Why couldn't the apprentice jump in once in a while?

St. Remy, France - Nostradamus, the 16th century Frenchman whose writings have accurately predicted everything from Hitler's reign to Greg Biffle's win at Sunday's NASCAR Michigan 200, has been way off on his 2004 Olympics predictions. According to his infamous quatrains, he thought "someone from Japan" would win the men's 100 meter dash, had the USA men's basketball team going undefeated (they have two losses) and predicted the Phillippines would sweep the triple-jump final. "Wow, I might've been high," said Nostradamus through a time-space portal linked to the past and paid for by Sportalicious! "Geezus, that is way, way off. I might've been hittin' the absinthe. Had they come up with absinthe yet back then? Man, that's good over ice." Nostradamus had Bangladesh winning beach volleyball and landlocked Turkmenistan taking gold in the sailing competition. "Bangladesh in beach volleyball, huh? You know what? I think I was jokin'. I remember now, yes, it was like a parody of these bad know-it-all copycat predictors that started popping up everywhere, undercutting me on the club circuit. You've got to have some patience knowing the parody won't get a laugh for nearly 500 years. That's some stones, my friends. Now that's what I call 'camping for a laugh.'" Nostradamus paused, sighed, then admitted, "Okay, I was high. Japan in the 100. Wow, clearly Marco Polo had brought back some incredible smoke from Nepal and I was deep, deep into it. Plus, I wasn't gettin' any dames, that can throw off your game." He let out a chuckle and said, "C'est la vie, hey? Onward and upward. Hey, how 'bout accurately callin' the Cards having a better record than the Yankees at this point in the season? Got that one bang on the nose."At that point the 9-minute time-space portal rental elapsed.