Splash: A Review

After listening to my son scream in his crib for about 15 minutes on Saturday afternoon, it was apparent that a nap wasn't going to happen. Therefore, I took him out and went into a different room where many of his toys and books are located. We read several books, but then I noticed that my son's eyes were starting to close. I knew carrying him back upstairs to his crib and him staying asleep was unlikely, so I picked him up, sat on the couch and let him fall asleep on me. Unfortunately, I was so eager to make sure he fell asleep, I didn't make myself aware of the surroundings. The computer was too far away, and even though the remote was on the couch, I wouldn't be able to change channels since the DirecTV box was behind the sliding cabinet door (kids books are on one side; the TV box and DVD player are on the other). So I turned on the TV and hoped for the best. The result:

No, this Splash on ABC.

I was on the swimming and diving team for one year in high school. I was terrible and learned that diving is particularly difficult. Therefore, I have a lot of respect for anyone who attempts to dive, even if they are B or C-list celebrities. So if you haven't heard of Splash, this is a diving competition show with contestants including NBA great Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Nicole Eggert of Baywatch and Charles In Charge, comedian Louie Anderson, Drake Bell, who is not the Canadian rapper, Miss Alabama and Brent Musburger favorite Katherine Webb, US Soccer star Brandi Chastain and some guy named Rory. In the part of the show I watched, they never gave Rory's last name, but I'm going to assume that it's not Rory McIlroy since his girlfriend Caroline Wozniacki wasn't there and they never mentioned golf. There were two judges who I can't name and former Olympic gold medalist, Greg Louganis, who served as the role of diving mentor. There are also two hosts of the show, Joey Lawrence and another woman. Again, I didn't see the introduction, so I have no idea who she is. Meanwhile, if you took a poll 15 years ago and asked who would have a bigger career Joey or his Blossom co-star Mayim Bialik, Joey would be the easy winner, right? Now Bialik is getting Emmy nominations for Big Bang Theory, one of the biggest shows on TV and Joey, well, is not.

Without getting too much into the show, this appears to be a three-person competition between the non-rapper Drake, Brandi Chastain and the Rory guy. Apparently, Drake scored a 10 the previous week, but didn't do well this week and had some low scores. He wasn't happy with his performance but he survived for the next week. The Rory guy seems really good at flips. Meanwhile, Brandi dedicated her dive to her grandmother who recently broke her hip. She also credited her family and her teammates but didn't seem to mention Kevin Garnett.



Nicole Eggert and Kareem did okay, but I don't see them challenging for the title. The worst two divers of the week were Katherine Webb and Louie Anderson. Louie Anderson was terrible, but he's also 400 pounds. I'm not trying to be mean about Louie's weight since the show really referenced that he's around 400 pounds. His entire dive was sitting backwards on the platform diving board and flipping himself over. Take a look (the actual dive starts around the 3:00 minute mark.)



(A better version of the video is available on the ABC website.)

Meanwhile, Webb did some type of flip but didn't come close to going into the water straight. The judges decided that more people wanted to see Webb in a swimsuit than Anderson in a wetsuit, so Webb narrowly advanced. As you can see from the video above, she was devastated since she really liked Louie. I think she'll get over it in time for the reunion show.

This show seems to be right up my alley (see Hit Me Baby 1 More Time & Flavor of Love, but I think I'm done after this one episode. I have too many shows on my DVR, and sadly, I just don't have enough time to watch every show on television. With that written, I think I'll follow who gets eliminated each week.

TMI Thursday: Why Is Michael Phelps Swimming to the Winter Olympics?

Perhaps you have seen the recent Subway commercial featuring Michael Phelps swimming in a pool and beyond. He manages to break through the swimming pool wall, swims across a street, passes a Subway, where Jared just happens to be their encouraging Phelps, swims through a corn field effortlessly tossing a cow and chicken and heads toward Vancouver and the Winter Olympics. For the sake of this post, let’s find the fact that there is a 1,000-mile swimming pool not at all unusual. My bigger question is why is Michael Phelps heading to Vancouver? The last time I checked, swimming was reserved for the summer games.

This is a bit of a tangent, but during my junior year of high school, I joined the diving team. I was going to be the next Greg Louganis. (I'm scared to see what the comments are going to be after writing this sentence.) I skipped playing on the soccer team in the fall to work on improving my grades. At some point a few months into my junior year, I realized that my grades were fine but I missed being part of a competitive team. That's why I joined the diving and swimming team...or at least that's I told myself and others. In retrospect, I joined the diving team because of a girl.

So every day, I worked on my dives in practice. I established a solid front/regular dive, back dive and inward dive. (This is an inward dive, but not me doing it.)



However, I could never master a reverse dive.



OK, Greg Louganis' dive involved a lot twists and flips. There was no way I could ever figure that out. This is what your standard reverse dive looks like:



So anyway, my diving and swimming career didn't take off. I never dove in a meet and my participation on the swimming team was laughable as I failed to figure out the flip turn. Fortunately, I never hit my head on the diving board. I also didn't end up dating the girl on the diving team, although she was the subject of a past TMI Thursday involving my first kiss.

However, this is all a tangent of another tangent. My diving coach was known as Papa Polar Bear. On January 1st every year, he led the Polar Bear Club into Pittsburgh’s Monongahela River for the Polar Bear Plunge. The temperatures were regularly below freezing, and there was often snow, but people annually jumped and swam in the river wearing only bathing suites.

This brings me back to Michael Phelps. Perhaps, they should have swimming in the Winter Olympics; outside! Think about how popular the Winter Classic is for the NHL. Wouldn't you want to watch swimmers in Coal Harbour, English Bay or Stanley Park's Beaver Lake in Vancouver? How cool would it have been to watch swimming in the Great Salt Lake when the Winter Olympics were in Utah?

Maybe Jared and Subway are on to something!

For more TMI Thursdays, please visit LiLu and you can click here to see all of my TMI Thursday archive, including the story of my first kiss.