Attention to detail type people will have noticed that I have not yet spoken one word on the 2008 Beijing Olympics. There are reasons for this, and I shall now enunciate them. Truth be told I'm not much for sports of any kind. Sure I might play a pick-up game here and there when the mood strikes me, and I have been known to catch the Tennessee Volunteers play a game or two of football, but for the most part I haven't the slightest interest in watching athletic contests.

This most certainly rolls into the Olympics. Like millions of people, as a kid I waited desperately for the Olympics to roll around every four years, but over the last decade I've not given them much mind. I believe I caught some volleyball during the last summer contest, and I usually let the TV stay on during any game of curling but other than that I just don't care. Even in the midst of Beijing madness I can't say I have any particular interest.

The Olympic spirit does flow all around me, but I've never attached much of a story to it. The Shanghai Diaries have always been about my experiences in China, and the Olympics have, until recent events, never been a part of those tales except as a mass advertisement.

Certainly there is a political angle I could take with this year's games. The international community has taken more of an interest in this year's contest than I remember them taking in a long time. Protesters and pundits alike have all written long-winded, emotional screeds from political angles, and I'm sure there will be many more words written and spoken on that subject. I could add my own words to that pile from a somewhat inside angle. Yet I will continue to decline.

Since I started writing the Diaries I have tried to keep from making larger commentaries on the culture or politics of this land in which I live. I am a visitor and I write from that perspective. While living here certainly gives me a better view of China, it in no way makes me an expert and I have no desire to write like one. This goes double for politics.

That being said I can no longer keep my mouth (or my fingers) quiet on the subject of the Olympics. When I called it Beijing madness I wasn't kidding. The Olympics are everywhere. In every store, in every shop, on every street corner I find myself staring at some Olympic trinket or another. There are cups and shirts and hats and dolls and posters and everything imaginable all printed with Olympic logos and the ever cute mascots.

When I turn on the news there is almost always some new story about the Olympics. The torch is traveling to a new city, or they have just completed a new building or there is one of the organizers to interview. The China Daily newspaper has a daily countdown to just how many days we have left to wait.