My friend Michael called mid-week to wonder if I’d be free for some cross-country skiing Sunday. Sure. The temperature rose to 38 that day, and continued balmy through yesterday, so we melted down to a walk through Elmwood Cemetery. It’s the oldest in the city. We were on the lookout for the titans — Coleman Young, Russell Alger, Sonic Smith. We found only Alger, but it was a lovely day and we weren’t really looking that hard. We did see the liquor king:
And the beer king:
There’s a group site for firefighters:
I didn’t know firemen would seek common burial, but I suppose these were the men without families, or maybe the ones who thought no one could understand them like the guys. The emblem was a mystery to me, but Michael’s dad was a firefighter. He said they’re bugles, which were the “get out of the way” alarm, blown by the crews in the days before sirens. Learn something new every day.
I’ll come back on my bike in the spring. This is a place to spend a morning.
The balminess ended today:
Who wants to go skiing?
OK, then. Speaking of skiing, I gather there was a hockey game last night, which “we” won, and as a result I am supposed to be exultant. Reader, I am not. I am wearying of the every-other-year we-fest that is the Olympic games. Excuse me: the (kettle drums go bum-bum-bum-bum; cue trumpets DAAAH DAAAH DA DA DA DA DA, etc.) games of the 23rd Olympiad, or whatever. I want some grumpier color commentators; I am sick of being told how proud I am of “Team USA.” I want someone to ask, “Why do the snowboarders look like they put on all the clothes in the hamper? Snowcross? What’s next? Demolition derby?” This event always seems to go on four days too long. I know it’s coming when the voice of Morgan Freeman makes me want to throw things.
On the other hand, what else is there to do? It’s February. Anyway, Alessandra Stanley looks at the jingoism angle today:
Even the calm, professional Bob Costas, who is the great exception to the NBC rule of smarminess, felt he had to explain himself on Saturday night for enthusing about the unexpected victory — and infectious joy — of Mark Tuitert, a 29-year-old Dutch speed skater who surprised everyone, including himself, by beating the American Shani Davis in the 1,500-meter race.
“And this is to take nothing away from the interest in the States about Shani Davis and Chad Hedrick,” Mr. Costas said apologetically, “but what this means in the Netherlands, I mean, this is their national pastime, this is so huge there.” As Mr. Costas spoke about the new Dutch hero, the screen behind him carried a huge portrait of Mr. Davis, who took the silver medal.
Well, exactly.
Bloomberg follows Rachel Maddow on the great underreported story: Republicans who thundered against the stimulus who now say, dude, where’s my stimulus? (Quietly.)
And with that, I’m away. Monday waits for no one, even with five inches of snow in the forecast.
Dexter said on February 22, 2010 at 10:35 am
I am ambivalent towards the Olympiad. Some days I am really into it, like I was for the figure skating and the speedskating and the snowboarding, but when the hockey game was ballyhooed I switched to Fox Animation Sunday. Family Guy conceded to the Olympics but it was the fantastic episode in which Brian & Stewie travel to alternate plains of existence. Now I wish I would have watched hockey because Brian Rafalski (Red Wings) was the star for the USA—he’s actually native to Downriver Detroit.
Shoveled ice-slush for a half hour and dashed out to McD’s for a biscuit and gravy. Ten years ago they were 89 cents…now, $2.50.
And oh joy!! Today is the first day of the rest of my life…in credit card confusion: all the new rules “for consumer protection” are in place today.
The verdict from ALL the TV financial people: we’re really screwed now. I wonder how many folks will be taking the gas pipe after they figure out their dire straits today. I always pay way ahead of due date, always pay more than minimum, and still I was cancelled by Chase. My other card had the credit limit cut by 25 grand. Almost time to consider the pipe? Nah. Life is beautiful. And B. Stroh only lived to age 59? Ever see his portrait? He looks to be 75. Maybe not…
http://www.beerhistory.com/images/portstroh.jpg
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ROgirl said on February 22, 2010 at 10:35 am
If that hockey game was so important, why didn’t NBC bother to air a single moment of it until the last minute or two? They were showing some canned events interspersed with the live ice dancing competition for close to 2 hours before Bob Costas finally announced that the US had scored another goal and were about to beat Canada.
I guess snow cross and bobsledding are more important for ratings or demographics than ice hockey, eh?
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on February 22, 2010 at 10:44 am
Non-stop, horn to horn coverage on MSNBC. And pretty fair commentary, not chauvinistic at all.
