The Recency Effect Runs Amok

• What I'm Watching/Listening To/Reading:
• Slow news week, outside of the Olympics. The polls have seemed to have gone back to where they were a month ago after McCain scored some points with the "Celebrity" stuff, but national polls don't really matter anyway (see: Gore, Al).
• I'm so turned around on the VP thing. I know that the GOP one will come out of nowhere, but I've read convincing arguments in the last few days for Sebelius, Bayh, Biden, and Clark. Who knows.
• Random Thoughts/Links:
• I have a few friends' blogs to the left, but today's the day to point out the coolest one (and the one I'm most jealous of), Rachel's Travel Blog. My new ex-coworker is taking eight months to travel all over the world and blogging about it.
• The Madden game for Wii may not be as pure a gaming experience as it is for other systems, but it sure is fun. The controls are so complex with nunchuk/remote motion added to it, that they have an "All-Play" format that dumbs down the things you have to do. Either way, the action of having to snap, throw, juke, catch, and stiff-arm, adds a whole new dimension to the classic series. Maybe the only weird thing, because it is Wii, they "cartoon" it up a little with a John Madden Mii giving you tips and your friends' Miis acting as refs.
• Daily Rant:
• After Phelps went to five-for-five last night, there was a lot of talk this morning in the media about this question: "Is Michael Phelps the greatest living athlete or the greatest athlete of all time?" I'll put him in a class with Tiger, where he's not only better than everyone else, but a lot better. But greatest athlete? Do you put him above Tiger or Lance Armstrong or Alex Rodriguez? As for all-time, Dave Winfield was drafted in football and basketball along with baseball. Babe Ruth would have been in the Hall of Fame as a pitcher. Wilt Chamberlain was a world-class volleyball player and a championship sprinter. Jim Brown is in the Lacrosse Hall of Fame. So, Michael Phelps is certainly the greatest swimmer ever and most likely the greatest Olympian. But I have to disrespect swimming a little as a sport to produce a "greatest-ever" athlete. I can swim. I may not swim as well as Phelps (or one one-millionth as well), but I can jump in the water and do the strokes. But, let me tell you, I am an equal athletically with Michael Phelps on one thing. Neither of us can hit a curve ball.