sports

Vancouver Couldn't Get It Up

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Call it a case of either stage fright, possibly too much alcohol or just good old fashion erectile difficulty.
Last night, when the time came last night for the Olympic cauldron to be assembled and lit at the end of the 2010 Winter Olympics Opening Ceremonies, one of the large “Fortress of Solitude” styled “ice spiers” that was supposed to form part of the “base” of the cauldron was completely unable to rise to the occasion.
Olympic Fail!

sports

There's Gold in Them Thar Hills

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Its nice that someone other than Michael Phelps has won a gold medal. Nastia Liukin took the women’s all around title and the head of US Gymnastics Bela Karolyi goes nuts while watching the routine. Gotta love the enthusiasm. I believe his exact words were, “Beautiful! Beautiful! Beautiful! Yeah! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! She’s an Olympic Champion! I’m telling you. I’m telling you. I’m telling you. Wow. Wow. Wow.”

sports

Another Winter Olympics 2014 Entry: Hoth

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This candidate city web site for the 2014 Hoth Winter Olympics is pure genius.

Whether it involves American Idol or fallen idols (Michelle Kwan and Bode Miller) it appears the Olympics are getting less and less popular with the American public.
In order to revive the Winter Games and to help NBC out of their rating nosedive we devised the following plan that would grab a hold of the public consciousness here in the US as well as viewers around the world.
We believe the 2014 XXII Winter Olympiad (the 2010 Games have already been awarded to Vancouver) should be hosted and held on the ice planet made famous in Star Wars Episode V…Hoth

A good article describes how it came about.

politics

I love the Olymics: Winter Edition

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In the Winter of 2002, I was recovering from a serious car accident and couldn’t even read due to massive headaches (it hurt too much to concentrate on the words). Thankfully, I had the Salt Lake City games to keep me company. I watched all day every day and for the most part loved every moment. That silly figure skating medal controversy was just too much for me.
There are so many things I love about the Olympics. I love the years of dedication and effort the athletes put in towards sports that for the most part will never make them any money and how they do it for some ideal “greater glory.” I love the pagentry of the opening ceremonies, specifically when all the teams enter the stadium – I just love flags. I love how nations that shouldn’t get along somehow do. At the end of the day, we are all humans. We were only born into our countries/states/cities. I didn’t ask to be an American. Someone in China didn’t ask to be Chinese. It just happened to work out that way when we were born. Sports is truly a global language – hell, North and South Korea are marching together in the opening ceremonies and those nations are still technically at war (a cease-fire was signed on July 27, 1953 but the war has not ended officially).
Specifically for the Winter Games, I love the obscure sports, like curling and the Biathalon, the later being where you cross-country ski as fast as you can for a few kilometers, then take a rifle off your back to shoot at some targets and repeat 5-10 times. Its what I imagine Nordic special forces to be. I’m not a huge fan of ice skating and ice dancing but I love when the Americans win, especially girls from Long Island. So, it is already understood that NBC owns my TV for 2 weeks and that NOTHING else will be watched starting on 2/10.
Torino/Turin is the now. For the future, Vancouver has got the games in 2010 which is pretty cool as I loved Calgary in 1988 (go Saddledome). The contenders for the 2014 Winter Oympics are [in alphabetical by city order]: Almaty, Kazakhstan, Borjomi, Georgia, Jaca, Spain, Pyeongchang, South Korea, Salzburg, Austria, Sochi, Russia and Sofia, Bulgaria . I for one am routing for Kazakhstan, if only because maybe then in a spirit of Olympic goodwill Borat’s web site will be once again live.

ramblings

Concentration At Its Finest

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If I ever need to hire either a night watchman or someone to look after something, I will look for someone who has “Olympic Ping-Pong Player” on their resume. See the pic below:

Table tennis players at the 2004 Athens Olympic Games, clockwise from top left are: USA’s Ilija Lupulesku on Aug. 14; China’s Zhang Yining on Aug. 22; Shu Arai of Japan on Aug. 14 ; Italy’s Yang Min on Aug. 14; Sweden’s Jorgen Persson on Aug. 15; Hong Kong’s Leung Chu Yan on Aug. 16; Germany’s Jorg Rosskopf on Aug. 17 and Ryo Yuzawa of Japan on Aug. 14. At center is Laura Negrisoli of Italy on Aug. 15. (AP Photo/stf)

Thanks go to the the Digital Journalist for posting the pic.