As the London games now fade into the rearview mirror of history, here are a few personal reflections I jotted down as they popped into my brain:
Ryan Seacrest was included in the NBC Olympic broadcast team. Why didn't they add Simon Cowell, too?
Every apparatus in the Olympic gymnastics competition looks like something on the playground that your mother would have pointed at and said, "I don't want you going near that thing."
Separated at birth: the giant sleeping baby in the opening ceremonies and the giant baby floating above Earth in the final scene of '2001: A Space Odyssey.'
What should parents say when kids watching the Olympics look away from the TV and ask, "How come we don't use the metric system here?"
For Rio in 2016 -- there should be another division in the BMX races with all the contestants on recumbent bikes.
When will some country adopt a national anthem that makes you want to get up and boogy?
Since the point of the balance beam is to stay on it, why not just put it close to the floor so when gymnasts lose their balance they don't have so far to fall? Yes, it would mean sacrificing the high flying 'dismount.' Attention beamers: no one interviewing you for a job will ever ask for details about your 'dismount.' And if they do, you should look for work somewhere else.
More for Rio -- track and field should have two javelin events, one for distance and one where the throwers aim at specific targets such as cardboard cutouts of elk or saber-toothed tigers.
Is there an official count of towels? They were everywhere. Someone should have sent Mary Carillo to find out how often they got washed and -- even more crucial -- who was folding them after they came out of the dryer.
I named my downstairs sofa 'Olympic Workout.' So when people phoned and asked what I was doing I could truthfully say "I'm devoting a lot of time to my Olympic Workout."
When was the last time an athlete with a beard won an individual gold medal? And I don't mean thick stubble, I mean a beard like Rutherford B. Hayes.
Even more for Rio -- long distance rope climbing. Use the local skyscrapers as venues, and no sliding back down. Participants must go hand-over-hand both ways.
Post-Games merchandising idea of the bleeding obvious: drain the 50-meter pool, put the water in 3 oz. bottles, slap on a pricetag of $19.95 and a label that says "Michael Phelps swam in this!" Just in time for Christmas. Thank me later.