Plus, CNBC carried the whole US/Sweden curling match, all 10 ends. They’re spreading out their coverage pretty well, I think, with the network/bcast feed being the ADD/marquee jumpin’ around stuff.
Happy Washington’s birthday, y’all.
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Peter said on February 22, 2010 at 10:58 am
Sorry Jeff TMMO, but I agree with ROgirl – NBC was touting Canada vs. US as the biggest thing since Miracle on Ice; it’s so darn important that their main network coverage was a whole 95 seconds of the third period. Can’t blame ’em; I just was goosebumps over the Scots who did their Brokeback Mountain update. As for the Russian dancers – my son said it would have been something if their costume extensions would have gotten caught in a skate…
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moe99 said on February 22, 2010 at 11:00 am
Just to let folks know, my ct scans last Friday were encouraging–the tumors in the left lobe are shrinking by as much as 25% in my oncologist’s estimate when going over the radiology report with me.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on February 22, 2010 at 11:05 am
Great news — and huzzah for heading closer to 100%!
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alex said on February 22, 2010 at 11:08 am
Yay moe!
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brian stouder said on February 22, 2010 at 11:09 am
Excellent news, moe
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LAMary said on February 22, 2010 at 11:16 am
Good news, Moe.
I cheered for the Dutch skater in honor of my grandparents. The Dutch immigrants in my old part of the country did a lot of skating. There was a pond across the street from the house where I grew up and when it froze over it was packed with kids and adults. It was just what you did. Every afternoon after school we’d skate until dark and then come home and thaw out our feet.
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4dbirds said on February 22, 2010 at 11:21 am
Woo Hoo for the good scans!!!
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Sue said on February 22, 2010 at 11:28 am
Yay Moe!
The US/Canada hockey teams are made up of NHL players, so I get the criticism; it’s not Miracle on Ice by any means. But, it was a really exciting game, played hard from start to finish with the kind of messyness you might expect from pro players who suddenly found themselves really, really wanting to win, almost like kids (well, some of them are barely into adulthood, actually). Mistakes were made but what a pace! And all for a game that didn’t really count except to give the winner a bye and a chance to rest.
My daughter and I tried to watch the ice dancing last night. Sorry, we couldn’t stop laughing at most of the costumes and some of the facial grimaces on the US skaters.
And what’s with the nonstop curling coverage? I’m beginning to think it will continue after the Olympics is over. Is there that much interest? I’ve decided that it’s the ice equivalent of bowling, the length of the game way out of proportion to the excitement of the activity, because under normal circumstances the game exists to support alcohol consumption.
My main question about some of these sports: who had the original idea? Who decided it would be a good idea to get on a small piece of wood and shoot face first down a track? Who said, “hmm, that might be fun”? And why?
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Joe Kobiela said on February 22, 2010 at 11:34 am
Good for you Moe.
Now for the rest of you, lighten up on the Olympic’s. If you don’t like them fine don’t watch. But lets be a little less condisending. The dress for the snowboarders,I thought was cool. It’s the way they look, Jeans and flannel. Short track speed skating is about the coolest thing going,do you realise the strategy that goes into that. The usa hockey was great, The Canadians blistered the U.S. in the last 5 like there was no tomorrow and Miller made some fantastic saves to go along with some great defensive shot blocking. Any one remember where they were in 1980 when we beat the Russians? I was working security for a Beach Boys concert in the Fort and watching back stage,after we won I saw the late Steve Goodman who was the warmup act and told him, He was jubilent, he went back on stage and told the fans who went nuts. Mrs pilot Joe was attending that concert but didn’t know me yet,small world eh. I guess what Iam saying is tonight if you are so inclined, sit back and enjoy the show, these people have sacrificed and trained their whole lives for this for gosh sakes ENJOY IT.
Pilot Joe
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Jenflex said on February 22, 2010 at 11:40 am
Hooray Moe!!!
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Julie Robinson. said on February 22, 2010 at 11:46 am
So happy to hear good news from you, Moe!
I’ve been tempering the Olympic jingoism by reading Stones into Schools, by Greg Mortenson, who builds schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan. He believes that education, especially for girls, is the best hope for eliminating suicide terrorism. Traditionally, sons will seek the blessing of their mothers before going on jihad, and educated women are not likely to give that permission. He is doing amazing and inspiring work.
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Sue said on February 22, 2010 at 11:47 am
So, Samantha, how high are the taxes in Norway?
