August 2016 Chit Chat

Happy August to our European friends!  It'll be August soon here.

Just hoping that August isn't near as hot as July has been.  On the other hand, if I do any more melting, I'll be a minus zero!

Here in UK we've had HotHumid days then Kool evenings.
Then we've had CarWash rain showers, like today....
after a warm sunny windy day we now have heavy showers coming in from the west.
Here endeth the weather lesson for today.

PS.....following the longest day you all must realise that we're now approaching winter. 
So I'd better start thinking about my 
OnlineChristmasShopping.

I don't want winter just yet please.

No annemarie I don't either.  this is lovely.

Did anybody watch 'Whiplash'?
I was able to see it last night and was so impressed that I showed it to my husband this night who was as also excited as I was.

carolhathaway wrote:Did anybody watch 'Whiplash'?
I was able to see it last night and was so impressed that I showed it to my husband this night who was as also excited as I was.

Yes, yes, yes carolh ..... really good film. Very intense. Almost exhausting to watch.
J. k. Simmons and the young man who played the student drummer were terrific

Because Sevens just mentioned the Olympics:
Do you watch them?
I always try to be up to date and enjoy watching sports you normally hardly ever get to see on TV like beach volleyball, gymnastics, table tennis, hugh diving or other 'exotic' sports.

I'm just fed uo with all the doping discussions (maybe I should discuss this in 'The Serious Side'?). I see fantastic athlets, unbelievable performances, and I tend to think: "I just hope he/she is not doped'. That's annoying and stops me from really enjoying it...

carolhathaway wrote:Because Sevens just mentioned the Olympics:
Do you watch them?
I always try to be up to date and enjoy watching sports you normally hardly ever get to see on TV like beach volleyball, gymnastics, table tennis, hugh diving or other 'exotic' sports.

I'm just fed uo with all the doping discussions (maybe I should discuss this in 'The Serious Side'?). I see fantastic athlets, unbelievable performances, and I tend to think: "I just hope he/she is not doped'. That's annoying and stops me from really enjoying it...

I really liked the mixed doubles.

I'm not a big fan of certain sports like boxing, weightlifting, wrestling etc. but sometimes watch it now. Yes, ladybug, the mixed doubles are always great to watch. Also badminton is a sports I really enjoy.

I just need to say how outstanding it is to not have to wait until the second week of the summer Olympics (track & field) to see US athletes of color. My granddaughter takes it as a matter of course to cheer for Black and Latino swimmers, gymnasts, fencers, and water polo players. I take that as a good thing, but I'm happy to be witness to the history.

Your granddaughter sounds as special as her grandmother!  Yay Way2!

melbert wrote:Your granddaughter sounds as special as her grandmother!  Yay Way2!

What's with the weird picture?

Auntie George .   He he heeeee.  

Way2,
I realized that as well, really good!
I also watched a beach volleyball match between a German and an Egyptian team. The German women wore their usual bikinis, and one of the Egyptians wore a hijab. I liked the contrast!

Allyson Felix, a tremendous athlete and even better person, took second to a woman who literally took a dive at the finish line so that her torso would cross the line first. Felix took it graciously, but I'm mad as hell. 

It should be against the rules to make a non-running move during a running event.

You want to win a foot race, do it on your feet. You want to dive, go to the pool.

I agree
Sound strange they accept it :/

Yesterday the coach of our German canoeing team in Rio died due to his injuries after his taxi crashed some days ago... 
He was 35 years old. Puts everything into perspective...

Way2Old4Dis wrote:Allyson Felix, a tremendous athlete and even better person, took second to a woman who literally took a dive at the finish line so that her torso would cross the line first. Felix took it graciously, but I'm mad as hell. 

It should be against the rules to make a non-running move during a running event.

You want to win a foot race, do it on your feet. You want to dive, go to the pool.

Well said, I agree.

Way2Old4Dis wrote:Allyson Felix, a tremendous athlete and even better person, took second to a woman who literally took a dive at the finish line so that her torso would cross the line first. Felix took it graciously, but I'm mad as hell. 

It should be against the rules to make a non-running move during a running event.

You want to win a foot race, do it on your feet. You want to dive, go to the pool.

 
Well said, I agree.

Note to Ryan Lochte: When you're in a hole, stop digging.

