chance at a love connection and, unbeknownst to him, a wonderful blog post.

You see, this boy had, at some point during Frosh-O weekend, come to be the owner of a small rubber duck. Where he found/acquired it I don't really know; considering how long it took for him to explain that he wasn't talking about an actual, live duck, I wasn't going to push for details. Regardless, though, he had this duck and had struggled for hours with what to do with it. Conveniently, just as he faced this conundrum, the freshman Ducks of Howard Hall arrived at his door for serenades. In this, he saw his chance. He and his fellow Highlanders serenaded the Howard ladies and, at the end of the song, he gave said duck to the girl to whom he was singing. This could have been just another fluffy bit of awkward Frosh-O mating rituals - but then he showed up tonight in Howard.

As he and his friend proceeded to explain, he was on a quest to find the recipient of the aforementioned duck. He knew neither name nor room number nor, in fact, anything about this girl except that she lived in Howard and had long brown hair...they thought. But he wanted to meet the girl he had given the duck to, for, if nothing else, "We could be really unlikely friends, and that would be cool." Obviously, by this point, my heart had melted all over the floor. I had to help him. So, armed with nothing but the thought of some possibly brown hair, I pointed him to our handy-dandy freshman photo bulletin boards. He and his friends looked them over and determined that none of the 30 or so girls from our freshman class pictured on the boards looked familiar - though, as they kept repeating, it was dark, so they could be mistaken as to the lucky duck's identity. At this point, the boys gave me their idea. "Could I give you my number so you could, like, let me know if you find her?" This was a strange proposition, and the thought briefly crossed my mind that this could all be some elaborate scheme to get the phone number of an upperclassman. But then I remembered that I'm just morally corrupt enough to be completely willing to give my number to a random, relatively good-looking freshman, so I agreed. The duck-giver gave me his number and officially introduced himself and his friend. I proceeded to have a lovely chat with them about the various student-run publications on campus, and I sent them on their way.

At this point, my journey began. It was barely 7:30 at this point, I had no plans for the evening, and I'd been meaning to meet the new freshmen anyway, so I decided I'd just start going door-to-door. That's right, people. I knocked on the door of every freshman room in Howard. At each room where I got a response, I promised them I wasn't a total freak, explained my weird but well-intended matchmaking mission, and asked for any information they could give me about a girl who was given a duck. After visiting every single room with a 2016 grad year on the door, I'd received nothing more helpful than "It could be Ellie. Or Ellie's tall friend." I popped by the room of my friend, the first-floor RA, to tell her my story. She found her dorm roster and informed me there were no Ellies in the freshman class (though there were some promising Danielles). As I sat and gossiped with her, a group of freshmen walked by. I ran (literally, not kidding, I ran) into the hall and stopped them. I promised once again that I was not some crazed maniac - a somewhat harder sell this time than even the door-to-doors had been - and told them all I knew. They informed me that Ellie's tall friend was, of course, Chloe, and that Chloe lived down the hall. I internally noted how ridiculous my life was in this moment, and obviously went immediately to Chloe's room. I stepped in and asked the two girls in the room if they were Chloe. They weren't. Somewhat dejected, I asked if they knew anything about a girl who got a duck from a Duncan boy. The brown-haired girl in the lounge chair, who I noticed was not in a picture on the bulletin board, answered, "Oh yeah, I did!"

Be still, my heart.

I informed her that I was about to make her day, and told her the whole story. She was, rightfully, incredulous. "Really? He was, like, really cute!" Having found at last the girl who fit in the proverbial glass slipper, I passed on the boy's number to his ducky Cinderella. She texted him, I chatted with her and her friend (who, as the story gets weirder and the world smaller, knows several of my relatives) about various college things, and headed out, my good deed completed for, oh, the year. To follow up, I went ahead and texted the kid myself, just to inform him I'd found the girl. He assured me that he had gotten her text and that I was awesome.

No, kid, you are awesome.

For me, nothing is going to top this story for a long, long time. Who knows what will happen with these two. Perhaps nothing at all. But gosh darn it, they just created what might be the cutest Frosh-O love story of all time. If either of you are reading this, I apologize for spilling everything you told me tonight all over the internet, but mostly I just entreat you - I better be invited to your wedding.

