That’s what your grandparents said about the inevitable failure of Social Security. 
What Stuffy said.
Strippers do well when the Olympics are in town 
aww, BIgGirl, you’ve got years to plan out that lunch…
That earthquake probably didn’t help matters any.
I’m with edwino. I almost fell out of my chair when I heard Houston had been considered. I mean, COME ON! Houston? In the summer? What the hell?
I heard Toronto is on the short list. Other than not wishing to inflict the Olympics on Toronto, it’d be a lovely spot.
Where will they build the new stadiums? I’m down with it. I eat my lunch at the work cafeteria (in the building) anyway. Reminds me of a story from years back . . .
:flashback effect:
I had been living in NYC for about a year. I was living on 23rd and Third and there was a street fair one weekend afternoon right on my block. Me and a couple of friends had been enjoying the Corn Dogs and Gyros when a small, friendly-voiced, happy-faced woman comes up and taps me on the shoulder.
“Have you got a minute to sign my petition?” she asked me in a polite tone.
“Well what is it for?” I curiously inquired.
“To stop them from moving Yankee Stadium!” came the reply with pride.
“They are trying to move Yankee Stadium?” I answered, surprised at this plan of which I had heard nothing.
I grew up in Boston. I’m a Sox fan first and then a Yankees fan next. An interesting moral perch in this town, truly, but to me the only sacred ground in baseball is Fenway. Other than that it’s all just seats for us hairless apes as far as I’m concerned. Comfortable and conveinient is what I’m looking for. Having been to Yankee Stadium a couple of times by this point, I had to admit to myself that it was way the hell uptown (fuckin’ upstate, really), and after so many years of enthusiastic use by New York fans, the place really is kind of a dump these days.
“Well, where are they planning on putting the new stadium?”
“On 34th Street. Over by the water on the west side. Can you believe the nerve!”
I took a moment. I lived on 23rd. I like baseball games. I hate long commutes. A new Yankee Stadium on 34th street = a faster commute, a cleaner park, and more games for me. I’d probably see twice as many games if the damn thing wasn’t so far away and was all shiny and new. Yep. I’d love that.
“Sorry, madam. I would like it if they did that. I can’t sign your petition. Good luck to you, anyway. Have a nice day.”
I turned back and joined my friends. About two steps away, this little, cute, kind, mouse of a woman SCREAMED at the top of her lungs “FUCK YOU ASS HOLE!!! YOU’RE JUST MAD CAUSE YOUR SIDE ISN’T GOING TO WIN!!! YOU PANSY BITCH!!! TO HELL WITH YA!”
Ex-fucking-scuse me? Listen here, bitch*. I didn’t even know about the god damn plan until you told me about it. To be honest, I really don’t give a shit, never mind have a “side” that I’m worried about “losing”. Whatdafuck? I had been polite as all hell! We just walked away laughing (I never said any of this to her), but I’m sure she has died a premature death by now due to stress. RIP you hose-hounding, chrome-hitch-sucking, psychotic fucking hooker*.
Judging by this experience, I imagine the debate will be a bit touchy on this issue, and predict that many will be the voices which shall be raised.
DaLovin’ Dj
[sub]* Disclaimer: No offense intended to dogs, women, cranky people, oral sex fans, those with uncontrolled psychotic episodes, gardners, professional escorts, nor those who live, work, or camp in trailers[/sub]
Call me a NIMBYist but I was glad that DC was removed from the short list of cities for the 2012 Olympics. After the recent dabacle of chuckleheads grousing over the grand prix, I really didn’t want to see the stream of “neighborhood activists” pouring out from the woodwork to oppose every single fucking thing that anyone proposes.
Darn. I was looking forward to the televised coverage of the final stages of the marathon at the Houston Summer Olympics, watching in morbid fascination as the remaining athletes stagger in to Enron, um, I mean Minute Maid Stadium on rubber legs, keeling over just short of the finish line.
It’s still too hot in October in Houston for the Olympics.
Why not Cincinnati? The boycott might be over by 2012.
We have a similar problem here in Seattle. Our well-meaning City Boosters have never gotten over the fact that, really, Seattle isn’t exactly a big city. If you go by strict borders, we’ve barely got six hundred thousand people; you have to include all the suburbs to approach a million. And yet, we have a high profile (“Frasier,” Sleepless in Seattle, etc.), and the Powers That Be really want us to be a World Class City, whatever that means. So every couple of years we get the inevitable round of “let’s host the Olympics!” drum-beating. So far, cooler heads have always prevailed; we just sunk a billion dollars into our football and baseball facilities, but somehow we don’t have the money to fix our transportation system, and now our city library is going to close for a solid week – main facility, branches, website, everything – because their budget has been cut so much, and so on, and so on, all of which makes inviting the Olympics an obviously bad idea to anybody with more than three brain cells.
But they’ll keep trying, and we’ll keep voting it down.
