OLYMPIC FEVER--PART 2

"Magical deeds are afoot, Dear Readers,  magical deeds"...(seriously, I will get past the Wizard People, Dear Readers references at some point. There are just so darn many of them...and they are great) "Harry made a mental note...I assure you, the mental notes are stacking up..."

After enjoying a fine, fine weekend at Notre Dame celebrating Junior Parents Weekend with young Jack and his pals, I am back, hitting the blog again.  Just a very quick aside about JPW in particular and the blog in general.  First, to all the ND students who made the weekend so terrific--Thank you.  And a big shout out to Nick Turner, Matt Kelly and their housemates for opening your lovely home for a true celebration of all that it means to be a Junior at Notre Dame.  Sweet Notre Dame table, by the by. I hope it will be bequeathed to Jack McKeon at the end of your Notre Dame careers.  And who knew Skinny Dave and young Jack could compete so mightily in the beer pong match of the century? Well done all the way around.  I tip my invisible hat to the Somich men.  Valiant effort.

Next, about the blog--I cannot tell you just how delighted I am that people actually read this blog.  I mean it. Every day I am stunned, surprised and amazed that anyone (even those related to me) read this stuff. However, because of some totally deep seeded psychological oddness on my part (It's me...it's not you), whenever anyone comes up to me and says: "Hey, I like the blog!" (which is a perfectly normal and actually very nice thing to say) I turn into a stumbling, inarticulate idiot.  I know.  I can feel it (and I'm sure you can feel it too,) it's so, so awkward...("This guy, this guy is an ape armed, aped legged awkward..."  Drunk history reference about Abe Lincoln, so at least I'm in good company) Seriously. I am rarely at a loss for words, but when people want to chat up the blog, I get all tongue tied and can't complete a coherent sentence. (Just ask that really nice girl named Mary at JPW--sorry, Mary, I'm a freak)

I've spent some time analyzing this and this may be why: 1. I think people expect me to say something funny or clever, when they meet me (which I'm sure is totally untrue--people are just trying to be nice, but I FEEL like it's true--told you I was mental) and it makes me panic, so I stutter out some unintelligible comments like :"Thanks" "My sons are shidiots" "And I'm sorry." all at the same time.  It's so stupid on  my part, but I can't help it. Let's all be perfectly clear here: I am way funnier on paper than I am in person. I'm not sure why, but it's totally true, so when you speak to me, in real life--I've got nothing--literally nothing to say.  (except the above 3 comments) 2. Most of you know way more about me--because of this free form, no filter blog-- than I will ever know about you, so I'm at a bit of a disadvantage--so again, I just kind of stutter, and think "Oh, shit, what did I say in that damn blog??" . 3. And finally--and this makes NO sense at all, but it's true--When people say: "Hey, read the blog" or whatever, it finally dawns on me that all the stupid, stupid shit I write is being read--by LIVE people.. real humans who may actually cross my path in REAL life.  And then I'm just embarrassed because I really probably should be, you know?

 So, if you don't mind, let's have the vast majority of blog related conversations take place in the blogosphere, (i.e. comment on the blog, please) where I am smart, witty and clever. If you do happen to see me in person (warning--I look way older than you would think, given my vocabulary and sophomoric taste in youtube clips AND I have a five head going on--five head= very large forehead, so just be forewarned--spoiler alert--soon and very soon, I will be blogging on whether or not I should get some bangs...) here's the deal: You don't have to say one, hot, thing about the blog, EVER but if you do bring it up, I will say "Thanks!" or "I'm sorry" and then we must totally move on to another topic,  hopefully about YOU, not me..

To make up for being such an inarticulate loser, here is another BIG head picture of Nate:

.

Now back to the stuff that really matters--USA dominance and the Sochi Winter Olympics. The Olympics, with all their glory and majesty, are in full swing and many, many great moments have happened since I last posted.  Sure, those Ice Dancers got a gold, (it was pretty awesome), but here are a few pieces of Olympic magic that caught my eye :

1. Bob Costas is back.  And he appears to have two functioning eyes. (Darn it...I was kind of hoping for an ongoing cyclops thing, just to give me something to focus on). Welcome back, Bob. http://hollywoodlife.com/2014/02/17/bob-costas-pink-eye-returns-nbc-olympic-coverage/  Syanora, Matt. And shave, next time. please.

2. Two man luge--this is an event for the ages.  I'm still baffled about how the luge even became an actual Olympic event, (looked it up on the interweb, but really found no good explanation...) but then to add two dudes to the luge?? That's crazy. This looks so much like something that would take place in my backyard after a long night at the Wooden Nickel that I can hardly stand it. Who thought this up? and what's next?   Having the cylcers in the summer Olympics ride a partner on the handle bars? It's super ugly, but I kind of love it.

