Loo-Gie

Now the US is in 6^th place in the medal count as of this writing.

One of our winter Olympic heroes, Shaun White, finished in 4^th place in the Halfpipe ending his chance to be the first American to win gold in an event in three straight Olympics. That will leave speed skater Shani Davis the remaining hope for that particular achievement.

I have to wonder what the 4^th place finish will do for White. He has an estimated net worth of 20 million dollars now, of course coming from endorsement deals. But now that he passed up competing in the Slopestyle and bombing in Halfpipe, does that revenue stream dry up for him? I think he still may have another event to go but if he fails to win Gold there and I’m a businessman looking to use him to endorse something I’m thinking that I have a potential bargaining chip right there that could secure his services for a whole lot less.

A friend of mine and I are now thinking about getting a Curling team together for 2016. We are both hooked…for different reasons, but still we are getting in it. He wants to be part of it because he is a great bowler and after watching some of it understands the game better.

Here is why I am hooked…

Anna Sidorova

Oops. Just got word the Shani Davis is back at bargain rates for promotional work now also.

We did finally get a medal in the sled competition. (Luge to be precise...pronounced LOO-GIE in my house.) 

Erin Hamlin became the first US luger (LOOGY ER) to win an individual medal in this event. That's pretty awesome. We finally found someone who can sit in a sled and go downhill very fast.

I was having a debate on a recent Dungeon of Manlove taping about the Olympics. I asked the following question, “What do you think is the over/under number for arrests made by Russian authorities for gayness at the figure skating competition? My number is 3.”

While clearly tongue in cheek, our resident gay cast member, Chinky Twinky….lol…its his own nickname, took offense. Why, suddenly, this particular topic hit home, but nonetheless it did.

He said not all figure skaters were gay, which…I think…is obvious.

But one of the other guys around the table said we never see anyone like Marshal figure skating to which CT said, “But there are all sorts of big guys like Marshal who **** it in *** *** $%$%$%.” To which I said, “Leave the name Marshal out of this conversation and give me a number.”

CT went on to argue that figure skating was a great sport and that I could never do a triple axel.

That much is true. Because I could never see how it was possible to squeeze my 250 lb body into anything like this….

And if I did there would be a massive fabric explosion that would give wardrobe malfunctioning a whole brand new meaning.

Yes, we all know that all male figures aren’t gay….right?

Yes, we all know that it takes years and years of practice and that we send the best our country can produce to compete.

Yes, we know that Russian authorities only arrest those who propagandize gayness to children, or something like that. 

But then we found out why CT was so defensive when he said, “Hey buttmunch, I was a figure skater when I was a kid.”

Up my over/number to 4.

Done

Festering Plague

At the Sochi Winter Olympics, at the moment, the USA stands in 4^th place in total medals. 

I’m not sure if that’s good or bad. Considering colder weather nations like Canada, Netherlands and Norway are ahead of us, I think it’s a good showing so far.

One wonders about Sweden, however, which is a cold-weather country too. They only have 2 medals. But then I go back to the opening ceremonies and recall all of those hot blond women walking into the stadium and it makes more sense. The Swedes have a lot of other things to do besides train to ride a sled. 

Four of our medals are in events that weren’t even in the Winter Games 20 years ago or so like Snowboarding and Freestyle Skiing. But leave to our ingenuity in this country to create new events, get a head start on other countries and get real good at them, market them and then petition to get them in the Games. 

 

I still can’t figure out how we can’t find people to sit in a sled and go real fast down a hill to win some medals and how certain countries excel at that. Is there some sort of social commentary to make about that?

Bob Costas’s eyes are getting worse. First there was some nasty plague growing in his left eye and now it’s migrated to his right eye and is festering in there. I don’t wish anyone ill will however since I have a dark sense of humor I would find it funny to watch him deteriorate and basically melt over the course of the next two weeks.

I’m still crossing my fingers that they won’t allow him back in the US. 

I was listening to someone criticize NBC for its coverage of the Opening Ceremonies. Russia celebrated its history, naturally, that included nods to time when Russia was part of the Soviet Union. The criticism was that the announcers were embracing those parts of the presentation. 

I know NBC is filled with a bunch of people who do romanticize Collectivism and Communism (which are the same for those who try to push that crap on us or who fall for that) but to be fair they had to read what was given them to read. It was the same way in China. 

Were they allowed to make commentary in any way? I think probably not. It would have been rude to do so anyway. These are Russia’s games and they won the right to have them and propagandize all they want. The Russians should just be happy that NBC is the broadcast network and they do have many sympathizers stateside. So, no, it was wrong to bash NBC for that.

Just bash Costas for attempting to stir political controversy on day one. 

And this....

...is just because

Done

Brighten These Games

The Sochi Winter Olympics will change my behaviors for the next couple of weeks. 

