Oh what a world it seems we live in...

I was wasting some time walking down memory lane tonight, listening to old tv themes one of which was from ABC's Wide World of Sports. Anyone my age remembers the opening montage... "The thrill of victory, and the agony of defeat." And we remember the image that played along with the agony, a spectacular ski jumping crash, the guy spinning wildly out of control. It's etched, forever, in the mind's eye.

So I wondered - whatever happened to the agony of defeat guy? Was he seriously injured? Did he go on to jump again? Is he still alive? Now - and this is where the amazing part comes in - it took me less than 10 seconds to find the answers to ALL of those questions, thanks to google and wikipedia. It's a great story - go read it.

But then it struck me how absolutely amazing of a time we live in. When I was a kid, if that question had popped into my head, the answer would have been... "Yeah, hm. I wonder." Short of going to the library and checking the microfiche (do they still have that now?), there would have been no way to find the answer. My kids will never know a time when such a wealth of information is more than a few keystrokes away.

Absolutely amazing.