Summer Olympics 2024 Cont'd

Gabby Thomas takes Gold in the 200m!

It's more or less been all-Olympics, all-the-time here at The Signal Watch.  

We've moved into Track and Field, which - sometime about 16 years ago - became my favorite part of the Olympics.  The "Athletics" or "Track and Field" portion of the Olympics - racing, throwing things, jumping... always feels, to me, like what I came here for.  I was annoying Jamie by watching the trials earlier this year.  I am invested in the success of Sha'Carri Richardson and Noah Lyles.  I want to see Gabby Thomas run like hell and Ryan Crouser hurl a shotput further than is reasonable.

We can watch swimming and thrill to 800 meters under water, but... a very small part of me also sees the monitors in sport coats walking along the edge of the pool at the same rate as the fastest swimmer in the world.  So, give me someone on the blocks and a starter pistol and less than ten seconds, and that's why I pay the price of admission.

And some times it's real, real close.

TV Watch: Batman - The Caped Crusader

Some time in 1992, I stumbled across Batman: The Animated Series.  What I remember is that I was on the phone with my ladyfriend, and asked to call her back in a bit, not wanting to tell her "Batman is currently being dragged through the darkened skies of Gotham behind Man-Bat, and it is amazing."  And, amazing it was.

I was pretty much *in* on the show after that, and my dorm room my first year of college became the 4:00 PM stop off where dudes (and an occasional lady or two) would crowd in for 30 minutes and watch Batman fight his way through his rogues gallery.  

I'd been reading Batman comics since the mid-1980's (I picked up right before Death in the Family, so whenever that was) and was only familiar with what I'd seen in current comics and some very old comics from the 1930's and 40's.  In many ways, Batman: The Animated Series had as much or more to do with how I'd think of Batman than the prior six or so years of comics.  

The series led into Batman/ Superman Adventures and, then, whatever other titles the show wore, but essentially DC animation had continuity from that Man-Bat episode to the final moments of Justice League Unlimited - lasting almost fifteen years.