Olympics part 3, closing remarks

Ok, so the witty title or tag never really came, but whatevs. Frankly i was more interested in watching the games and admiring athletic prowess than talking about it. Do you know why? Cos I'm a do-er, not a talker.

I do things like watch the games on TV. end.

But there was some pretty awesome stuff going on. Skeleton and Luge were still exciting, despite the efforts of mr. no-fun-pants from georgia (poor taste, moving on). Bobsled remained the most boring of the sledding sports, largely because there was no John Candy coached team from Jamaica. Frankly I have a hard time following any bobsledder not named Doug E Fresh.

Snowboarding, meh. Ski-cross -- awesome. And mr. I-used-to-be-an-alcoholic biffed in the final to come in 4th, out of 4, to not medal.

Buddha Miller finally had a good games. Vonn took the cheese off her shin long enough to medal as well, though she may have screwed up her teammate. -- Oh, and Chris Collinsworth, please know what you're talking about before you say it. "I still think they should separate anyone that has a chance of medalling and have them running the track by themselves" (in reference to 2 skiiers being on the track, Vonn crashing and causing fellow american to restart) -- well they do usually do that, but if you watched it, you would also notice the huge amounts of fog and all together poor weather conditions. Hmmm, could this cause any sort of delay? Yeah, I think it did. Long delay = 2 runners on the track regardless of quality. And if theyre the best skiiers, shouldn't the threat of crashes be smaller? Thought so.

Crosby won a gold for hockey on the 25th, then managed to get on canada's other roster to score the game winning goal over america in ot to get them the gold. Dunno how that happenned. BTW, same medal order for both genders of hockey -- Canada, USA, Finland.

Biathalon, fun.

Figure skating, hate to agree with lyceck or whatevs, but the score for the long program is not based off one jump (which less than a handful of skaters can do) but off the whole program, you know, actual skating, transitions, spins, little jumps, putting something cohesive together. I didnt watch either, cos I don't really care about figure skating, but you got to look at everything when you're judging it, not one damn trick. You can't win a dive meet by simply having a really high DD. It doesn't work that way, you have to execute.

Moving on.

Curling's not a sport.

Moving on.

Canada finished with the most golds, making them the victors by some counts. They finished 3rd in overrall medals, coming after USA and Germany with 26 (14 Gold, 7 Silver, 5 Bronze). That's well short of the mythical "40" goal they were going for, but maybe canadians are just too nice to be that ultra competitive. Not to mention they had little to no balance. They had decent bob sledding, but they couldn't luge or skeleton for shit. Good on freestyle skiing, but not on any other kind of skiing. Good but not awesome in either short or long track speed skating. If one is to "win" the winter olympics, they need a solid presence in alpine skiing and sledding. They did not have that.

America passed it's single winter olympics medal count record with 37 (9 Gold, 15 Silver, 13 Bronze). They had 34 when they hosted the games in Salt Lake City in 02. Unless they add alot more events, I think 40 may remain a mythic number for the winter games.

-- Knuttel

Olympics part 2

Yeah, still no cool title or tags or anything, but I was bored and decided to write a poem/song for the Olympic committee to use, cos it was extremely obvious that the worst songs at the opening ceremony were all the "Olympic" songs.

without further ado

--
Perched atop Olympus,
mighty eagles soar.
The gods are seated at their court
telling tales of yore

Mighty Zeus smashes down a bolt of lightning
Fires rage as mortal men are scattering

And there to save a fellow man
is the first of these mortal Olympians

with the speed and agility of Hermes,
he brings a message of hope to those trapped

with the might of the titans,
he lefts them to safety

with the savagery of Ares
he is reckless in his rescue quest

with the wit of Athena
he saves them all; and himself

And so...
they grew
Olympians to two
To see who was the best
they set themselves a test
and the winner...
he shall find
glory for all time

Sieze the Flame
Oympic Games

THE ASSASSIN STRIKES IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT
HE'LL TAKE YOUR LIFE BEFORE YOU CAN SCREAM

Day turns to night
as night goes to weeks
continuing forever
this fire of which we speak

From every corner of the world
that mighty atlas holds
these competitors come forward;
they brave, they bold

Sieze the Flame
Olympic Games

--

So there you go. the Olympic committee should definitely adopt it for the 2012 games. I think it may be too late for the ones currently running.

Canada got its first "home" gold medal ... ever... in Mens moguls, after coming extremely close in women's moguls the day before.

Germany took 1 and 2 in the luge. An old Italian veteran, and 2 time defending gold medalist, took the bronze. Thus it continues, no one messes with the alps in sledding events.

