Congrats, Michael Phelps. Oh Yeah, and Everyone Else.

Apparently congratulating Michael Phelps for winning eight gold medals in a single Olympics -- oh yeah, and good job to all those other athletes -- merits prime positioning on my Facebook newsfeed. 

I guess a single network-wide message doesn't really outdo Visa in terms of sheer effort, but it's certainly a testament to:

a) how incredibly important Michael Phelps's successful endeavour is (indeed, must be) to 16.91 percent of the US social networking population, if not the online gab-o-sphere at large.

b) how incredibly important the Olympics are (and indeed, must be) to everyone, ever (is it possible the weak economy helps? You know, like how the movie industry boomed during the Great Depression?)

c) both a) and b)

Clicked on the Michael Phelps Facebook page just for kicks. Heeeeey, diggin' the Speedo shot. Observe Olympic tattoo on right (that's your left) pelvic bone:

What commitment.

Pretty in Pink

I got to see Nastia Liukin win the gold tonight. On a technical level, she's great -- but her grace, that fragile Russian ballerina feel, brought me to an emotional edge.

Visa did a nice job of capturing her here. Footage of Liukin's floor routine are also available at NBC Olympics (nice photos here, actually).

Must feel good to bring a legacy home. Benj says he's less impressed with Olympians groomed by Olympian parents, but I don't much mind. Investing your kids with a skill you happen to know well is probably better than investing your kids with a dream you liked the look of on TV. (Inspired in part by Flashdance, my parents decided early on I should be a gymnast. They probably still wonder why I failed to produce that blue mat oomph.)