Showing posts with label curling. Show all posts
Showing posts with label curling. Show all posts

Thursday, February 25, 2010

The Obligatory Olympics Post

We attempted to watch the Olympics last night, but it didn't go over very well. I know everyone seems to have been struck w/ a nasty case of Olympics-fever, but I just don't get it. I like that the world can come together & celebrate this, I dig sports, I even dig some of the sports in the Olympics, but I just can't watch. For one, some many of the sports seem fake. Not fake like pro-wrestling, but not real sports. Bobsled, luge biathlon... who does this? They seem invented just for the Olympics. Why not include more sports in which real people actually participate like dog-sled or snowmobile racing. Stephanie was wondering how someone becomes an Olympic bobsledder... & we couldn't really figure it out. It must just be that mediocre athletes from other sports get recruited to be stars in a field that no one else ever considered. And then the luge people must just be frustrated bobsledders & the skeleton people must in turn be frustrated lugers.

Conversely, these are ironically the sports I prefer to watch. Of course, I like curling & the skiing events too, but that leads us to the 2nd problem. I hate the way it's covered on TV. We get 4 hour blocks of random shit w/ no clear knowledge of what will be on when. Which then means we have to sit through the random shit for hours before getting 20 minutes of curling or downhill skiing. Many of those hours seem dedicated to figure skating. I know that's what the audience wants (although I have no idea why) & I know that those kids have spent 8 of their 12 years on the planet training for this, but I just don't care. Clearly, it's not a made-up sport like skeleton, but it just doesn't do it for me. And neither does hockey which people often think is weird since I love soccer & hockey & soccer are so similar. I just don't enjoy it though.

My final issue concerns the fact that while I'm trying to watch curling or skiing, I have to suffer through those fluff pieces for 20 minutes. I don't care that Alberto Tomba's cat died when he was 12 or that Hans Brinker lost his inspirational grandfather who had bought him his silver skates. Just make w/ the fucking curling already! That said, you can order your replica Norweigan National Curling Pants here! Order placed baby!