US Olympics Committee, proudly supporting the Chinese economy...

I read this today while eating my lunch and nearly saw said lunch again.  The US Olympic committee decided to have Ralph Lauren design the uniforms for the upcoming festivities.  The designs were then manufactured in China.  Approximately $2000 for the men's uniform and $1500 for the womens uniform.  The worst part is that these uniforms look like they were pulled out of a JC Penny catalog from the late 70s.  And berets, not really seen as iconic American headgear.  I guess cowboy or baseball hats don't really go with the Captain and Tennille's heyday styling.  Really, $2K each and this is the best that they could come up with? 

Someone at the USOC should be doing some soul searching right now, not acting arrogant about their "proud partnership with an American company."  Unfortunately, there is no accounting for some people's children. 

The Geek is strong with this one...

Several months ago while fixing a laptop, the user and I had a discussion that ranged over many subjects.  One of them happened to be the Star Wars saga and the various editions and versions.  I have the original movies in VHS widescreen special edition (numbered, even!).  I commented that I would love to get my hands on the LaserDisk version, since that is the only digital edition that has the original versions as released in the theaters.  <note: I do not have a "Han Shot FIRST" shirt, although I do understand the peeve>  Apparently, his parents were big into the LaserDisk phenomena, so he had them in their collection.  The conversation went on from there and I thought nothing more of it until a came to work several weeks later and found a box sitting on my chair.  What was in it you ask?

Why, this:

And underneath, this:

After I finished hyperventilating, I confirmed that these did, in fact, now belong to me.  Now I just needed a player.  He apparently was happy with the job I did on his laptop.  I emailed a friend to ask about where to get good LaserDisk players, since they haven't made them in well over a decade.  It turned out that his brother had a spare that he didn't need.  Also, free of charge. 

So, after several weeks of delay, the player was added to the entertainment center and we could enjoy the movies.  It was at this point that I found out several interesting facts.  My wife saw the first movie in the theater, whereas I did not see it until 1989 on VHS.  Neither of us saw the second movie in the theater.  Again this was 1989 VHS for me (I did a marathon Saturday) while she has never seen it.  I saw the third movie in the theater, while she has never seen it at all.  Our daughter has not seen any Star Wars movie of any type.  This had to be rectified, asap!

So, for the last three evenings, we have had family geek movie night watching the first three movies in all of their original glory.  I do have to say that LaserDisk is interesting to watch movies on.  I understand why the format died.  Every 15 to 20 minutes you either wait 10 seconds for the player to switch sides or you have to get up and change the disk.  At three disks per movie, that got old.  However, we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and many bags of popcorn died.  Now we have to work on the prequels, which I don't think I own, so a trip to WalMart may be in order.  We may also pick up the updated versions of the first three as well.  then I can put the LD version on the shelf next to my letterbox special edition VHS copies of the first three, which I refuse to put into our current VCRs.  Yes, that was plural.  What's your point?