Because it took me so long to make up my mind if I wanted to go to this meet (I know - what was I thinking?!), I was unable to get deck passes, but it’s okay, because we had some good seats in the stands!

After spending some serious dough at Mall of America and getting through the hell known as Minnesota road construction (seriously, who puts detours IN DETUORS?!?!), we arrived to the meet, just 10 minutes late.  But we still got to see our favorites swim!  We even got in a brief chat with The Lochtenator!  We just reminded him to say the word and we’ll get some Heineken to his house ASAP!

We were supposed to get a snowstorm today, but it never came!  Hopefully it won’t mess up our plans for tomorrow!

Oh, and word to the wise: no grown man in his sane mind would risk jail time to be with a 13-year old.  So doing the “bend and snap” bit is probably not encouraged.  Don’t embarrass yourself anymore.  Kay?  Thanks!

The Lochtenator has been separated from one of his prized possessions. No, not any of his Olympic medals. He’s lost his grill.

Yes, my friends. I’m afraid that it’s true. RyRy hit the town Monday night and somewhere along the way, lost his infamous grill. I can’t say I’m too surprised because aint no party like a Lochte party, cuz a Lochte party don’t stop!

He’ll just replace it. I mean, if he can afford to purchase a Lamborghini or Aston-Martin, I think a replacement grill won’t break the bank. Can’t wait to see if the “top row’s diamond and the bottom row’s gold”.

Now, he lost them after competition closed for pool swimming, so that still doesn’t explain why he didn’t flash them on the medals stand. We’ll have to investimagate once he gets back stateside and things calm down for him. We aren’t even going to try and bother him in the midst of all this Olympic activity and afterglow.

Thanks to Izzy for the head’s up!

Thought we forgot about this, didn’t ya?

Well the Lochtenator has been part of 2 World Record performances whilst over in Beijing. Individually, he rocked it in the 200 back tonight and earlier in the week, as the 2nd leg of the WR-setting men’s 800 Free Relay.

For his efforts, he’s earned himself 5 more cases and a 6-pack of Heineken from us today. That brings his grand total to 9 cases and two 6-packs, which we’ll convert into one 12er. Do we have a total for what we owe him? Nope. Let’s just leave it at “a lot”. I almost wish I hadn’t made that bet with him back in 2005. Who knew he was gonna blow up like this? I’m thinking he did and that was part of his plan alllll along. I’m onto you, Lochtenator! Congrats and call us when you want to redeem any of those cases.

And seriously….WHERE IS THE GRILL?!?! I’m going to be quite upset if I find out someone took (hid?) it from him or told him couldn’t wear it! It’s too classic and deliciously Lochte!

Previous days’ earnings:

I was watching gymnastics, but with the way the judges are hosing the Americans with the scoring, I’ve decided I can’t watch that bullshit anymore.

Shout out to Rebecca Soni for doing the damn thing in the 200 Breast! Holla!

And I’m not talking about the “white boy fro”.

AP Photo/Paul Thomas

We have yet to see the Lochtenator rock his grill during a domestic meet. Every time we meet up with him we ask him if he brought his grill. His reply is always “of course!” Yet when the awards ceremonies roll around, he never has them in! So our mission for Santa Clara is to capture the Lochte grill for ourselves!

Stay tuned!

BTW, based on his performance across the pond, we owe Ryan 4 more cases of Heineken. We’re glad to pay up. Really.

Time to order up another case of Heineken for the Lochtenator.

According to the rules we set in place back in 2006, we owe Ryan yet another case of beer. He obliterated the 200 IM (SCM) World Record at the 2008 FINA Short Course Worlds Champs. PWNAGE!

We’re so proud of our guy. He never disappoints. We look forward to seeing his bright shining grill out in Santa Clara next month.

Cheers!

If you were with us last year as we covered the 2007 FINA World Champs in Melbourne, then you you are probably familiar with the friendly deal we have with the Lochtenator. If you have no idea what I’m talking about click here.

Our deal was that for every World Record Ryan swims, we will buy him a case of beer; Heineken, because it is his favorite. It started as a joke, but has snowballed into quite the incentive plan. We know what we’re doing, really we do…

So, he swam the lead leg in Team USA’s world record-setting 400 Free Relay at the Short Course Worlds in Manchester. We aren’t sure what size of Heineken pack to add to the neverending tally. It doesn’t really matter at this point because the number is ridiculously high. Basically whenever we’re all in the same location — and Ryan wants some beer — all he has to do is ask. We owe him.

We can only hope that the next hotel party doesn’t get broken up by the hotel staff before he gets the chance to drink it! It really is too bad his coach won’t let him take any on the plane with him. Work with us, people!

Why’s that, you ask?

Well we’ve been commenting on this quite a bit these days on MGoSwim, but since it deals with the Lochtenator, we thought we’d bring it over here too.

We’ve noticed that it’s like Mike and Ryan have switched media personalities.

Ryan’s standard media interviews were littered with a string of “um’s” “uh’s” and general stuttering. But he’s dramatically cleaned up his speaking. As evidence, we present his latest interview with Orlando NBC affiliate WESH. I only counted one “um”! Groundbreaking!

Now, countering with Phelps‘ recent interviews, it’s easy to see he’s regressed!

We may or may not have created a drinking game that went along with Ryan’s interview slip-ups. So obviously we never thought this day would come. RyRy may have earned yet another case of Heineken. We’ve lost count. Really.

BTW, it’s nice to see Ryan ‘white boy fro’ coming back. As long as it doesn’t get out of hand, we’re cool with it.