Despite Canada's failure to win a medal thus far, or come close to doing so, I'm enjoying the Olympics a lot so far. I'm with the majority, I suppose, in agreeing that the Men's 4 x 100m Freestyle Relay was just enthralling; the swimming as a whole has been very enjoyable.

I remember writing some uncomplimentary things once about the Steve Armitage/Byron Macdonald announcing duo, and now I'm not sure why: Byron has an eye for detail that has provided legitimate insight so far. (Everything bad I've ever written about Armitage still stands... of all the creepy camera shots that flash by during an Olympics in China, the creepiest is still the shot of those two guys last night: Macdonald sitting down with his papers in front of him, and Steve standing behind with his hand gently placed on the back of Macdonald's neck.)

**What's up with Canada? Jeff Little has an excellent post running down the events where Canadians have a medal shot; it just happens that most of them are later on in the Games.

**The biennial "winner" of Canadian Woman I Had Never Heard Of Before The Olympics But Now Have A Crush On: Kara Lang! Canada takes on Sweden tomorrow at 5:45AM MT and needs at least a draw to advance. Also, I'm probably too old for these crushes now. Sorry for bringing it up.

**The G&M's William Houston has a good blog going: Games on the Box. Come to think of it, he has a good gig going; I've watched 12-16 hours of Olympics per day for two weeks for free in the past!

**If you're trying to check out results or schedule in any detail at all, I definitely recommended bypassing SI.com, Yahoo! Sports, TSN, CBC, and the rest of them in favour of the official site. Organized, and complete.

**The most disappointing aspect of the Olympics so far: the total lack of good TV ads. The WonderBread ad with the kids was briefly precious, but has run its course. That's it. Compare to Athens, where Bell had two ads that remained entertaining for the entire duration of the Olympics. There was "Pause Live TV", where the Olympians twiddled their thumbs (the weightlifter was flirting with the judge) while Joe Sixpack returned a beer rental and grabbed a snack. And there was "Instant Update", where the guy kept finding Olympians (in full gear) in various places around the house: synchro swimmers in his shower, a kayaker next to him in bed, etc.

**And finally, recommended reading. Jim Henley is one of my favourite bloggers, and way back in 2002 he wrote a rather brief piece that nevertheless is a fairly compelling and complete rebuttal to those who pine for the good ol' amateur days at the Olympics. He begins:

I remember the years of “amateur” Olympics - Mark Spitz and Eric Heiden and, especially, Sugar Ray Leonard, Maryland’s Pride. I remember the Miracle on Ice and even, prepubescently, Peggy Fleming. Oh the lost years of glory, before professionalism, sponsorships and the Dream Team, when athletes competed for the love of sport itself. Now NBA players and NHL players and money-grubbing pros have ruined the games.

Faced with that much crap, one hardly knows where to start.

Glory Days, then. At the time of the Olympic revival at the end of the 19th Century, “amateur” was how upper-class young men kept out the riff-raff. Championship-caliber athletes from working-class and poor backgrounds had to turn pro. By my childhood, “the amateur ideal” had morphed into affirmative action for socialist countries: corporate money and perks, bad; government money and perks, good!

Read the whole thing. And Go Canada.