february hamper dump

It's February.

I've been busy at work. It's been continually cold (though not as cold as it was last year). And I barely have enough time to work on my novel for my 8-week workshop that's half over. And I've been caught up in the Olympics.

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This week was so bad at work that I didn't even remember that it was a 4-day week. I think I worked 40 hours in 4 days, and it was solid wall-to-wall work. Today was so bad that I came home and had a couple whisky sours and then (for fun) made some homemade chicken salad.

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Anyways, this past week, perhaps because I have been so busy, that I've been watching as much Olympics as I can. This is the most I've ever gotten into the Olympics. While the Summer Games might attract larger audiences, I think it's clear that the Winter Games have a better entertaining ratio per event. The Summer games are filled with duds that never get televised, but every time I turn on the TV, there's something good on.

Coming into the Games, I thought the only things I would be into would be hockey and curling. But I've enjoyed the alpine skiing, speed skating (especially the short track races), snowboarding, even the figure skating and biathlon were entertaining.

I always thought that biathlon was the stupidest sport. What does shooting have to do with skiing? But when I actually watched it, I realized it was more about having control over one's body to be able to shoot straight after skiing as fast as you can and having your heart beat as much as possible. So I think it's kinda cool now.

About the only curling I've seen was the U.S. choke away a game they easily should have won against the Swiss. I mean this Skip had multiple chances to win on makeable shots and he CHOKED. The only redeeming part of watching the Americans BLOW THE GAME was that they revealed that all 4 members of the team were Vikings fans and watched the NFC Championship together. Perfectly fitting considering how their performance was completely Farve-esque. (Breaking News: The U.S. have just benched the Skip after his fourth straight loss. Perhaps the Vikings could learn something.)

And I doubt I'll watch much hockey until the semifinals. Compared to watching a 2 or 3 hour hockey/curling match, it's a lot more fun to watch skiing or snowboarding or speedskating where it's a shorter commitment, and you get to see a lot more people and have more medal drama.

So yeah, I like the Olympics. Especially the Winter ones and especially when the host location is in a convenient time zone for my tv watching. Anywho.

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Oh yeah, and thanks for that jerk who left the comment about the safety razor who gave an contradictory answer without referencing any of the math that I listed.