I’ve always thought the Olympics were kind of like Christmas. You don’t hear too much about it until a couple months prior, then it’s like there are ads and promotions and all sorts of publicity about it everywhere. When the Christmas season officially starts after Thanksgiving, everyone is very excited and hopeful and are mesmerized by the music and the pretty lights. During the Christmas season, people are full of good cheer…and happy…and for once like to criticize people who seem hell-bent on pointing out the negative instead of concentrating on the positive (be of good cheer?).

About halfway through the Christmas season though, people start getting antsy…and bored…and can’t wait for the holiday season to just end, already. As the end draws closer though, people get desperate…they have unresolved dreams, expectations or plans that haven’t been met or accomplished and they know that the bittersweet end will arrive soon. Then…all of a sudden…it’s 9 p.m. on Christmas Day. The presents have been opened, the dinner eaten and now the tree sits by itself in the living room without any gifts under it and then all of a sudden…Christmas is over.

That’s kind of how I felt last night during the Closing Ceremonies of the Olympic games. They were fun, then they got boring…then I felt un-American for criticizing the ribbon “apparatus” during Rhythmic Gymnastics. Then during the Closing Ceremonies I saw all these kids (listen to me, I’m so old) who were so excited about what they had accomplished…even if they didn’t win a medal and I realized that the Olympic Games aren’t a gigantic waste of time and programming airtime.

And then…it was all over…and now we’re back to Real Life for another couple of years until the Winter Olympic Games in Torino, Italy. 529 days to go!

Personally, I will least miss Bob Costas who, thankfully, didn’t try to shove his Olympic Pride down our throats further by changing the spelling of his name to Bob Kostas.

The good news though, is that with the end of the Olympics, I can finally get back to posting about television shows. The Complex: Malibu and Last Comic Standing 3 are both on tonight…read all about it tomorrow.