SPECIAL OLYMPIC EDITION!!

For someone who generally doesn’t give a whit about sports, I always seem to get Olympic Fever (hopefully it won’t develop into Olympic Sepsis, or I might wind up Olympic Dead). But I just can’t tear myself away from 24 hours of prerecorded, anticlimactic coverage…really! I was up half the night watching four different channels of Olympic glory. Even when I don’t know what’s going on: sometimes the last speed skater is actually in the lead; sometimes a tricky maneuver—that looked perfect to me—is lambasted by the commentators; and is it just me, or doesn’t the ski jump just look really, really easy?

That said, there are a few things that I just can’t get past…

NEVE and GLIZ... These guys, pictured below, are this year’s mascots: “Snow” and “Ice” (how original). As with every Olympic Mascot over the years, I find them deeply disturbing. I also think that the Campfire Marshmallow Company has a valid copyright infringement suit, given their striking similarity to classic advertising icon "Campy" (who, by the way, is clearly gay):




BIATHALON... Ski. Shoot stuff. Ski some more. Shoot more stuff. Who came up with this one, Dick Cheney? Why not make it a Triathalon and add in some bowling?!

LUGE... This sport just seems embarrassing for all involved. The lugers (is that a word?) wear uncomfortable bodysuits that “show off their gingerbread and everything”. And, for some reason, I feel uncomfortable watching it.

FIGURE SKATING... Come on, people. We're supposed to call you athletes? PUT THE BEADAZZLER DOWN. And here's another way to make this sport more exciting: Snipers! Put 'em up in the stands. If you mess up a jump, they take you down with one clean shot (they can be trained by Dick Cheney). And to keep the tension, excitement, and drama growing, the next skaters would have to skate around the ones who had been shot.

CURLING... This is like watching shuffleboard, only in slow motion to preclude any hint of excitement. Rocks, brooms, ice, and paint? Who came up with this in the first place? The same drunken idiot who invented the biathalon?!

SKELETON... Huh?

"TORINO”... Ooh-la-la…What ever happened to “Turin”?! News outlets have been taking sides: the New York Times (sticklers for tradition) is going with “Turin”, while NBC has elected to use the native “Torino”. They think it sounds “more exotic” than "Turin", a city generally associated only with heavy industry and a famous shmatte.

And finally, because so much has been said already… With all due respect to usual faves Jon Stewart or David Letterman, I think that Jimmy Kimmel got it best: “You know what they say, if Dick Cheney comes out of his hole and shoots an old man in the face, it's six more weeks of winter.”