3. Team Luge--How did this event slip under the radar??? Seriously, team luge relay should have gotten WAY more play. Did you see it? It's a total riot.  I swear, I'm the only one who watched it so people think I am making this event up, but it is for real: Here's how it works--the best female luger takes off from this gate that opens up, then she shoots down the track and hits this flap that hangs down at the finish line, this then triggers that gate to reopen and the best guy luger takes off, zips down, hits the pad again and then the men's double luge dudes takes off and once they cross the finish line, it's done. I'm not explaining it well, so here is more info from the always popular Entertainment Weekly. Yes, Team Luge Relay  is so goddamn entertaining that it's covered by Entertainment Weekly:
http://popwatch.ew.com/2014/02/13/olympics-luge-team-relay/

4. Women's Skeleton winner--Ok, Nicole Pikus-Pace is the true Olympic sensation. (Please, NBC, stop trying to make it be all about those figure skaters...I know Gracie Gold is really cute and has an awesome last name, but Nicole is the real deal) Hooray for her for bringing home our first medal in skeleton (whatever the hell that really is) AND having two kids, a husband, a normal attitude. and that very sweet commercial. I kind of love her.

5. Sports we made up 10 years ago that we no longer dominate.    Until this year, the US has won more snowboarding medals than any other nation. But I fear we are losing our hipster edge.  In the 2002, 2006 and the 2010 Olympics, the US won 10 of 12 possible medals in the men's half pipe.  This year we won ZERO! (aced out by the Japanese?? really??) However, good old American ingenuity to the rescue (see below)

6. New Sports the USA invented, aced into the Olympics and then ruled:--Let's face it. We will NEVER win a nordic anything (And as a nation slightly rabid about the second Amendment, we should be way better at the biathlon....), we totally suck at speed skating this year (nice job, Under Armor and Lockheed Martin with your stupid, fancy suits--see below) and we've lost our edge in the half pipe--(sad to see you go, Flying Tomato) so thank God for all the baggy pants slackers who keep inventing new Winter Olympic sports,  Because we are KILLING it in these new school events. Eleven of the 23 US Olympic medals have come in free style skiing and snowboarding, so thank you, Jeff Spicolli, the unacknowledged and unheralded godfather of all of these free styling youngsters (except David Wise) who are making things happen in Sochi.

7. Russian Hockey Team.  I actually kind of feel sorry for the Russian Hockey Team.  They were bounced out of competition today and you just know that Putin is PISSED! First, Russia had that weird goal called back on Saturday against the US because of a net issue and then, they lose to Finland! Russia really doesn't give a crap about all those figure skating medals--(and their best figure skating dude (who is a Patrick Doyle doppelganger) pulled out with a bad back--pussy) They were all about the hockey gold and now, they are out of the hockey competition and crying in their borscht. Here is a little quote from the Russian Olympic Hockey coach when asked if he was going to stay to see the rest of the Olympics:

"Well, I want to stay" he said "but that is probably a question to be answered by somebody else"  Yeah, like the KGB sniper squad...

8. Two Wardrobe Malfunctions:  Oh, I so love this.  The US had Under Armour and Lockheed Martin make these special Mach 39 fancy, high tech skating suits, touted as "the fastest speed skating suits in the world" but the US skaters never tested these suits in competition because we were sure some one was going to steal the super secret NASA speed skating suit technology.  Well, zero medals later, we've ditched the suits and....we still suck.  In other news, a Russian speed skater who actually won a bronze medal almost stripped off her non NASA suit forgetting that she had nothing on underneath it.  Yikes!

9. My boy Jeremy Abbott--super nice of him to get that nasty fall during his long program out of the way early. I knew it was going to happen, I just wasn't sure when, so I really appreciate Jeremy wiping out on his VERY first jump.  BOOM goes the dynamite indeed. This is my Christmas. Really it is.

10. Olympic Carpet baggers-As the mother of the future Ecuadorean Curling Team, I have NO problem with people bogarting their way into the Olympics.  For the most part, they are not taking any medals away from legitimate contenders (except for that speed skating guy from South Korea who changed his name to Vicktor and won two medals for Russia) and are just hoping for the Olympic experience. ( BTW, Canada has the most fake "citizens" competing for them--surprising to me) but poor Gary and Angelica Di Silvestri, who live in New York and are US and Italian citizens respectively. The Di Silvestris were allowed to compete for Dominica based on some sort of philanthropic gesture they made in Dominica, and are Dominicas first ever Olympic athletes.  Well, it was all downhill for Gary and Ang, as neither was able to actually compete in Sochi...Gary got some stomach bug (probably drank the water) and skied only 300 meters before he collapsed and Angelica couldn't even start the cross country skiing, as she fell during practice and broke her nose.  Dang, talk about some carpet bagging karma. Sorry.  I couldn't find a picture of them post broken nose and stomach bug. but here's all I've got!

Once again, no top ten tonight because there are already ten things listed in this post.  I've done my job. Now, it's up to you.

"Everyone who does not suck begins to clap each other on the back and smile" (final Dear Readers reference...for today...)

The End