Phelps the Olympian

Timothy Dalrymple is a blogger I read from time to time. In mid-August he wrote a two-part post arguing that Michael Phelps is not the clear-cut greatest olympian of all time. (Part 1 here, Part 2 here)

If you're at all interested in sports in general or the olympics in particular, they're both entertaining reads. Dalrymple's main point (among many) is that not all gold medals should be weighed equally when it comes to determining history's greatest olympian. Put simply, swimmers have many more medals available to them than all other sports. He gets pretty detailed, and if you like reading interesting stuff that doesn't, in the end, mean anything (which is pretty much the case with everything sports related), it'll be fun for you.

I didn't read his second part until recently, and it appears comments have been closed on that post, so I'm writing here to share a few of the thoughts I would have written in comment form if I could have.

I don't think I flat-out disagree with hardly anything in either of Dalrymple's posts, except I do believe Phelps is the greatest olympian ever. Dalrymple's most troublesome piece comes at the very end when you realize that he doesn't have anyone in mind who is the greatest olympian, he just doesn't think it's Phelps. That's a problem for me. It's easy to argue against the "greatest-ness" of anyone or anything. It's much tougher if you actually have to make the case for another. I could give you a hundred reasons why Tom Brady is not the best quarterback ever. It's much tougher for me to tell you who is. And that's what I was waiting for from Dalrymple, but he never got there. He made many good points, and brought up some important limitations to declaring Phelps the greatest olympian simply because his medal count is highest. But the weakest arguments he made were always when he brought up other olympians by name. He named many extremely impressive and accomplished olympians who would deserve to be on any "top 10 olympians" list, but none of them were properly or exhaustively compared to Phelps, and they all have as many arguments against them as Phelps does.

If you asked 100 olympic enthusiasts of varying ages from around the world to name the top 3 olympians of all time, is there any doubt that Phelps' name would show up on 100 ballots? It's a subjective thing to try to determine, but it has a more clear-cut answer than many other subjective sports questions.

What Life is Like

Ever since Forrest Gump immortalized the words, "Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get," people have been comparing just about everything you can think of to life itself (ironically, it's common now for a box of chocolates to come with a label under the lid that tells you exactly what you're gonna get). I recently saw video of a guy who liked to play pool and he said, "Life is like a game of pool. When you find your shot you've gotta take it. You may have to walk around the table a few times, but sooner or later you have to take that shot." It made me think that we could probably compare anything to life in one way or another. In the shower (where I do my best thinking) I started to come up with some other things life is like. Now I'm taking a break from writing a thesis, so here are 15 things life is like.

Life is like a library. Even if you know exactly what you're looking for, you can get yourself lost.

Life is like a shower head. If you let yours get rusty you're gonna have stuff going every which-way until you dip it in some CLR.

Life is like a wristwatch. It keeps going 'round and 'round.

Life is like a notebook. The pages are blank until you fill them in.

Life is like a bottle of shampoo. When you're near the end it's no use shaking it up and down or banging it against the wall -- it's over, man.

Life is like checking e-mail. Most of the time it's boring and predictable, but when it's not it's awesome.

Life is like blogging. You can BS your way through a lot of it, but sooner or later you'll get found out.

Life is like taking a test. You can BS your way through a lot of it, but sooner or later you'll get found out.

Life is like wearing white after Labor Day. For most it's not terribly fashionable, but some people pull it off nicely.

Life is like God. You'll never fully understand it.

Life is like a woman. You'll never fully understand it.

Life is like working out. Sometimes you sweat.

Life is like eating vegetables. It can really suck.

Life is like winter time. Football.

Life is like politics. You don't have to participate very long to find some real jerks.

What else is life like?