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/02/stacks_daughter_my_dad_was_a_hero_for_standing_up.php?ref=fpb
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LAMary said on February 22, 2010 at 11:49 am
What’s annoying about the snowboarder outfits is that they are not really denim and flannel. It’s denim and flannel printed on nylon or polyester or whatever waterproof windproof fabric they usually wear.
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Joe Kobiela said on February 22, 2010 at 12:00 pm
L.A.Mary,
why is that annoying?
Pilot Joe
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Carolyn said on February 22, 2010 at 12:17 pm
Go, world!!!
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LAMary said on February 22, 2010 at 12:23 pm
Because it’s fake funky.
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Joe Kobiela said on February 22, 2010 at 12:44 pm
I just thought it looked fun, but then again I’m not as highly educated,like Ya’ll
Pilot Joe
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Colleen said on February 22, 2010 at 1:27 pm
I’m enjoying the big O games, but I am a huge skating fan. But I’ve never felt like *I* am somehow part of Team USA, so the USA winning doesn’t make me feel better or….whatever I am supposed to feel.
For snarky/grouchy, they should have more Uncle Dick Button. I would love to sit and have a beer with that man….when asked about his own gold medal winning Olympic program, he said “it sucked”. How can you not love that?
So glad for the good news, Moe!!
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Rana said on February 22, 2010 at 2:19 pm
Moe, what good news! Let’s hope it keeps coming!
Sue, on the matter of who came up with these things – I strongly suspect that it’s people who were trapped inside for weeks on end and went a little nuts. That, and alcohol was probably involved.
I always find the Olympics an exercise in frustration. It’s one of the few athletic competitions that I find interesting, and yet it’s clear that NBC doesn’t really think of it as an athletic competition. Instead it’s an occasion for color commentary, meant-to-tug-at-the-heartstrings tales of overachievers, and rah-rah-rah nationalism.
I would love it if there were fewer made-for-tv-stories, and more athletes performing, and far less insistence on dwelling on US athletes to the near-exclusion of everyone else. I’d like more coverage of the odder sports, too, and more comments telling me what to look for in a performance, and fewer shallow reactions to things like costume design.
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Jolene said on February 22, 2010 at 2:34 pm
Great news, Moe. Am really happy for you and hope things continue to move in a good direction.
Re watching the Olympics, I have found that my usual manner of watching TV, which is w/ an occasional glance at the screen while I read online or whatever, isn’t working very well. The action is too fast. (It doesn’t really work all that well for other things either, but the decrement in understanding what’s going on is more tolerable.)
Never having been a particularly athletic person or much of a sports fan, I’ve been amazed–for years, actually–that people will work soooooooo hard to achieve something that has no utility beyond the thing itself, that is ignored by most of the population most of the time, and in which the margin of victory is a fraction a second.
That said, I do admire the athletes for their persistence and resilience. Years ago, I was a halfway decent skater, but I don’t think there was ever a time when I could have taken a spill on the ice, gotten up, and gone on as if nothing had happened.
As you might guess, their physicality is not limited to their athletic pursuits.* This article about sex in the Olympic Village is amusing, but it was the section that focused on the sheer dynamism of so many young, highly competitive people in peak physical condition all in one place in that caught my attention.
*As Matt Yglesias notes, this “sex among hot, young jocks” story is a quadrennial favorite.
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Indy said on February 22, 2010 at 2:44 pm
Did you happen to see Evan Bayh’s Op-Ed in the times over the weekend? Even the most cynical, jaded political junkies would find it unintentionally hilarious.
http://indyagenda.com/2010/02/22/evan-bayhs-op-ed/
By the way, the US – Canada hockey game last night was incredible. Maybe it was the absence of commercial breaks, but it seemed to stay impossibly tense for a solid hour. Two world-class teams killing themselves in a non-medal game. The crowd going nuts with U-S-A and (lame) “go-Canada-go” chants. A stadium filled with mullets. An announcer using the phrase “tremendously tremendous”. Just wildly entertaining.
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john c said on February 22, 2010 at 3:01 pm
Nancy:
I’m surprised you haven’t figured out the Detroit trick of watching the Olympics on Canadian television. You don’t get the when-he-broke-his-toenail-everyone-told-him-his-olympic-dream-was-shattered featurettes. And they show athletes from other countries!
I, too, am irked by the snowboarders outfits. It’s not so much that they are not my thing fashion-wise because I am old and uncool. I just can’t accept it that an athlete would wear pants that are falling down below his butt. (If hiking up one’s shorts was, to my generation, a sign of determination and a desire to be so unencumbered by loose clothing as to be ready to spring into action, what should I make of the many boarders I saw who, just as they started their descent into the half-pipe, took a moment to carefully adjust their pants down?)
