It's an addiction worse than alcohol, cigarettes, crack or Chipotle.
It's the Winter Olympics.
I LOVE the Winter Olympics. It started with the '88 games in Calgary. We did Olympic themed projects in class. We had to pick a piece of paper out of a dish or a box or something - each piece of paper had a different type of project noted on it. The one I chose turned out to be a diorama.
We were allowed our own choice of Olympic topic. I chose, for some reason, Alpine skiing. In the end, my diorama really sucked. If I remember right, I had to supply an accompanying report about Alpine skiing. I'm sure the report is probably what saved my grade, because the diorama was an absolute piece of crap. But for a 6th grader, I guess it was passable. I had a papier mache skier with popsicle stick skis, cruising down a cottonball mountain inside one half of a shirtbox.
Guess what? Papier mache is heavier than cotton. I don't recall what, precisely, I did to fix it, but eventually the skier was gerry-rigged into a manageable position, at least enough to transport it to school.
And that was what sparked my Olympic fever.
As I write, I'm looking at www.nbcolympics.com - this is going in my favorites immediately.
The only other time I get this nuts about sports and tv schedules is at NHL Playoff time. But this is worse... this takes much more attention. This is 17 straight days of events that isn't going to happen for another 4 years.
This is also Apolo Ohno's last Olympic competition. As it is I'm missing his first races tomorrow... can't let that happen for the rest of the games. Speed skating used to bore me. With the Salt Lake and Turin games, I watched it anyway, and MAN that is some wild stuff. I like when they crash!! I mean... I like when the skaters from the other countries crash. Into each other, into the wall, into Olympic officials, into a crowd - don't care, it's awesome!! (as long as no one gets seriously hurt, of course)
Skiing... more crashing. Can't miss a minute!
Figure skating... I never miss this. Apart from the crashing (I can't help it... if it isn't the US skaters, I laugh when they fall down. You do too, ADMIT IT!), I really enjoy the figure skating events, especially the pairs. I'm jealous! I wish I could do that. I spent my childhood outside popping rolls of caps with a rock because my very gender-specific mother would not allow me to have a cap gun. Not because it was a gun - but because it was a "boy's toy". I could go off on a SERIOUS rant here, but I'll save it for another blog. Anyway, while I was playing pretend-cap gun with rocks, other children were learning to figure skate. Those children grew up with a skill (or a developed talent, whichever way you want to look at it). I grew up to watch them on TV, green with envy.
In my defense though, no one ever told me I couldn't get on a Wheaties box by being talented at firing off caps without a cap gun. And so far, Olympic Playing In The Dirt and Olympic Write Your Name on the Sidewalk with A Stick and A Lightning Bug have not been added to the event list. Fingers crossed for 2014, though!!
Snowboarding - one of the newer events. I like it. Those tricks they can do... amazing. One thing is a little unsettling about this year's Snowboarding events though... Shaun White is back. Don't get me wrong, he's good, and fun to watch... but I'm glad those snowboarders wear all that gear on their heads because that Shaun White is getting tougher and tougher to look at. Cute little kid he was... now he looks like Carrot Top and Rocky Dennis had a baby.
(My apologies to the late Rocky Dennis for that comment - I'm referring to the Eric Stoltz version from the movie, which was far exaggerated from the real Rocky.
No apologies to to Carrot Top.)
The Luge! When I was a kid I thought this was the coolest thing ever and I wanted to do it so badly! Just once! Now... it's still pretty cool, but I think I'd freak out if I was actually on one of those things speeding through an ice chute. Plus, I'm in no mood to have to work out my ass muscles - excuse me - I mean glutes - so I could control the thing. Isn't that how they do it? Weight shifting and whatnot? I should look this up, lest I appear that I don't know what I'm talking about.
Second thought... nah... I don't really care that much. Just watching and waiting for them to flip over at 100mph. But not the USA guys. Need to be clear on that.
(edit: I did not know about the luge accident in Vancouver when I wrote this. I won't edit, I'm not going to censor, but of course, I was merely being humorous... I've seen games where the lugers fall off, get up, brush off, and go again... and that's all I really was referring to. It's terrible what happened in Vancouver today and my thoughts go out to Nodar Kumaritashvili's family.)
Now for what I don't love about the Winter Olympics...
Curling. Seriously? This is a sport? Push-brooming a path so a rounded weight can travel across an ice rink at mach snail?
I had never seen curling before the '02 Olympics. Regardless of when the event is held, they don't air it until 2 or 3 a.m., which I suppose is because no one cares. So I was curious, and I stayed up one night to see what it was.
I remember it, I was sitting on the couch, waiting for something to happen...
*blink*
"Push brooms? Are they janitors?"
*stare*
"Is this all they're going to do?"
*blinkblink*
"Can't that round thing go any faster?"
Never again. Keep that crap on at 3 a.m.
Cross-country skiing... can I ask... why? I must be missing something, but I find it really boring. I understand speed and timing and all that... but they're just moving over flat land. That's no fun! Bring on the Hot-Dog Aerials! (do they still call it that?)
(Hot Dog Aerials! <-- band name!)
Hey, what's that? Oooh, shiny...
Huh? Oh. Where was I?
Oh right - Olympic Joy...
It's the Winter Olympics.
I LOVE the Winter Olympics. It started with the '88 games in Calgary. We did Olympic themed projects in class. We had to pick a piece of paper out of a dish or a box or something - each piece of paper had a different type of project noted on it. The one I chose turned out to be a diorama.
We were allowed our own choice of Olympic topic. I chose, for some reason, Alpine skiing. In the end, my diorama really sucked. If I remember right, I had to supply an accompanying report about Alpine skiing. I'm sure the report is probably what saved my grade, because the diorama was an absolute piece of crap. But for a 6th grader, I guess it was passable. I had a papier mache skier with popsicle stick skis, cruising down a cottonball mountain inside one half of a shirtbox.