There was also some good biathalon-ing going on, with France taking the gold, and an American taking the highest position ever for an American in any biathalon event. He didn't place, but he was in the top 10.

-- Knuttel

Olympics time

So, since I'm really not doing anything else, I'm thinking maybe I should cover the 2010 Winter Olympics. This is not entirely without precedent, as I previously did this with the Euro 2008 soccer tournament. I may have also bitched about diving in some regard for the summer olympics of that year, but I really don't feel like looking that up.

First things first
- The opening ceremony
--Parts of the actual opening weren't bad if you were willing to stay still for no less then 6 hours. Parts were bizarre. Parts included a slam poet (big mistake, dude was rocking a big ass neck beard). Other parts didn't work. -- The indoor cauldron for the actual lighting ceremony had technical difficulties.

Yeah, after several hours of everything working fine, and everything requiring a very high level of technicality, the one moment that actually mattered failed.

HOW DARE YOU KEEP THE GREAT ONE WAITING AS SUCH!

-Whistler
--This was all after the highly publicized luge accident on the sled course. A certain Georgian (the place Stalin was from) Olympian was training on the course when he rounded the harrowing 13th turn, flew off the course and had his neck snapped by a un-padded and unobstructed steel support beam.

Unfortunately, it raises more questions than it answers.
-Why was the track built backwards (looping turns up top, sharp turns at the bottom being hit at full speed)?
-Why wasn't the track fixed in some regard after already having a short history of accidents -- it was either the 08 or 09 world cup in Vancouver that was racked with sledding accidents, in practice and in competition?
-Why were the steel support beams exposed coming right off that turn?
-Why didn't the Canadians let the other sledders use the track more in practice leading up the the games (alot of the sledding and skiing courses were kept off limits to non-Canadians prior).

But the games must go on. ... minus two Georgians ... his teammate left the games in grief.

And on the first day of actual events, are qualifying runs for Mens Luge!!!!

-The Alpine nations again dominated.
-The starting point of the track was moved up to the starting point used for womens and doubles luge, which shortens it to a point where they're only going 85-90 mph at the bottom instead of 95-100.
-A swiss luger lost control on the 11th turn (I think that's equivalent to the 13th turn the Georgian had problems with) and almost fell off his sled. He somehow managed to regain control, get fully back onto the sled, and actually post a time to finish the race.
skill

And for the record, it wasn't just novice lugers, or lower tier lugers who get weeded out and only go to the games to show up that were having problems, nay, it too affected the top level atheletes of the sport.

Also today was Womens Moguls, where an American placed first, and Canadian second, and fifth.

Short track speed skating had an event, as well as a relay event. A trio of Koreans was looking to sweep the medals for that particular singles short track, as the one in second place wiped out, taking number 3 with him. This left two Americans to pull second and third, silver going to Olympic veteran Apolo Anton Ono.

There was also normal ski jump (the shorter one), and a biathalon event, though I missed em. Kinda a shame, cos I like biathalon. I propose for the next games they mix shooting and downhill skiing for a biathalon event, to complement the shooting and cross country skiing biathalons that occur now.



-That seems good for now. Since it's almost 4 in the morning I don't feel like putting any pictures or videos or anything up. Next olympic post should have a witty title/graphic, and this post will likely be retro-tagged thusly.

Until then, happy lupercalia everybody!!

-- Knuttel

Dave Jr: back in Megadeth

Dave (Jr) Ellefson has made his return to the thrash metal band Megadeth. He was a founding member of the band, along with Dave (Sr) Mustaine, and remained with the band until Mustaine broke up the band due to an injury that was likely to prevent him from further playing in 2002. Mustaine re-formed the band in 2004 after getting over said injury, and due to tensions between the two, Ellefson decided not to be a part of this. Iced Earth bassist James Macdonaugh joined the band initially to replace him for the upcoming tour. In 2006 Macdonaugh and Mustaine parted ways due to personal differences, and he was replaced by versaitle bassist James Lomenzo (White Lion, Pride & Glory, David Lee Roth, Ozzy, Black Label Society). Lomenzo recorded two albums with Megadeth (United Abominations, Endgame) before Ellefson decided to come back to Megadeth a few days ago.

The story on their website


and now, one of the classic Dave Jr basslines. "Peace Sells" originally appeared as part of the highly influential second album of Megadeth Peace Sells ... But Who's Buying and gained further notoriety by becoming the theme music for MTV News for over a decade.




-- Knuttel

Article

Psychologists are trying to take over the country.

I might put up a rant about this later, but I'm kinda tired and angry. damn blizzard.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/10/AR2010021000009.html?wpisrc=nl_headline



-- Knuttel