Lastly, the hockey game last night was fantastic on it’s own merits, irregardless of any jingoistic chest-thumping. It was just a great flippin’ game – essentially an all-star game that mattered. Too bad our power went out in the middle.
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nancy said on February 22, 2010 at 3:16 pm
What thin respect I had for the snowboarders evaporated when I read a story in one of my dailies — NYT or WSJ, can’t remember — about one of them, who blazed a new trail in her sport by, wait for it, WORKING OUT IN A GYM. The story explained that snowboarders traditionally spurned all sorts of weight training, cardio, even nutrition, and that the “ethic” of the sport said all the preparation was done on the half-pipe. She started doing yoga and Pilates and found her tricks improved, and now a few others are starting to follow her into this alien space called the weight room.
My friend Ted once cracked me up when he said of ice dancing, “I don’t care what anyone says, it’s not a sport if you do it in a bow tie.” Well, I don’t care what anyone says, it’s not a sport if it doesn’t require even a few situps to win a medal.
BTW, John, the CBC has been pretty thin on Olympics this year, or at least the Comcast feed of the CBC has. Maybe they’re selectively blocking things out, now that Comcast owns NBC. Wouldn’t surprise me.
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brian stouder said on February 22, 2010 at 3:36 pm
Well, and indeed – I noted that my physical conditon is no worse than mostly all of the curlers. If that is an Olympic sport, shouldn’t horse shoes and bowling and corn hole all get added to the Summer Olympics?
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ROgirl said on February 22, 2010 at 3:43 pm
CBC didn’t get the Olympics this year because CTV outbid them.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/21/sports/olympics/21cbc.html?scp=1&sq=ctv%20broadcast&st=Search
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Sue said on February 22, 2010 at 3:47 pm
Like I said, brian, when Olympians look like your neighbors Flo and Roger on bowling night, it’s hard to take them seriously.
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MichaelG said on February 22, 2010 at 4:16 pm
Thanks for the great news, Mo. Keep it going.
My God! Corn holing, Brian? Gonna add tea bagging too? Or is there another kind of corn holing?
I still say “skiing” back and forth through a ditch or over a bunch of bumps is trash sports. Watch this for a minute or two and then look at the downhill. Tell me there’s an equal thrill there. They’re sports invented to include those who couldn’t make the real team.
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Kirk said on February 22, 2010 at 4:26 pm
Joe K. at 12:
I’m with you. I love the Winter Olympics and watch as much as I can. If it’s something I don’t care for, like ice dancing, I don’t complain about it. I just don’t watch it.
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jcburns said on February 22, 2010 at 4:39 pm
ROGirl is exactly right. CTV has the games! Kinda like saying “CBS’s Olympic coverage is a mite thin.” Amusingly, one of the CTV guys is named Brian Williams. Who met up with..uh..that other one, the other day.
And I’m with you Pilot Joe…I said to Sammy “I want one of those cool flannel-y snowboard jackets.” then went to the Burton site to see how much the hip young kids pay for jackets these days. The urge passed.
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brian stouder said on February 22, 2010 at 4:45 pm
Kirk and joe – agreed, I suppose.
It just strikes me as the way of the world that a woman or man could become a gymnast, and put on a technically sophisticated demonstration of things that almost no other human on earth could do, and – if they’re good to the last hundredth of a point at that particular moment – win a gold medal (or a silver or bronze if they’re ever so slightly bested)…. and then watch some overweight guy get the same gold medal for skillfully sliding a rock.
Summer games at least offer more events where you go highest or fastest or furthest, and you win – period.
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baldheadeddork said on February 22, 2010 at 4:47 pm
Al Micheals gave me my favorite Olympic memory, and last night he did his damndest to take it away. DougJ at Balloon Juice got what I was feeling.
Al Michaels on the 1980 US hockey gold: “People went from burning American flags to waving them”.
Shoot me.
http://www.balloon-juice.com/2010/02/21/miracle-on-ice/
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MarkH said on February 22, 2010 at 5:25 pm
Ease up, Michael G. This is what Brian is talking about:
http://www.cornholeplus.com/?source=googleaw&kwid=cornhole%20game&tid=exact
Strictly mid-western. I was shocked the first time I heard it, too.
And, I’m with Pilot Joe as well.
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Dexter said on February 22, 2010 at 5:27 pm
Jolene:
Along with love of sport, an attraction is also fame and lots of cash.
