My gift to you:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tx1XIm6q4r4&hl=en&fs=1]

It occurs to me that this very silly blog basically began as a vehicle of writing about The Khorkina. (Peace be upon Her.) The Olympics are back and Galley Slaves has only devolved in terms of its ambitions. So some thoughts on these Olympics:

* NBC deserves enormous credit for a number of aspects of their broadcast–starting with the Glorious High Definition. It’s the best my plasma screen has ever looked–even Discovery HD Theater’s Sunrise Earth looks like foggy gunk by comparison.

* Also, NBC is putting Mary Carrillo to use doing feature packages. Awesome. She’s a huge talent. Could be the next Costas.

* All of that said, could Jack Donaghy please send out a memo forbidding the color commentators from using the phrase “It’s all about [insert name, skill, result, etc]!”

* Also, you know what’s a lot of fun to watch during the Olympics? Actual events. Packages telling us Olympic Stories to Make Us Care are boring. So are long studio interviews with people like the president of the United States.

* The ads are pretty impressive, too. My favorites are the incredibly detailed and beautiful spots for United Airlines. They must have cost a fortune. Southwest never has gorgeous, awe-inspiring ads. Hmmm. Maybe there’s a lesson in there somewhere . . .

* Visa’s ad featuring the Morgan Freedman voiceover, on the other hand, is ridiculous. Their catchphrase: “Go World.” Sure thing. Let’s give everyone gold medals!

* Watching Women’s Synchro 3-meter Diving (I told you, I’m a sucker for this stuff), I couldn’t help but notice that the judge from the Netherlands was the Paula Abdul of the event, spitting out 10s and 9.5s by the bucket. She was the high score for almost every dive NBC showed.

* During some prelim heat, the broadcasters were breathlessly recounting the twisted tale of French swimmer Laure Manaudou: She moved to Italy to be with her Italian boyfriend; she broke up with him; he posted naked pictures (and a sex video!) of her on the interweb, and–this is the best part–started dating her chief rival.

Hearing all of this it struck me that with the exception of the really big sports, the interior workings of most sports–not just figure skating and gymnastics–must approximate the world of ballroom dance.

* Did you know that Bart Connor and Nadia Comaneci are married? Oh sure you did. But did you know they also have their own website, BartAndNadia.com? I think not. They do speeches and personal appearances. I’m just saying.

* Is it just me, or is it hard to root against the Chi-Coms? During the Cold War, I not only wanted our jocks to crush the godless Reds, I wanted the Ruskies to suffer, too. I never forgave that mean Russian boxer for killing Apollo Creed. It just wasn’t right.

But I kind of like the Chinese athletes. They aren’t in the least bit threatening. Instead, the all seem vaguely put-upon. It’s more apparent that they’re victims of their government. So I guess I’m sort of pulling for them.

It’s a strip called, obviously enough, Garfield Minus Garfield. It’s an eerie and brilliant depiction of a man gone mad.

She has returned from Points Unknown to issue a wonderful, scathing review of The Mummy 3: Jet Li in 2-D Double Dragon Emperor Action. Sample hotness:

Q. What’s horrible?

1. There’s a screechy, overcranked, insecure, geographically confused, let’s-put-an-exclamation-point-on-everything quality to the film that really burns you out after a while — and it only lets up once, when the whole thing grinds to a dull, talky halt in a cave for about five or ten minutes.

Cohen (who did confident work in “Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story” and “xXx”) seems to have lost all sense of proportion. Watching any scene in this movie, you can almost hear him screaming in the editing room:

“Okay! Use the shakiest handheld shot here! Now cut to an overhead “Lord of the Rings” helicopter shot — but only for a second or two! Now turn up the music! And make sure it crescendos on something really minor, like Fraser turning to reload! Now add a sound bite of John Hannah screaming! Now get the effects team to throw a couple of extra Yetis in the background!”

2. Oh, right: There are Abominable Snowmen in this movie — three of them. At one point, one of them kicks an evil Chinese soldier over a goalpost-shaped piece of architecture. The Yeti behind the placekicker Yeti raises his arms straight in the air like a referee signaling “touchdown.”

3. Expanding on points (1) and (2): The movie has this ridiculous habit of doubling and tripling every character and story element — when one character or story element would have had a much bigger impact.

For example: Rick and Alex perform identical heroic acts, often in the same scene.

There are three identical Abominable Snowmen, two warrior women blessed with eternal life, and two wisecracking drunks.

There are two separate mummy armies that go to war (in a scene that plays like the who-gives-a-shit version of the Battle of Pellinor Fields). There are also, for reasons not fully explained, two airplanes attacking the mummy armies — I guess so Cohen could stage a plane crash without taking out anyone important.

So you probably thought to yourself, Hey, comic books are totally mainstream now. Heroes and Battlestar Galactica are big hits. Dark Knight is going to be #2 on the all-time list. The stigma is gone!

You would, of course, be wrong. Here is Hayden Pantierre at the San Diego Comic Con, being forced to meet her adoring nerd public:

There is a natural order to the world, imposed by the Almighty above. Never forget this.

Remember Freddie Prinze Jr.? Sure you do. He married Sarah Michelle Gellar Prinze Jr., and you’ve secretly hated him ever since. But by all accounts he’s a swell guy.

So what’s he doing with himself now? He just got hired by the WWE. But not to wrestle–he’s now part of their creative team doing the writing for storylines.

Free advice: Bring back the Four Horsemen!

(The spawn of Dusty Rhodes and Ted Dibiase seem like the natural base of this. Put Triple H in as the Ric Flair figure. And then turn some very popular face into a heel to take the final slot.)

That said–and I’m being quite serious here–I’ve never figured out how the WWE can square the circle of having admitted that it’s all play-acting. Once you do that, doesn’t every storyline ultimately fail to get over? If Prinze can figure out the macro fix for this metaphysical problem, he’ll do the world a real service.

First they close the Cherry Hill Starbucks. Now Bennigan’s is out of business. What’s next? The demolition of the Moorestown Mall?

I’m from New Jersey and suburban chain eateries are my damn birthright! These are hard times.

(Funnily enough, the Bennigan’s website is still up and running, even the section about employment opportunities.)

Variety has a discussion of how high it might go. The takeaway: They think the #2 spot and maybe even a $500M domestic cume are in reach.

One small quibble: The article seems to suggest that you can’t compare Dark Knight to Titanic because it was a different economic era and no one could do that again and blah, blah, blah. Don’t believe it. Titanic‘s success was firmly grounded in the same economic realities of today, where movies had to open or perish. The opening weekends of the time weren’t as big, because of inflation and smaller screen counts, but it’s a difference of scale, not of kind. What happened with Titanic was totally unexpected and totally unpredictable. It was the type of singularity that only happens once or twice in a generation, when a movie becomes part of the culture. The fact that Dark Knight won’t do that kind of business has nothing to do with changes in the marketplace and everything to do with audience reaction to the films.

Just for fun, take a look at this chart of Titanic‘s weekend grosses. It was in release for 19 weeks before it experienced a decline of more than 26 percent. Heck, during that period, 4 of its declines were in the single-digit percentages. And on six separate weekends, its box office take actually increased.