Moscow Olympics

"The Man"Norman Chad on Moscow's Olympic Bid:

Pluses: Crooked gymnastics judges get to sleep in their own beds. . . . Russian mob runs a tight ship. . . . United States led a boycott of 1980 Summer Games here. I wouldn't mind seeing that happen again. . . . 'A Night With Yakov Smirnoff' at the Anton Chekhov Playhouse to add Wednesday and Saturday matinees in fall 2011. . . . Hard to find USA Today.

Minuses: Don't get me wrong -- it's a beautiful city and I like the Lenin Mausoleum as much as the next guy, but after a full day of Olympic archery and equestrian, I don't know if I'm in the mood for cabbage schi, fish colbasa and pickled tomatoes. . . . Bolshoi Theater crowd can get pretty rowdy coming out of most weekend shows. . . . Hard to find those neat fur hats in the summer. . . . I'll bet they have a lot of soccer on TV over there.

My only correction...Yakov Smirnoff is actually from Odessa and he currently resides in Branson, Missouri (where he can be seen regularly performing at the Yakov Smirnoff Theater). What a country!