Megaman has posed a reasonably good question and with the performance of Michael Phelps at Beijing I feel its time to discuss, who is the greatest sportsman of all time?

Sorry ladies I don’t know enough about your records to debate them but I am confident all of the men below could beat the best ladies in a straight up dual so I will exclude women for the moment.

We will also exclude team sports as it is a little subjective to the rest of the teams performance. It is a difficult question to answer and I would love to hear your opinions on the matter. The following is a list of some of my favourites lets see if we can add a few more with comparison records and narrow in a bit.

The problem is that you typically allow your feelings on certain nominees cloud your judgement. For instance I don’t like Tiger Woods all that much (no not because I am a racist) and feel that Jack Nickalus is hands down the better player.

Lets look at the records

Nickalus – 18 majors – 113 tournament wins all time
Woods – 14 majors – 89 tournament wins all time

Unfortunately it looks as though Tiger’s record will out shine the Golden Bear but until then the Bear is king.

Boxing is a pretty tough one. When the sport was combined and had only one ‘international’ champion no ones record beats that of Rocky Marciano with 49 straight wins & zero defeats. Muhumad Ali seems to get all the kudos as the greatest ever but is that just a matter of us believing the hype?

Marciano 49 pro fights – 0 losses
Ali – 61 pro fights – 5 losses

Then on to tennis. I liked Sampras (sometimes boring) but his record stands above for the time being.

Pete Sampras – 14 majors – 64 tournaments
Roger Federer – 12 majors – 55 tounaments

Michael Schumacher was always a favourite of mine (even though most people consider him a cheat). I just loved his absolute never give up attitude. Nevertheless, his record is currently the best.

Schumacher – 7 word championships
Prost – 4 word championships

Then

Valention Rossi – 7 time world motor cycle champion

The list goes on. Who are your nominations?

Well here we are, well into this huge event they call the Olympics. Already I have been brainstorming ideas so we can cut the next Olympics down to a 5-day event only.

Here is what I have come up with so far.

I don’t get it, why is beach volleyball an Olympic sport? It is of little interest to me even after their piddly attempt to garner interest by forcing the women to wear those skimpy bikini’s. Get rid of it.

Synchronised swimming. I think nearly everyone agrees with me here. WHY is this an Olympic sport for goodness sake?? Obviously the people that run Synchronised swimming have photos of most of the International Olympic Committee having relations with animals, it is the only way I can account for this sport. Interestingly Sync Swimming will be the only sport at the 2012 Olympics to be gender exclusive. Sexism from those Sync Swimming bitches is just plain WRONG ban it!!

I don’t really see why Soccer or Tennis are Olympic sports. Just seems silly to me. They have bigger events outside of the Olympics so I think they should stick to those.

Sailing. Well if you are going to involve something like sailing you may as well let car racing and other motors sports in as well. Ditch the sailing.

The opening and closing ceremonies. Yes I said it. I stand proud when I say I have never EVER watched one of these, I have tried but always find myself asleep. Get rid of both snooze-a-thons!!

We also have a few sports having a second bite at the Olympic cherry

Like….

Diving – Ok sport but nothing special. Now they have decided that they should have two people diving at once instead of just one. Whhooo double the events. Ditch the plurals fools.

And…

Canoeing – Used to involve one person in a canoe. Instead of one dude in a canoe they have added another dude. Snap out of it Canoers we’ve noticed you little trick, were not a bunch of snoozers. Out!

Then onto….

Equestrian – Used to be a niff and a horse. Now you have double the niffs with double the horses. Why not just ride off into the sunset you bunch of overweight jockeys!

Done. The Olympics are now down to 5 days. Unless you guys have any additions to this I will be forwarding my suggestions to the IOC. Let me know if you do.

I have just found a pretty handy way to set up your home page with all sorts of information you want on it.

A bit like the www.google.com/ig function there major competition Yahoo present to us the new my Yahoo home page option.

Welcome to the world of au.my.yahoo.com

Load this bastard up and from here you can pre set any number of items to your personal preference. Some examples are…..

Your yahoo email account (if you have one)
Your news stories ranging from international, local to business and sport
A calendar with event planner with events schedule
A briefcase for your files making them common on any computer in the world
Currency converter (handy in my business)
Basic TV Guide (only ABC I can find so far)
Comics (I love a daily dose of Garfield. Pity Dilbert hasn’t signed up)
Weather information
Horoscopes (if you go that way)
A calculator (very handy)
And the item I find very useful a stock portfolio list. This allows you to enter in all you stock ticker codes and allows you to keep track of them with only a 20 minute delay from the actual trade price. Absolute Gold

All you need to do is visit the above page. Set up an account and you are away choose your preferences save it as your home page and you are away.