One Olympic mom said she tells friends who call asking about her kid,”She lives on a plane”. Globetrotting , spreading goodwill as it might be.
Shaun White absconded Vonn-Couver and is in NYC shilling for dollars.
The maple-syrup young woman snowboarder pours all her prize money into a project she started to help people in Kenya.
So it’s more than ascending the podium and then going back to a cubicle for 40 years. These young athletes will never work everyday jobs, they are set.
Vonn is already practicing her Saturday Night Live skit with a mocking “tribute” to sex addict Tiger Woods, saying she is also a sex addict in the skit she wrote, allegedly as a big joke.
I can’t watch any Olympics without thinking of Jim Thorpe, whom I recall took five dollars to play a few innings on a semi-pro baseball team , and was stripped of all his medals, and it broke his spirit, and he never truly recovered. I read somewhere where Thorpe just wailed to his baseball roommate , years later, “How could they take my medals away? They were mine!” He died a very bitter man because of that.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on February 22, 2010 at 6:07 pm
I am grieved, grieved by all the curlinghate I’m feeling right now, but here’s some uplift from up Moe’s way: this is capitalism the way Teddy Roosevelt liked it served up — http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2011111010_birthdaygift18.html
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Jason T. said on February 22, 2010 at 6:23 pm
Michael G., I was amused by a reference to cornhole recently, too, so I wrote about it. (It was a slow news day.)
I also referenced our gracious hostess and her always-entertaining blog.
(Ahem. Sorry. Thus endeth the shameless self-promotion.)
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derwood said on February 22, 2010 at 6:49 pm
Our house is also hooked on the Olympics. Hockey game was great and we try not to miss a curling match. There is a curling club in Indy though we have never gone. When we have gone back to North Dakota to visit the wife’s family we try to get over to the curling club to watch their events. It’s actually pretty cool to see in person. There is a Canadian movie called Men with Brooms. It will explain curling to you and provide a laugh or two.
I don’t much care for any of the ice skating/dancing things so I skip them but catch all of the skiing and snowboarding events.
If you didn’t like the Snowboarder clothes I bet you hate the Norwegian and Denmark uniforms… http://penguinsix.com/2010/02/18/norway-curling-pants-the-hottest-thing-on-ice/
I would complain that Comcast and NBC could have provided the hockey game on a channel that is in Hi-Def…at least in the Indy market MSNBC and CNBC are standard def.
Moe: great news!
-daron
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Deborah said on February 22, 2010 at 7:33 pm
Great news Moe!
I have nothing to add to the Olympics talk except to say that I haven’t watched one minute of any of it.
Nancy, I love meandering through an old cemetery. I’ve been to some great ones, like Pere LaChaise in Paris and Graceland in Chicago.
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brian stouder said on February 22, 2010 at 8:02 pm
I’ve dragged Pam onto a number of National Cemetaries, including at Gettysburg and Shiloh and Chickamauga. An especially striking one is at Andersonville, Georgia; we visited there seven years ago, and there were soldiers’ graves that were only days old, with temporary paper markers.
I think it was in Garry Wills marvelous book about Lincoln at Gettysburg where I first learned about the whole 19th century approach to cemetaries as inviting, peaceful park spaces intended for people to visit and picnic within, on any given Sunday (for example). Grand old cemetaries do seem to have stories to tell, and if you look around, they will share them.
One thing about old time dead celebrities that has struck me several times, is that they seemed to move around a lot! Stonewall Jackson’s remains moved three times; President Lincoln’s moved around a few times, as did his assassin’s bones.
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moe99 said on February 22, 2010 at 8:13 pm
I try to visit Pere LeChaise every time I visit Paris, and both Lexington, KY and Seattle have very interesting older cemetaries. In Lexington the Catholic cemetery is right across from the larger and much wealthier Protestant cemetery. In Seattle, the Japanese and Chinese plots are in separate, distinct sections of the cemetery.
Also, has any one else read Edgar Lee Masters’ Spoon River Anthology? It helped develop my fascination with times gone by.
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coozledad said on February 22, 2010 at 8:24 pm
Moe: We did Spoon River Anthology when I was in high school. The big conceit was no one moved a muscle before or after it was their turn to speak. Several of the decedents forgot not to lock their knees and fell off of the rostrum before it was their turn. One of my “sideburns” let go toward the end of my spiel and was hanging off the side of my face.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on February 22, 2010 at 10:37 pm
I used to get “Spoon River” and Thornton Wilder’s “Our Town” confused in my recollections.