Lefty's Lament

A few days ago, I logged onto Twitter to find the best piece of news I had seen in weeks: that day, August 13, was National Left-handers' Day. You see, dear readers, I am a proud lefty. And I feel that my fellow southpaws and I - our triumphs and our trials, our perseverance, our complicated relationship with athletic endeavors - are all too frequently neglected in this big, right-hand-dominant world. Left-handers' Day, then, came as the perfect launching pad for me to write this post: a lefty's lament. You right-handed people wouldn't realize it, but being left-handed is not just a charming Zooey Deschanel-esque quirk or a social disease akin to being born ginger. A left-handed life is difficult! Hundreds of the objects we encounter each day are thoughtlessly (and, admittedly, logically) designed for use with that other hand that 90% of people favor. Here, I will detail just a few of the many things that make lefty life so tricky. Left-handed readers, enjoy. Right-handed readers - so, most of you - read. Take note. By the end of this post, I hope that you will all have learned to love and appreciate the lefties in your life even more than I know that you, deep, deep down inside, already do.

Perhaps the most omnipresent and irksome problem for southpaws is that of writing implements. Right-handed readers, I bet that, at some point, you have received a note or card where the words are all smudged beyond recognition. You may have also noticed in your school days a classmate who seemed to always have a half-silver hand. These, my friends, are what the Twitter world would call "#leftyproblems." With the exception of those lucky lefties who write primarily in Arabic or Hebrew, left-handed people must deal with the reality that language is written and read from left to right. When writing, our left-to-right-written words are followed immediately by our hands - which, of course, leads to some problems. Writing in pencil leaves a lefty's hand adorned with a metallic sheen for hours. [Note: a fun game is to watch lefties coming out of the essay portion of the SAT. Silver everywhere.] Writing in marker leads to the kind of technicolor hands of which green-thumb gardeners can only dream. Writing in pen results in papers covered irreparably in smudges. And writing with the cool multi-colored gel pens that everyone loved in the early 2000s? Don't get me started. I would almost bet money that any left-handed girl in the US currently between the ages of 18 and 25 could tell you a traumatic story from her childhood related directly to these smudgy monstrosities. In my case, my love of gel pens and handmade birthday cards led me to learn how to write upside down and backwards. Gel pen smudges, I have defeated you.

In a similar vein, lefties also face countless problems with the notebooks in which we are forced to write. Throughout my school career, I have watched my right-handed classmates take notes on paper in three-ring binders, and I have envied them. Writing standard, left-to-right, front-of-the-paper sentences in a three-ring binder is almost completely impossible for lefties. If you don't see why, try to position your left hand on the right side of such a binder - between the rings, on top of a ring, etc. Now try to imagine writing while in that position. I know, I know; your brain just exploded. Then, of course, there's the three-ring-binder's deceptively "less difficult" cousin: the spiral-bound notebook. For most of the world, the biggest issue that could arise from one of these is a spiral catching on something and unwinding at the bottom. Big whoop. When using a spiral-bound notebook, a lefty's hand constantly rests on and scratches across the spirals. This is highly uncomfortable and leads, in combination with the silver pencil sheen, to some really incredibly strange-looking hands. There are solutions to this problem, of course. I've been known to take notes on only the backs of my notebook pages, for instance. And, if you know where to look (hint: the St. Mary's College bookstore), you can find the left-hander's equivalent to manna from heaven: the left-handed notebook. This magical school supply is fantastic on more levels than I can describe. [Note: Another fun game is this: Rip a page out of a lefty notebook. Leave those annoying spiral-notebook ruffles where you find them on the right side of the page. Turn it in to your teacher. Sit back and enjoy the fun.]

Of course, pens and notebooks aren't the only school supplies that challenge lefties. Everyone knows that left-handed desks are the social pariahs of the furniture scene, but normal desks leave lefties' arms completely unsupported while writing. And lefty scissors are a joke. I frequently overuse and misuse the word "literally," but I kid you not: I have literally never met anyone capable of using left-handed scissors. Art teachers of the world, stop asking if we want lefty scissors in class. We don't.

Then there's the complicated pairing that is lefties and sports. Learning a sport that involves a racquet, club, bat, bow, or other strange handheld object that isn't a ball is always a frustrating pursuit for left-handed people. From a purely statistical standpoint, the person teaching you the sport will be right-handed nine times out of ten. And in that tenth time, the teacher will have taught himself how to play the sport right-handed, so as to better teach it to everyone in your class who isn't you. Learning to throw a football with your left hand in a room full of right-handers is easy. You just do the same thing as them with your other hand. With unnatural sporting implements like racquets, however, you have to learn everything backwards. You face the opposite way. You make all your movements in the opposite direction. You do the exact opposite of everything your teacher tells your classmates to do. You die inside. Have you ever been to a driving range or archery practice field and spent the whole time looking down the row into the faces of everyone there with you? Your left-handed friend has. Of course, if a lefty actually like sports a lot and decides to try hard enough to learn them, his or her left-handedness will be a great advantage. No one ever knows what to do when there's a left-handed person on the other team, because no one's coach ever taught them how left-handed people play sports. But for the left-hander who is not athletically inclined, sports are forever impossible. I've mentioned in my last couple posts that I hate sports. I think you - and I, since this paragraph came off a lot more bitter than I intended it to - now understand why.