I am starting to get the splatters with our tricky free to air TV operators. They bring “all new episodes” back of your favourite TV show and play it for 2 or 3 weeks. They keep advertising it in the same manner but drop the “all” from the voice over and BANG! You find yourself halfway through an episode and you finally figure out why you have seen every single joke coming from a mile away. Because you have been tricked.
We all only have limited hours to devote to those few select shows that you want to watch. You plan a half hour free block from family, work or study to enjoy some “all new” programming. Instead you are slapped in the face like some sort of ungrateful child.

How dare they! How dare they provide me free entertainment and change the manner in which they provide it as if it were their choice! Hmmmmm I think I have just answered my own question.

But seriously, most TV shows of today’s era include long over lapping story arcs and although the story line is different each week there are quite often things to be aware of from week to week. You don’t see the bastards re-running old episodes of Neighbors or Home and Away in prime time. Why do it with other shows?

Apparently there are security concerns with the new Google street view recently released in Australia. I don’t really see an issue with this but …..

One collegue suggested that if some one wanted to rob your house they could use street view and the already available satelite view to effectively plan the robbery well in advance, giving them a greater chance of success. I guess I can see this as a valid point. However if someone is looking to rob your house in such detail they are A. going to have access to a reasonable computer set up with broadband and B. know that you have something worth stealing inside your home. I think with most home invasions it is just a quick attempt to get their hands on some cash and not normally a whole planned out production.

Another concern was from Natalie McKenzie of Tarragindi, “I think if they’re taking photos of your home they should ask for permission,” she said. “If a single mum was estranged from her husband there would be an issue there. I’ve got a girlfriend who wouldn’t want her husband to see where she’s living.” (reference news.com.au)

Thank you Natalie, clearly another Rhodes Scholar. Unfortuantely there are only 3 McKenzies listed as residing in the Tarragindi area and none of them list as an N. McKenzie. So it looks like I will have to drive around aimlessly looking for her house or use the new street view function on google to not be able to see her house. Either way Natalie should be very concerned. NIFF!!!!!!!

I have never seen a bunch of people praying for an airline disaster more than the Australian media over the last couple of weeks. Hiding behind the guise of concern over moving Qantas’s maintenance work offshore, I get the impression they want this to happen just so they can turn around and say “Ha, we told you so”.

Sure there hasn’t been to many big stories lately (apart from Brangelina’s twins) but at least make it look like you don’t want a disaster!

Of the latest apparent failures we had an explosion in the cargo hold of one of Qantas’s plains that caused a decompression. The plane in the end landed safely and it appears this incident had nothing to do with plane maintenance (maybe oxygen tank maintenance). The problem will be rectified on the ground.

Then there was some problem with a landing gear that was noticed during a flight. The flight was then turned around and landed safely in the end the problem was rectified on the ground.

Since then there have been a few delays in flights taking off much to the disappointment of passengers. Yes delays are annoying and can make you a bit impatient but as a mate of mine screams at the top of his lungs “You can’t fix the bastard when it is flying, I don’t give a fat rats if we don’t take off for a week, as long as they fix the problem before we take off!”

I absolutely cannot believe the response from passengers when they are questioned about the delays. “I have been waiting over 7 hours, this is ridiculous” and “I will never fly Qantas again” are some of the more amusing ones. I am actually a little concerned that the old adage of ‘the customer is always right’ may creep into the subconscious of Qantas’s management group so I make this plea.

Dear Qantas, Please don’t listen to the media and hundreds of whinging half witted idiots you call passengers. If you see a problem with any of your planes please continue to fix them. Don’t be bleated into an unsafe flight for fear of a media pizzling.

You cannot fix problems 10,000 meters in the air.

Well only a week away from another exciting Ultimate Fighting Championship in UFC87 Seek And Destroy. I am really looking forward to the event and especially looking forward to the top 3 fights on the card in……

Welterweight Championship bout: Georges St. Pierre vs. Jon Fitch

World title fights sell themselves really but this one is definitely pretty even. St. Pierre’s name may sound a bitt poofy but rest assured this guy can fight the game and Jon Fitch ain’t no soft on either. After 8 fights in the UFC Fitch is still undefeated (a record) and I don’t think he is planning on coming home a loser. No idea who will win but it will be a war!

Lightweight bout: Kenny Florian vs. Roger Huerta

Another sooksy sounding name in Florian but his elbows have actually been surgically enhanced and incorporate steel plates to ensure he has the advantage in the elbow strike department. Huerta does exactly what his name suggests, he’s gonna get you in that cage, wait for them to lock it and then he’s gonna HURT-YA!!!

Heavyweight bout: Brock Lesnar vs. Heath Herring

Former armature wrestler and WWE heavy weight champion Lesnar steps into the cage again with much anticipation. He faces a tough challenge in the likes of Heath Herring who came within a bee’s willy of beating current UFC heavyweight champion Nogueira not so long ago. I am not sure how Herring expects to win but I can’t see it being by KO. Lesnars head is huge and he has pretty good concussion coping abilities as the attached botched move from his professional wrestling days shows. He jumps from the top rope, lands on his head and was still able to continue to work the match… freak.