the winter borympics

is it just me or have the olympics--both summer and winter--become so dull that we'd rather watch a three-toed sloth sleep in a bucket of slow-drying glue than watch this "grandest" of all sports spectacles?

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i mean, the stories in this year's borympics have bordered on being homicidally boring. now, let me qualify this with an admission: i started to become immune to the borympics about a decade or more ago; i can't say i've had more than a passing interest in the borympics since the '92 barcelona games. since that time, the only sport in winter's borympics that has me even remotely pausing in the sports section to inspect has been men's ice hockey--and it's still true in this year's "cloud of turin" borympics:

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short track speedskating (so popular here in korea)? give me a break. it's more fun to watch elementary school kids fall down stairs.

figure skating of any kind? you must be joking. watch a sport that makes the 2000 u.s. presidential election look legal and fair?

any sort of skiing? surely, you jest. grant support to a sport in which routinely only upper class snobs participate? i'd rather help a politician make payments on his bentley or rolls.

luge, bobsled, skeleton? you must be sober. just give me a cookie-baking sheet, a moderately-sized hill, and a bottle of absinthe and i could re-create the breakneck speed and back-breaking crashes so ubiquitous in these events.

biathlon? what's that you say? take seriously a sport that dick cheney would sweep the medals in?

snowboarding? okay, this does appeal to my surfing sensibilities, but it's still a sport for the rich, spoiled, and ignorant. actually participating? yes; watching on tv and cheering for my country's athletes? uh, no.

curling? again, you must not be drinking enough. two reasons why this is a joke: 1--with a name like "curling", beer is not part of the required equipment? 2--if it's a sport for which i could qualify easily, then it's truly not a sport. might as well add golf to the summer borympics.

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aside from the sporting events, what i hate about the borympics is the media hype, the farcical decisions made pertaining to events, the bad sportsmanship, and just general dumbassness:

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bode miller, drinker or skier? you'd think this guy was a serial murderer just because he admitted to having a drink from time to time before going down the slopes with all the media-bashing he's faced.

the two american male speedskaters who are waging a cowardly war of words in the media. what a couple of flowered panties these two are. neither of them has big enough stones to face each other man-to-man and beat the differences out of one another.

the austrian ski coach who rammed a roadblock. how is this news? i see drunk koreans doing this once a month to escape DUI testing...

americans fail to live up to hype. this was an actual headline on a leading american news web site. against whose hype did they not measure up? yours? the swedish media's? the namibian government's?

bad weather postpones super G. another actual headline. this woman's skiing event was postponed because of...snow falling. er, just what is it they're supposed to ski on, marshmallows? this is like postponing a day of sunbathing at the beach because it's too sunny...

or like postponing sex because your partner is too willing...

the american figure-skater's excuses for not winning a medal. poor johnny weir. he didn't win a medal because the bus didn't come by and pick him up like he expected it to do, thus depriving him of his "inner piece"--maybe it was "peace"--so he spent too much energy in trying to find a ride to the rink, where he ended up finishing fifth. how much energy does it take in italy to make a phone call to get another ride? this is a damning condemnation of italy's technological and transportation infrastructure.

is it torino or turin? well, who cares, really?

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only about 15 weeks left 'til the world cup, thankfully!!!