So apparently, I’m not the only table tennis dork. For September, about 250 of 483 total referring search strings were about Biba Golic in some form or another, such as “biba golic nude pics”, “biba table tennis pictures”, or “biba killerspin”. This means that more than half of the search strings, sprinkled liberally with other random strings like “gay windmill photo”, “mexicans are stupid”, and “i hate john walsh americas most wanted asshole” (I’m assuming a reference to my John Walsh show post), are Biba related.

I think I’m supposed to be comforted by the fact that I’m not the only one who’s aroused by ball-smashing woman, but for some reason, I’m not.

Thursday, I went over to Pat’s for a long-planned table tennis marathon. Before we started, he cooked us dinner; rib-eye steak grilled on the barbecue, a fresh vegetable stir-fry, and bruschetta as an appetizer. The steak was marinating all day in a garlic and oil sauce, and the bruschetta spread was made using extra virgin olive oil and basil that he grew himself. It’s great to have a friend whose passion is cooking and eating.

We ended up playing for about an hour and a half, because we ended up speaking for so long and I had to work the next day. Every game was close, and every best-out-of-five match went to the fifth game, with a deuce for match point during three of the five matches. He was leading by one the entire time, but I adjusted my timing and took less risks, and ended up winning the final match 12–10.

It was frustrating to be playing in his basement because I’m used to a much bigger area with much better lighting. The ball was hard to keep track of, and I didn’t have the same flooring to maneuver on, so it felt like my legs were glued to the ground. My toes started getting raw and painful about half way through, due to the fact that I usually play with my weight shifted off the heel, but I was able to ignore it, concentrate on playing, and follow through with a narrow win. I realized that the distance I stand away from the table is proportional to the distance of the table to the wall. Unfortunately, this means that my timing is all screwed up depending on the location that I play. I need to work on being consistent in all playing conditions.

I don’t enjoy watching the Olympics. The coverage we get (exclusively from the CBC), is shoddy. There’s no pre-planned time schedule for matches or events, so I never know what’s going to be on when I have time to watch. There was also absolutely no coverage of table tennis, which has already ended, most of the medals going to China. Why is this? I suspect because Canada basically had no chance of placing in the top three, so why would the CBC want to show them? Well, more likely not even in the top five. Even Google gave table tennis props with one of their daily banners, and with 28 Olympic sports but only 16 days, 12 of those sports aren’t going to have banners.

There are also so many politics involved, with disqualifications, doping, judging, etc., that everything just seems tainted. There’s also all the frustrating media coverage in the mix, such as Perdita Felicien’s hurdle dissapointment splattered on the front page of most papers while Ann Muenzer’s golden achievement gets a sports section blurb. And with sports that don’t need to be in the Olympics (why have synchronized diving AND diving AND synchronized swimming?), there’s not much to keep my interest.

I played three matches yesterday against three different people and won all three. It felt pretty good, especially since I had never played one of them before (he was a Canadian-born English teacher, working in China). He also started playing about a year before me, and was taught in what’s considered the table tennis country of the world. Knowing that he was using an anti-spin rubber gave me an advantage though; I didn’t have to worry about his spin, and since I focus on speed and placement, his rubber became pointless. I also have less respect for people who use the anti-spin rubbers, because they generally rely on the paddle to do the work for them, instead of properly learning how to counter spin. My habitual nervousness when facing a new opponent wasn’t there.

I also won against one of the people I use to have great difficulty beating. He had a new paddle, with small ball-bearings imbedded along the rim. When one shakes it, the paddle sounds like a baby rattle. Apparently, it’s supposed to prevent reverberation, but I don’t understand the point. I count on feeling reverberation through my handle to give me feedback on where I’m hitting.

I also beat one of my long time opponents, although it’s more of an empty victory because I’ve learned his tricks and styles, so I know how to counter them. I won based on vitallity overcoming his experience, not skill overcoming skill. It was interesting to find out that his paddle has a hollow handle with a weight attached to a screw assembly in it. The weight can be shifted up and down through the handle to change the centre of gravity of the blade.

Still, it’s good to know that I’m improving. I can learn at the table now, in the middle of a match instead of afterwards.

Aaron has his thing for the snowboarding girls, the ones with the pigtails on the mountain who support the Canadian gear companies like West 49, Nick has his for longboarding girls, Jeff for the hockey girls, and Trolley for the…girls. I think the whole idea is hilarious, and chuckle to myself when I read about people like Alexandra Kosteniuk, the attractive Russian girl who became Grandmaster at the age of 13, in the papers. I always imagine chess dorks swooning over some spectacular move she makes that’s beyond my comprehension.

Then I saw Biba Golic face someone in the 2003 Killerspin competition, and realized that I’m just a table tennis dork. It’s not so much the fact that she’s a professional table tennis player, but the fact that she plays aggressively, almost unconservatively. It’s like Jonathan and his thing for drummer girls who play with an aggro-ape stance, instead of the dainty, elbows-raised posture that so many female drummers seem to have. There’s something about a girl who plays like a guy, whether it’s table tennis, drums, or even games. This is going on the updated list soon.

Table tennis dorks. I wonder if I’m the first.