If Google's 7% stock swoon Tuesday stuck you as deja vu, you're right.  But it wasn't a  Wall Street replay.

Think, Italy.  Torino, to be precise. 

Bode Miller's spectacular flop at the Winter Olympics was just as great a failure at the expectations game as Google's admission earlier this week that "growth will slow."  It was spectacular.  It was awful.  And it was reality.  The problem is this -- the expectations game is one that can't be won forever.  Eventually, it will eat up anyone who dares to play.

We live in a superstar society.  We expect greatness, again and again.  Whether we're talking about growth stocks like Microsoft, AOL and Home Depot or Olympians like Carl Lewis, Mark Spitz and Eric Heiden, we want to see gold.  Reasonable or not.

The truly great athletes always seem to find ways to deliver.  When they can't, they retire.