Note to US Men's 4x100 relay team: It's not a relay without the baton pass. What you've done for 9 out of the last 10 finals is a really fast game of tag. Learn the freaking basics. It's embarrassing.

Way2,
I wonder if Ryan Lochte and the other athlets will ever tell us WHY ON EARTH they told this story...

Sorry,
I just found on a website that Ryan Lochte actually did an interview. So he and his mates urinated at the wall of a service station, damaged a door, and when a security man with a gun asked them to pay for the damage they'd caused, they classified that as an armed robbery?

Well,... You're right, Way2, they just should have shut up...

carolhathaway wrote:Way2,
I wonder if Ryan Lochte and the other athlets will ever tell us WHY ON EARTH they told this story...

What's to tell? They're privileged American man-boys who used the reputation of a poor country to cover their own stupidly criminal behavior. It reminds me of when White Americans would commit a heinous crime and then say, "A Black guy did this to me." Despicable.

Interesting to note that the youngest in the group, Gunnar Bentz,(20) was the first to apologise and donate money to a local cause

Still about Lochte:
Hope Solo, goal keeper of the US soccer team, was suspended for six months because she had critizised the very defensive system of the Swedish team which beat the US  in Rio. That's not very nice (if I remember correctly, Ronaldo had said the same about Iceland at the European Championships), but that's it. 
At least, compared to what Lochte and his collegues of the Swimming team had done in Rio. And they were critizised by their team, that's it. In my opinion, there's a slight disproportion...

P.S.: I know that Lochte lost some of his sponsors, but that's a different level of sanctioning someone...

Solo has been on the national team's and the soccer association's hit lists for a while now.

They gave her a pass, kind of, when she was arrested on domestic violence charges (against two male relatives who have a stormy history with her).

But then, she became very vocal, as part of a players' organization and in her personal media arena, about the pay disparity between men's and women's soccer. The authorities didn't take that well. Solo went a step farther and started posting pictures and blogging about the deplorable conditions under which the women often have to play (seedy hotels, training rooms with broken equipment, dangerously uncared-for fields, etc).

So they have not been happy with her for a while. They were probably waiting for a reason to get rid of her. She did not help herself with her comments, but the US women are good at self-policing and would gave dealt with her appropriately, I think.

If you want to see more evidence of the disparity in punishment between men and women in sports, check out the Marion Jones saga in its entirety.

Way2,
I know that Hope isn't a - let's just say - modest and diplomatic person. But Ryan Lochte is quite an enfant terrible as well...

But if leading athlets can't speak about injustice in sports, who can? When the German Women's Soccer team won the European Championships for the first time, they got a coffee set as a bonus  while the men got about $100,000 € when they won 

Yes is right coffee set not bonus!

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/weather/hurricane-newton-smashes-mexico-s-luxury-resort-area-los-cabos-n643226

Hope everyone there is safe. We never did read if there was damage to George and Rande's properties back in 2014 when the last severe storm hit in Cabo.

Shouldn't this be in September Chit Chat?

Hope all safe

I thought the Clooney's and Gerber's sold their property in Cabo.

I believe they did , but they are supposed to be building another property there.

Was it going to be there? I thought it was some much bigger project, but not sure they identified a place. I'd take a guess that it would be something to do with Casamigos...................

They did sell their properties and were building elsewhere in Cabo.  The location may be more private than the previous property.  Maybe that's why they moved ....privacy from long lenses.  If George and Rande's partner, Mike Meldman, has resort properties in Cabo maybe they were going to relocate there???

Too bad.  The joint homes were so beautiful.  And there is a possibility that they will only build one home for both the Clooneys and the Gerbers can use

There is a topic somewhere here about the the guys selling the properties.

Just checked Google. The homes were bought by a Mexican billionaire. According to Tmz it sold for $100 million. If you believe Tmz.

Guess we better move on to September Chit Chat .....

The homes are beautiful .   

amaretti wrote:The homes are beautiful .   

What homes?  Sonning, Los Angeles, Lake Como, Malibu?

Ladybug I think amaretti meant the Cabo San Lucas, Mexico homes that George and Rande owned for a few years

Donnamarie wrote:Ladybug I think amaretti meant the Cabo San Lucas, Mexico homes that George and Rande owned for a few years

Thanks.