There is no convenience fee for reading my blog.

I bought concert tickets this week. Xavier Rudd and Umphrey's McGee. The thing that bugs me about the tickets is the "convenience fee." $23 for the ticket and $7.35 for the convenience. A 30% charge for convenience. You could inconvenience me for a lot less. Then, they want to charge me for printing the tickets at home. $2.50 to use my printer. They don't charge anything to send them to me in the mail, which costs them 42 cents. You figure that out and figure out which option I chose.

The Olympics have turned ugly. Sweden's Ara Abrahamian had a disagreement with the referee and wound up with a bronze medal, which really isn't a metal, it's a coating. So, I guess he wasn't happy because he said he didn't come to China to win a bronze medal. If he did, I suppose he could have had a silver medal bronzed. So, he walked off the podium, which was easy because he wasn't very high up; took the medal off and dropped it to the floor where it lay for someone to pick up. So much for the Olympic spirit. The fourth place guy should have run out and grabbed it.

Did you see those Chinese woman gymnasts? They're supposed to be 16 years old, but to me they look like they should have 16-year old babysitters. The American coaches were pissed because they played by the rules and lost. From the looks of the American team they seem to lack competitive fire. I don't know beans about gymnastics and generally I don't care much for sports that are judged. A kid runs down a ramp, leaps off a springboard, spins around a few times and lands on her feet. Six. Another kid walks along a 4-inch wide beam doing flips and spins. Seven. Obviously, I don't understand the scoring system. I'd be an easy judge, mostly because they're so cute. If they had cat Olympics I'd grade them easy, too.

Do you think gymnasts ever trip and fall while they're walking around? If they do, do their friends make fun of them and ask, "Walk much?" I wonder what we called smart people before Albert Einstein became famous?

Phillies shortstop Jimmy Rollins says that the Phillies fans are "frontrunners" who love you when you win but "when you're going bad, they're completely against you." Really. How can we be frontrunners when the Phillies almost never win anything? They've won one championship in 123 years, and that was 28 years ago. Frontrunner would be a compliment. After 2007, their total record was 8,853 wins and 10,028 losses.

We're frontrunners. I wish these guys would just shut up, play the game and take their paycheck. When they start talking I start thinking that I don't want to spend any more money on thier games.