I am a geek for the Olympics, both the Summer and Winter versions. I am one of those who was very grateful that a decision was made in the late 90’s to alternate them every two years.

NBC has the broadcasting rights again. The technological advances in the field of television makes a sports fan like me very happy. High Definition, super slow motion, views of every angle and of every single play are exactly what I need.

What I don’t need is this douche bag Bob Costas in the anchor room, or anywhere near a microphone any more. 

Within the first minute of the prime-time broadcast last night he launches into a political commentary about Vladimir Putin, Russian politics and the “human rights” issues raised because Russia is pretty anti-gay. 

Costas is only knowledgeable about sports because he somehow managed to land a job in the field. But his knowledge isn’t all that great in it anyway. But to hear him opine about anything else during a sports contest, which was created to bring people from all countries together, is offensive and I really don’t care what side he takes.

Midway through to show he literally had to scrape around finish lines to find evidence that there were athletes protesting in some way. At the end of a snowboard run a Russian competitor pointed to a picture painted on the bottom of his snowboard. This painting is supposedly associated with a Russian band called the Pussy Bandits…or Pussy Runners…or Pussy Riot or something like that, a group which is in jail for singing about political issues. (Seriously, don’t hold me to the facts; I’m not researching it.)

Even though Sochi is 9 hours ahead of EDT, he does the segment like it’s a special breaking news announcement to proclaim that, “The first athlete protest of the games may have taken place already!”

Here is the actual "protest."

There is potential good news on the Costas front though. He has a real bad case of what looks like pink eye and I noticed it right away and just seconds before he addressed it. 

Perhaps, oh just perhaps (and if we pray hard) he’ll get quarantined in a Siberian hospice care center for the next ten years and we can get a new anchor for the 2016, 18, 20, 22 and 24 Olympic Games.

Maybe he just took "a shot" in the eye prior to airtime trying to prove he was open-minded and not anti-gay.

Prior to turning on coverage last night, I watched some previews on my Comcast On Demand system. Finally, for the $150 per month I pay for cable TV, I can say that my bill is worth it. I’ll get to see just about everything I want on it. I decided to take a look at the US Trials for curling.

I watched the first game between the two women’s finalists and it was even more boring than I thought. But then one of the play-by-play guys woke me up when he said, “There is going to be a little danger in this shot!” I sat on the edge of my chair to see if maybe a new rule about sweeper tackling, or mine fields, or even a rock throw at over 1.5 miles per hour was now in play.

The Dangers of Curling

But, no such luck. I got to complete my nap a little irritated about the blatant hyperbole.

We did get to see a great deal of action though and very few personal profiles which, it seems, may have finally gotten pushed to the back burners of programming for these shows. We saw Women’s Moguls, Slopestyle, a new event, for men and women and, of course, figure skating. 

Now we have to deal with TEAM figure skating this year, which doesn’t really please me so much, but since there are other ways to catch what I really want to see, I’m not going to complain about it except to say one particular thing. Out of 360,000,000 Americans we sent a total of 230 athletes (minus however many curlers there are because they aren’t athletes) and only a handful of figure skaters. The very first guy we sent out there fell on his ass trying to land a quadruple (which I certainly would have done but everyone else on the ice seemed to do it easily enough) and then did a single (which I could learn to do in 2 days) when he was supposed to do a triple. Out of the ten teams that there seem to be in the team competition we are 7^th after the first day.

USA's Jeremy Abbott going for Gold

This performance was about as bad as any we have ever seen on the ice in this sport. I was left with my mouth open in shock. 

Ok, maybe it was open because I was in and out of sleep and drooling while watching men dance on ice in tights, but the performance was still bad.

I couldn’t help but wonder what a potential over/under bet might be for arrests by Russian authorities for acts of gayness on the ice rink during these games. 

I am going with 6 and there had to be at least one last night. (And if there were arrests for horrible skating our team would be down one man.)

So far there are plenty of great reasons to watch the games just for physical female hotness too and its just day one. I won’t even mention the ice skaters yet (since I wasn’t paying close attention when it was airing) but will later.

Over to Women’s Moguls and Slopestyle (spell check does not like that word) competition and I’ll work from Bronze medal to Gold medal for day one.

In third place for the evening are the Dufour-LaPointe sister, Maxime, Chloe and Justine from Canada.

Well played, northern friends, well played.

The Silver medal for Day One hotness goes to Norway’s Silje Norendal.

Oh yeah!

The Gold goes to…good grief, is it too late to start snowboarding…(Besides the fact that at 52 years of age and with a diminished bank account its too late to date a 27-year-old…) Australia’s Torah Bright.

Wow, just…wow. 

Brighten the Games!

That will do it for today. I am about to go suffer through watching Savannah Guthrie make a fool of her family and the NBC network with her “amazing background pieces” of Russian culture. 

She is cringe worthy at worst, fodder for witty banter at best.

Notebook is in hand.

Done