Guess what? Papier mache is heavier than cotton. I don't recall what, precisely, I did to fix it, but eventually the skier was gerry-rigged into a manageable position, at least enough to transport it to school.
And that was what sparked my Olympic fever.
As I write, I'm looking at www.nbcolympics.com - this is going in my favorites immediately.
The only other time I get this nuts about sports and tv schedules is at NHL Playoff time. But this is worse... this takes much more attention. This is 17 straight days of events that isn't going to happen for another 4 years.
This is also Apolo Ohno's last Olympic competition. As it is I'm missing his first races tomorrow... can't let that happen for the rest of the games. Speed skating used to bore me. With the Salt Lake and Turin games, I watched it anyway, and MAN that is some wild stuff. I like when they crash!! I mean... I like when the skaters from the other countries crash. Into each other, into the wall, into Olympic officials, into a crowd - don't care, it's awesome!! (as long as no one gets seriously hurt, of course)
Skiing... more crashing. Can't miss a minute!
Figure skating... I never miss this. Apart from the crashing (I can't help it... if it isn't the US skaters, I laugh when they fall down. You do too, ADMIT IT!), I really enjoy the figure skating events, especially the pairs. I'm jealous! I wish I could do that. I spent my childhood outside popping rolls of caps with a rock because my very gender-specific mother would not allow me to have a cap gun. Not because it was a gun - but because it was a "boy's toy". I could go off on a SERIOUS rant here, but I'll save it for another blog. Anyway, while I was playing pretend-cap gun with rocks, other children were learning to figure skate. Those children grew up with a skill (or a developed talent, whichever way you want to look at it). I grew up to watch them on TV, green with envy.
In my defense though, no one ever told me I couldn't get on a Wheaties box by being talented at firing off caps without a cap gun. And so far, Olympic Playing In The Dirt and Olympic Write Your Name on the Sidewalk with A Stick and A Lightning Bug have not been added to the event list. Fingers crossed for 2014, though!!
Snowboarding - one of the newer events. I like it. Those tricks they can do... amazing. One thing is a little unsettling about this year's Snowboarding events though... Shaun White is back. Don't get me wrong, he's good, and fun to watch... but I'm glad those snowboarders wear all that gear on their heads because that Shaun White is getting tougher and tougher to look at. Cute little kid he was... now he looks like Carrot Top and Rocky Dennis had a baby.
(My apologies to the late Rocky Dennis for that comment - I'm referring to the Eric Stoltz version from the movie, which was far exaggerated from the real Rocky.
No apologies to to Carrot Top.)
The Luge! When I was a kid I thought this was the coolest thing ever and I wanted to do it so badly! Just once! Now... it's still pretty cool, but I think I'd freak out if I was actually on one of those things speeding through an ice chute. Plus, I'm in no mood to have to work out my ass muscles - excuse me - I mean glutes - so I could control the thing. Isn't that how they do it? Weight shifting and whatnot? I should look this up, lest I appear that I don't know what I'm talking about.
Second thought... nah... I don't really care that much. Just watching and waiting for them to flip over at 100mph. But not the USA guys. Need to be clear on that.
(edit: I did not know about the luge accident in Vancouver when I wrote this. I won't edit, I'm not going to censor, but of course, I was merely being humorous... I've seen games where the lugers fall off, get up, brush off, and go again... and that's all I really was referring to. It's terrible what happened in Vancouver today and my thoughts go out to Nodar Kumaritashvili's family.)
Now for what I don't love about the Winter Olympics...
Curling. Seriously? This is a sport? Push-brooming a path so a rounded weight can travel across an ice rink at mach snail?
I had never seen curling before the '02 Olympics. Regardless of when the event is held, they don't air it until 2 or 3 a.m., which I suppose is because no one cares. So I was curious, and I stayed up one night to see what it was.
I remember it, I was sitting on the couch, waiting for something to happen...
*blink*
"Push brooms? Are they janitors?"
*stare*
"Is this all they're going to do?"
*blinkblink*
"Can't that round thing go any faster?"
Never again. Keep that crap on at 3 a.m.
Cross-country skiing... can I ask... why? I must be missing something, but I find it really boring. I understand speed and timing and all that... but they're just moving over flat land. That's no fun! Bring on the Hot-Dog Aerials! (do they still call it that?)
(Hot Dog Aerials! <-- band name!)
Hey, what's that? Oooh, shiny...
Huh? Oh. Where was I?
Oh right - Olympic Joy...
Commences tonight! Opening ceremonies on NBC. Check your local listings!
"mach snail" bwahahahahaaa!
ReplyDeleteYeah, keep curling on between the late shows and infomercials for hair removal products, tyvm.
At least you knew there was supposed to be a gun for those cap rolls! I didn't even know that until I was almost an adult! I thought the banging with the rock was how you were SUPPOSED to do it!!
ReplyDeleteI taught you the lightning bug thing, I'm pretty sure. I'm a terrible influence. You're welcome.
Why you be hatin' on my Shaun White? That scrawny red haired snowbunny is HOT!
I like the event that combines skiing with guns. Where they ski and then stop and have to shoot accurately. If I had a gun the last time I went skiing, I could have shot all the people that were laughing at me for doing a Sonny Bono right into a bush.
I do enjoy the figure skating, but I have to admit, it's not as fun without Tonya Harding running around and trashing it up.
Just the thought of getting on a luge and hurtling down an ice tube of death makes me have to lie down. I can't watch that event, really.
I suspect your love of speed skating is in direct correlation to your love of looking at Apollo and his fabulous ass. I can't blame you.