For now, I think it's wise that I leave this lefty's lament at that. I could easily write a book on this topic, but I digress. By now, you should all have an idea of why lefty life is so difficult. I've read in several books and lots of places on the always-correct interwebs that left-handed people, on average, die nine years earlier than their right-handed counterparts. That's because, as this has shown you, nothing on earth is convenient for us to use. Of course, our constant experience with overcoming adversity leads us lefties to great things. Five of the last seven US presidents (if you count the ambidextrous Ronald Reagan, which, speaking on the behalf of the entire left-handed world, I DO) were left-handed. To name just a few, Napoleon, da Vinci, Bill Gates, Oprah, and, oh yeah, YOURS TRULY are lefties, too, so clearly, we've got all the best people. I hope this post enlightened you all on my hard-knock, left-handed life. And hey - hug a lefty today.

This Is My Other Post About the Olympics

In my last post, I stated that synchronized swimming is one of those Olympic sports that really should be cut from the Games. After spending the past few mornings actually watching this strange sport for hours on end, however, I felt that more needed to be said. I knew that synchronized swimming was ridiculous. Until the competition really began, though, I did not realize just how ridiculous - and, honestly, terrifying - it truly is. Therefore, dear readers, I present to you, in excruciating detail, the Domerberry's complete thoughts on synchronized swimming.

Let's start with the peculiar ways in which these athletes dress themselves. My feelings on their swimsuits are mixed. On some level, these gaudy, glittery, often themed monstrosities are everything that I, as a scrapbooker and former prom chair, could ever hope to see in a garment. While watching this event, I'll admit that I sometimes catch myself thinking, "I would wear that. I kind of want to own that swimsuit." But then a team walks out in, for example, these Michael Jackson swimsuits -

- and I punch myself for ever wanting to own anything that even shared a pool with these. I know that many people think these MJ suits are really cool, but riddle me this: if they were somewhat less glittery and cut more like a normal one-piece, could you not see these being sold at K-Mart? And if they were made readily available to the public, how many times a day do you think you could find them, inappropriately sized for their wearers, at the world's trashiest amusement/water park, Indiana Beach? The answer is a whole lot of times, people. And if you still need more examples of horrible suits, keep in mind that these anatomy-themed costumes exist. 

(Yes, those caps are designed to be brains. No, I'm not sorry for the nightmares you'll have tonight.)

There is also, of course, the frightening question of how they do their hair. Some, like our body-themed friends, wear swim caps to match their suits. Depending on the costume theme, this can get weird - but the swim cap is a concept I can at least understand. The truly befuddling hairstyle is the mysteriously water-resistant bun. These coifs, often adorned with apparently waterproof flowers or abstract patches of fabric, are shiny and creepy-looking before the swimmers even hit the pool. For a while, I thought they were actual swim caps cleverly designed to look like hair. But then I saw competitors like these guys.

Given the two different colors, that looks suspiciously like their own hair. I don't even want to think about what kind of ozone-destroying products they use to achieve such waterproof perfection. And of course, let's not forget the strangest costume piece of all: the nose plugs. I completely understand why the swimmers wear them, but practical as they may be, they are incredibly weird. 

Then there's the event itself. I mentioned in my other Olympics post that I find women's water polo to be physically impossible. Now that the Games are winding down, I must admit that the most impossible-looking sport is synchronized swimming. In any given four-minute routine, only about 12 seconds are devoted to actual breathing. Based solely on how long they go without taking in oxygen, I am once again forced to conclude that these athletes simply cannot be human. (This conclusion is supported, of course, by photographs like this one of the reigning Olympic champs, the Russians.) 

Nice eyelashes.

Even if they did breathe normally, though, the athleticism of this event is, in itself, completely bonkers. Today, I watched a girl glide across the pool for a good five seconds while standing upright on the soles of her teammate's feet - her teammate (as a reminder) whose head was five and a half feet underwater and who was swimming across a pool while vertical and upside down. This. Cannot. Be. Real. Another favorite move of the synchronized swimmers is to toss one of their team members high enough into the air that they can do several flips before returning to the pool. Meanwhile, while all of this is going on, there are between two and eight women doing every single move in complete unison, be it above water or, inexplicably, below the water where the judges can't even see them. 

