"Only reason you keep asking is because you know it's not okay—now that we're all painfully aware of it, do us all a favor and shut the fuck up about it."

...isn't this where the face-punching comes in?? I mean, *seriously*, people....

Because I’m bored, I’m trying to come up with all the Olympic sports that rely on subjective scoring. Have I left anything out?
Gymnastics
Diving
Synchronized Swimming
Equestrian (Dressage)

How much is judging involved in the following?
BMX
Fencing
Taekwondo
Wrestling
Judo
Boxing

Any shooting or track & field events that involve judges?

Well, some of the track and field events involve subjective scoring? Like, the pentathlon (women's) involves dressage?

There are all kinds of events that I had no idea were events, so...lord knows.

(The pentathlon is one that I didn't know was an event but I think is SUPER AWESOME: you run, swim, ride a horse (I think it's dressage? But maybe it's jumping???), do sword fighting and shoot, I think?!?! How freaking cool is that!?!?!)

the pentathlon (women's) involves dressage

What?

• Figure skating
• Ice dancing
• Freestyle skiing
• Snowboarding

OK, I SWEAR there is some kind of contest in the olympics that involves that combination...maybe it's not heptathlon? I was reading about it in the airplane maagazine!!! Just last week!! About a woman who was going to her like, fourth or fifth olympics in her third different sport, because she'd started as a swimmer, and then become a triathlete, and then become a....pentathete?

[link]

YES! Found it on wikipedia. "Modern Pentathlon"

Wicked cool.

[edit: show jumping, though, not dressage]

Tom, I was just thinking about summer.

Nope -- the equestrian phase of modern pentathlon is show jumping (and the fencing is epee, which depends less on the referee than the other two). But it's not a track and field event -- that -athlon is the heptathlon, which is a decathlon for weak delicate females.

To answer the fencing question, two of the three weapons depend on a ref to make right-of-way calls, but it's not subjective scoring in the same way that diving or gymnastics are. There are no style points or degrees of right or wrong. It's more like baseball depending an umpire to call balls and strikes: this or that person started their attack first, so their hit counts according to the rules.

In epee, there's no issue of who attacked first, so the ref is a bit more like a basketball ref. A lot like a basketball ref, in fact: Did you step out of bounds? And did you elbow your opponent in the face, or did he fall down and pretend you did in order to draw a call?

Boxing and TKD both depend on electric scoring systems to register hits to legal targets, and judges to watch for rules violations and validate that the hits are good (so that only solid hits and not glancing blows count, frex).

Thanks amych, that's very helpful.

Barb - that jacket is made of awesomeness!

2) The dress, in fact, decidedly did NOT look good on her.

HA! This is amazing.

Hub recreated out first date when he proposed. It was very thoughtful, sweet and not at all sappy or overdone. It did involve proposing at a restaurant, though. He got down on one knee and was half way though his proposal someone we didn't know yelled "just say yes! the Gators are about to score".

I still think Hub is pretty amazing. When I got home today he came the car to help me with my stuff and had a glass of wine and the latest copy of "Gothic Beauty" waiting. I keep telling him, I might have to keep him around.