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Joe Kobiela said on February 22, 2010 at 11:14 pm
One thing to remember about some of these sports in the winter Olympics,they are special to the people that play them, yea curling is only heard about once every four years but to the participants it is the end of a life long dream to compeat. I challenge anyone on this board to try and play this sport let alone be good enough to represent your country in it. Or perhaps try the bi-athalone, try sprinting on skies and then being able to be calm enough to shoot at a target. I bet Ms.Nall would love to ride horses in the summer Olympics. How many of you would trash talk her sport. Is the rider the athlete or the horse?
Pilot Joe
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Denice B. said on February 23, 2010 at 12:48 am
I have been to Elmwood. Try a walk there in the fall. The trees are beautiful. Visit the Civil War area where the ‘Colored Troops’ from the area were buried. During Memorial Day weekend each grave is decorated with a flag in memory of their sacrifice. They have maps in the office for self tours of the cemetery. Coleman Young’s black granite tomb is the only thing of it’s kind in the whole place!
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Dexter said on February 23, 2010 at 12:50 am
derwood: Bingo. You touched the nerve. Hockey on standard def is nothing like hockey viewed in hi-def. People, and not just hockey fans, just Olympic fans, were complaining on the call-in shows about the msnbc scheduling.
This blindsided me, because it was just a preliminary match…I had no idea it meant so much to either team or nation. They could play again. I have already blocked off time to watch the Gold Medal game Sunday afternoon.
A very nice piece is available on nbc olympic coverage online showing all the goals scored Sunday. I found it and now I feel a little better because of all the people saying this was the best game they ever saw and all that.
I am a Red Wings fan and I have seen many intense NHL playoff games over the years, so I still don’t feel like I missed the game of the century.
Still, not showing the game on a hi-def channel is just inexcusable. I am not such a fanatic that I need hi-def to appreciate a game, but I enjoy it a lot more in hi-def, no doubt.
Tonight I flipped between ice dancing and curling. Curling won me over tonight, and I watched the stones crashing into each other , a giant tub of Whirly-Pop corn on my lap, and a cold 2-liter of diet soda on the coffee table. I don’t think I can stand much more Olympics and it’s only Tuesday.
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Dorothy said on February 23, 2010 at 7:51 am
I read some of these comments but when I got to Moe’s good news, I just rolled down the page to give a big cheer for Moe’s excellent news! We’re on vacation in Venice Florida and I just had to surface long enough to say hurrah to Moe and I hope my prayers have helped just a little in that direction.
Oh – and count me among those who love cemetery strolls. The first house we lived in was on Harrison Road in Wilkins Township. A cemetery was at the top of the road, and we walked out dogs Dublin and Peanut behind the cemetery frequently, not meandering between headstones or anything like that, and always cleaned up after them. And when our kids were little we took them up there to a really great spot on the side where there were no headstones to go sled riding. Good memories all the way around.
Beside that cemetery was a small Jewish cemetery that was gated. But it’s most famous resident was Allison Krauss, who was one of the four killed at Kent State in 1970. We could see her headstone clearly and it always made me sad no matter how many times I walked past it.
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Jen said on February 23, 2010 at 8:43 am
I was at work Sunday night, and we only get the networks on the antenna, so we had to watch ice dancing and missed the hockey game. It sucked, because all of us liked hockey a heck of a lot better.
I haven’t been watching a lot of the Olympics this year, but I watched a lot of the Torino Olympics because my roommates at the time were obsessed. Yeah, some of the sports are silly, but I’m always impressed by people who are the best of the best in their sports. Curling is like bowling to me – it’s something that you can do while drinking beer, but the people who are in the Olympics obviously have spent a lot of time working to get as good as they are. I’m impressed by people who can bowl perfect games, too, considering that I don’t always break 100, and that’s after taking a bowling class in college!
Now, the constant inspirational stories do annoy me – if I’m going to watch sports, I just want to watch sports. Just present the competition and some good commentary to tell me what, exactly, I’m seeing and what it means for the competition. It’s like the difference between watch NFL football on one of the American networks, and watching rugby on BBC America. On BBC, they just show the game – no commercial breaks, no football-playing robot graphic, no goofy crap. Just the game with a couple of good commentators. Give me that for the Olympics, too.
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MichaelG said on February 23, 2010 at 8:44 am
Ease up MarkH? That was a joke though you obviously didn’t understand that. I guessed that Brian had something else in mind though I no idea what. I’m sure he was aware that there was nothing malicious pointed at him in the post. And I had never heard of that game. You have to wonder who dreams that stuff up.
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