Perfect.

The perfect souvenir. I totally just got the PERFECT Olympic souvenir. I am so excited I can not stand it.

Olympic CHALK!!!!

One of the interns came through the other day and she was all excited about getting sand out of the long jump pit and I thought, hmm, what a great idea. What can I take out of the gymnastics arena? and omg - like lightening it hit me - CHALK! I need chalk!

This must be how Einstein felt when he discovered that whole m=ec squared thing. Or no, that's wrong. E=MC? I don't know. I'm not very smart in China.

OLYMPIC CHALK!

I put Jess on the case a couple of days ago and she dispatched the camera men on the mission. We had no luck during event finals but today, inspiration as beautiful as poetry - or an Alan Abrahamason blog entry - struck.

We went to the Olympic Gala show today and when we got back, Jess realized that she'd left her bag all the way back at the arena. Holy ugh. So she runs back to the arena and I don't know how she did it but she pranced right onto the podium and snatched a block of chalk for me.

And as if my chalk adventures couldn't any better - it's the chalk that Shawn Johnson was using during the gala.

Unreal - Jess is my hero.

The gala itself was totally lame. It was a couple of medalists performing watered down routines to super random elevator music and then some members of the Chinese National Aerobic team. It started off with 6 men in red gold and white velour shorty unitards - and a LOT of gold sequins. Granted - they were good but it was like watching an all-male cheerleading squad.... except gayer with more gold sequins. And then also a terrible display of britney spears wannabes. Oy!

Nastia and Shawn saved the night with great beam routines. Sigh... one last performance of the games for them. They both wore pink - fun! That'll totally make it into my "Best of the Blue Carpet" gallery I've been keeping on the gymnastics page at nbcolympics.com. Way fun.

Track and field is breaking my heart lately. First the Chinese national hero goes down and then last night Sanya Richards leads the pack by a mile and then falters the last five seconds with a leg cramp. But the saddest one was Lolo Jones by far. When she missed that second to last hurdle and then missed medaling after leading the pack the whole way... ugh!!! NBC must have been working on a package because the feed kept replaying her reaction after the race and then her meltdown backstage over and over again. It was just unbelievably sad.

I thought gymnastics went by fast - you train your whole life and your entire Olympic competing time totals maybe 5 minutes.

But in track, they get about ten seconds! A teeny-tiny mistake in a fraction of a second during that time and your shot at a medal is gone. Had she raised her leg an inch higher, she'd be wearing a gold medal.

I do this every single Olympics - marvel at the inches and fractions that change your life forever. I just can never get over it.