Olympic Memories

I spent parts of the last 2 weeks watching the Winter Olympics, because my wife likes them and I broke the remote because I got angry at a basketball game so we're pretty much stuck with whatever is on since I'm too lazy to get up, walk over to the TV, and change the channel. If we were watching a show about old ladies knitting booties for charity, and a naked lady gymnastics competition was on another channel, and I didn't have a remote, we would continue to watch the old ladies forever.

Anyhow, I watched a lot of the Olympics by default, and here are just a few random things I noticed.

-Figure skating is really boring. I understand very well that I can't flip around 3 times in the air, or even stay on my skates for more than 30 seconds, and I also can't pour myself into a tight, faux-fur laden, sequiny ensemble without looking like Elton John on a really bloated and extra gay day. That said, it's still boring, and the programs are way too long. The skaters spend an inordinate amount of time skating around vogueing and flapping their arms, and not enough time flipping and spinning in 4000 circles without getting dizzy somehow. And the top American competitor, Rachel Flatt, looked like Jim Valvano. Couldn't we have gotten somebody less atrocious looking?

-Dick Button has to be 80, but he looks very young, and speaks very eloquently, not the slow, slurred version of English that many 80 year old's talk. But why was this young acting, fast talking, intelligent old man wearing gigantic black shoes? The soles had to be a foot thick. It looked like the shoes they give to those people who have elephantitis of the legs. What's up Dick? Why are your shoes so frigging huge? And do people make fun of you because the first two syllables in your name are Dickbutt? Dick Butkus never got over that.

-Biathalon is a make-believe sport. I think a crazy person came up with this idea. Let's ski down a hill and then shoot stuff with a rifle, and then, do it again. One time, when I was 10 I came up with this game where I would pick up my cat, throw him over the shower curtain, and then sprint outside as fast as I could and make three baskets. My record was a little under 25 seconds. I think that if Biathalon can be an Olympic event, then Cat-Fling Basketball should at least be sanctioned by some governing body somewhere.

-The USA women's skiers are a bunch of teary-eyed, soap opera sluts. Geez, what drama, and I'm not talking about skiing. Lindsey Vonn is a prima donna according to her teammates. Julia Mancuso is always crying. Vonn's husband is accusing the track makers of designing the track so it would favor their home country skiers. Either have a big fight at the bottom of the hill, or make out with each other at the bottom of the hill, or just ski, or do all three, I don't care.

-Skeleton is for crazy people. The death of the Georgian kid notwithstanding, going down the hill on a tiny sled that looks like it was built by elves on heroin at 90 miles per hour does not sound like a good idea to me, even for a gold medal. I think I would rather run naked through a village of Penis Cannibals. (Side note: I'm not sure that Penis Cannibals exist, but I still worry about them)

-The closing ceremonies were remarkably dumb with the exception of the giant inflatable beavers, which I thought were aptly pointed out and appreciated by Bob Costas. Everything else was pointless. William Shatner was not funny. The mom from Home Alone?? That's the most famous Canadian you could get to speak? And Michael J Fox must have been on some serious Anti-shaking drugs, because you could barely see him twitch, which is one of his coolest attributes, if you ask me.

So now the Olympics is over but Channel 11 is still on because I haven't worked up the energy to turn the channel yet. Maybe I will someday, or maybe I'll just hire a giant inflatable beaver to do it.