Synchronized swimming, quite simply, is incredible. For the sake of preventing countless nightmares, I maintain that it should probably be removed from the Olympic schedule of events. For the sake of causing nightmares, however, I leave you with this photograph that I just created. 

You're welcome! 

This Is My Post About the Olympics

Most of you probably know that I am not the biggest sports fan in the world. In fact, I think it could safely be said that I hate sports. The blaring exception to this rule (besides Notre Dame football, obviously) comes once every two years in the form of the Olympic Games. I. Love. The. Olympics. This is particularly true of the summer games, during which school is generally out and I, therefore, do nothing for the 17 days of games except sit around watching the Olympics. The greatest thing about being unhealthily obsessed with the Olympics is that, unlike with obsessions with, say, Stanley Tucci, nearly everyone in the world is right there with me. Given this shared worldwide obsession, it is clearly necessary that I write a post (or twelve) about the Olympics. To craft this post, I am reverting to my primary comedic medium of summer 2012: the Top 9.

Firstly, I give you the Top 9 Sports That Are in the Olympics and Shouldn't Be.

9. Dressage. This sounds like an event where people compete to see who has the most fashionable horse.
8. Trampolining. This is apparently a category of gymnastics. Is it super cool? Probably. Does it look like what every backyard in America looks like when given a trampoline and a ten-year-old? Also probably.
7. Greco-Roman wrestling. I'll allow this to stay in the Olympics; however, only Greece and Italy should be allowed to send teams.
6. Synchronized swimming. Let's not pretend we take this sport seriously. (Note: synchronized diving can stay, because it is awesome.)
5. Beach volleyball. Misty May, Kerry Walsh, and their extra last names that no one cares about are great and all, but it's volleyball on the beach. Honestly, people. If it must stay, at least make the men's uniforms as revealing as the women's. Please and thank you.
4. Handball. What's next, drunken RecSports broomball?
3. Table tennis. Come on.
2. Women's water polo. I watched this for a couple hours today, and I'm convinced that women that athletic cannot actually exist. Sports played by robots should not be allowed.
1. Racewalking. Look it up.

Next, on the other end of the spectrum, Top 9 Loosely-Defined "Sports" That Aren't in the Olympics and Should Be.

9. Dressage, as an event where you actually do compete to see who has the most fashionable horse.
8. Trading of Shakespearean insults.
7. Bubble football. Look that one up, too, people.
6. Liturgical dance.
5. Performing the Irish jig on the bleachers in the student section of Notre Dame Stadium after several hours of no-holds-barred tailgating. If you doubt the worthiness of this as an Olympic event, go watch it at a game, then try and tell me it's less difficult than badminton.
4. Unicycling...because, like, why not?
3. Manicuring the freakish hands of Olympic archers.
2. Competitive bottling of the Russian gymnasts' tears.
1. Channel-flipping between the 85 different networks on which NBC shows the Olympics.

Sarah's Top 9 Favorite Olympians, also knowns as Top 9 (Okay, 7) Olympic Athletes Sarah Has Heard Of

9. Gabby Douglas. She is a tiny ball of sass. Spent most of the "basking-in-new-gold-medal-glory" time last night not paying attention to anything and wearing her sweats when everyone else was still in leos. Obviously, I like this girl.
8. Ryan Lochte. In the battle of Lochte vs. Phelps, Phelps will forever have my heart. However, have you SEEN Ryan Lochte?
7. Missy Franklin, mostly for the time she told Matt Lauer on the Today show that she blew a fuse in the Olympic Village that day straightening her hair for the Today show. D'awww.
6. Whichever idiot on the US men's basketball team has that ridiculous beard. (Note: people tell me his name is James Harden. I do not care about your name, sir. Shave your face.)
5. The two Nigerian women who danced through the entire Parade of Nations. They were awesome.
4. Shaun White I NEVER SAID THESE WERE OLYMPIANS THIS YEAR, I LOVE SHAUN WHITE, OKAY
3. Michael Phelps.
2. Michael Phelps.
1. Michael Phelps.

So that's pretty much what I have to say about the Olympics. If you need me any time between now and my return to ND, I can probably be found sitting in my living room, watching the Olympics and playing the Sporcle "Countries of the World" quiz until I can manage to remember Kyrgyzstan and Bangladesh in the same round. (Michael Phelps says there's nothing more frustrating than finishing fourth. This is false. There is nothing more frustrating than remembering 195 of the 196 countries on the Countries of the World quiz.) For now, then, turn on your TVs, listen to the dulcet tones of Bob Costas, and read this on the commercial breaks from the primetime coverage. Go world.