I’m glad you enjoyed having the Olympics in town, Aro, and I love the spirit of the event myself – but trust me, trying to plop an event of this magnitude into Seattle would be a colossal disaster. We recently hosted baseball’s All-Star Game, and (IMHO) did a nice job of it, but that’s about the biggest thing we can comfortably handle.
I agree. I was dreading the Games, and on the first day, I left home ridiculously early to go to work, fearing a gridlock which never came. The traffic seemed lighter than normal.
The Roads and Traffic Authority and CityRail actually got their shit together for once. The thousands of volunteers worked well too, as did the unofficial ones. I ended up directing passenger movements at one of the main entrances to Circular Quay railway station when numbers became too high for the volunteer to handle on her own. When I left, somebody else off the street took over. It was a good couple of weeks, I reckon. The flag-waving and “Aussie Aussie Aussie” stuff got a bit much after a bit, but the community spirit was good to see.
Of course, after they turned off the lights at the stadium, all the tourists went home, we got back to road raging each other, mugging little old ladies for small change, holding up 7-11s, and vandalising trains.
Actually, this was a couple years ago. It was pure hell. My wife works in the China Basin building right next to Pac Bell park, and she said it was a war zone trying to get in and out of there.
Ditto Stuffy. The LAST thing San Francisco needs is the Olympics. Did anyone notice that the buildings they’ve proposed range in location between Sacramento and San Jose? Send millions of people up to Sacto, then back down to Stanford to watch two different events. That shouldn’t cause too many problems on the three bridges they will all have to use.
Like I said DJ, not from here, crazy or both.
Houston and Seattle got to vote on it? There was no such voting done here in New York that I remember. One of the local news shows lead with this story last night and started a call in poll. At the end of the show they were surprised to find that 75% of New Yorkers wanted the games in San Francisco.
Is there a possibility that Stuffy could become a NY doper? I’m getting all tingly just thinking about it.
Sorry, poor wording on my part resulting in misleading information. Seattle has a tradition of voting on anything and everything of public import, from the Commons project that got roasted a few years ago to the two stadium proposals. (Of course, the latter shows us that if it’s close, the Powers That Be can disregard it; only one proposal passed, but both stadiums got built with public money. :rolleyes: )
In any event, what I should have said was this: “The boosters keep floating their ideas, and the citizenry makes it absolutely clear that they’ll revolt if they don’t get to vote on it. They also make it clear that said vote will be strongly negative. So the boosters disappear for a couple of years before trying again.”
Sorry for the misinformation. And even sorrier that a ballot proposal apparently wasn’t even discussed for you Noo Yawkers.
I am pissed that they nixed the only place on the list that made sense, Baltimore and DC. We’ve got the facilities, the transit, the hotel space and everything else needed right together, but spread out enough to avoid the problem of too many people in too smal;l a space. NYC? San Fran? Great towns, but, as other posters have noted, the Olympics would shut them down, crowd wise. I’m seriously pissed about being dropped from the list.
you actually WANT the games?
(great username, btw)
I wonder how many locals remember the fact that the USOC hounded the founder of the “Gay Olympics” until his death because he had the temerity to link the two words?
Oh. The few friends I have that live in Sydney felt the Olympics was an overwhelming positive experience for them. 'Course, YMMV.
The two weeks of competition had the same effect on me … it was the four years of internecine political thuggery, chicanery and financial gouging that preceded them that I don’t need to go through again.
Ugh! We’ve got enough people here in NYC, thankyouverymuch. The Olympics would make a bad situation worse.
Although having some Olympic events within Manhattan would be somewhat cool…
They could hold track events on Madison Avenue, right around 42nd Street, where the air quality is at its worst. Watch world class athletes wheeze and choke as they struggle to complete the 100-yard dash!
They could pole vault over those giant potholes with the steel plates dragged across them! Kayak in the East River (against the current)! Synchronized swimming in one of the Central Park fountains! This could be fun…
As with with everyone else in New York, I would be so against the games being held here. The gummint may feel otherwise, though, considering what the tourism would do for hotels, restaurants, stores and everything else has has only money to gain, but the city would quite simply burst at the seams.
Completely discounting the regular crowd of rich freaks who go to the games to matter where they are, NYC is just too accessible from every major city on the East coast. It’s easy driving distance from Boston, Philly, D.C. and Baltimore, meaning lots of traffic from people who normally can’t afford to travel to see the games, and don’t forget about the 50,000 dipshits from New Jersey who drive 80 miles an hour with their eyes closed.
Then you have the more regular airline communters from D.C./Baltimore and Boston who would fly in.
NYC public trans just won’t be able to hold up while also clogged with all the extra traffic.
Then there’s the prices … every hotel inflating their rates, regular stores and eateries “temporarily” increasing prices to make the extra cash from fool tourists … lordy, it’ll make life much more expensive for the good folks who actually have to live there.
Nope. Don’t want’em.