Things Remembered, Things To Come
Saturday, 8 March 2014 22:18![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dr_phil_physicsTwo weeks ago the 2014 Winter Olympic Games ended in Сочи, Россия. It was a spectacular Olympics. Sure, there were issues with snow, but there always are. There were issues with American speed skating uniforms. How many times has the American team promised total victory and fallen flat? Come on, this is the Olympics -- all the other competitors are there to compete, too. It's bad enough I have to put up with rah-rah homerism by NBC rather than revel in the international once-in-four-years...
Oh poop -- I am not going to go all frothy about the Olympics.
It is so refreshing to see all this competition with minimal invasiveness by commercial concerns. Sure, equipment is plastered with names and logos. But the venues are clean. You can watch kilometers of cross-country skiing and see only Olympic rings, Сочи and Sochi 2014, and pastel colored wraps -- in the future you'll be able to instantly distinguish Sochi footage from Vancouver, Torino, Albertville, etc.
And everyone pushes so hard. Latvian bobsledders never won a medal under the Latvian flag? Take that white four-man missile down the ice. Canada takes hockey and curling gold... four times? (G)O Canada. Forty-one year old Noriaki Kasai of Japan pulls a silver medal out of the air in ski jumping, twenty years after his last medal? He will be back in four years. The home town Russians got some spectacular victories in skating, cross-country, etc. Though the venues were not all full, the crowds were Olympic crowds -- we personally saw this in Atlanta in 1996 -- you applaud all the efforts.
We ended up not watching much of the Closing Ceremonies. I later saw a photo showing that the Russians were good sports and played homage to the poor 4½ Olympic Rings of the Opening. I'm sure the audience roared with amused appreciation.
I love the Olympics -- Winter, Summer, doesn't matter. It was a glorious two weeks.
==================================
And then...
Look, the world does not stop for the Olympics, as lovely as an ideal that sounds. Never has, never will.
So things will happen during the Olympics. Venezuela, Kiev...
But really. Beating Pussy Riot with Cossacks wielding horse whips in Sochi? "Invading" Ukraine?
I mean, there were already comparisons to Putin/Hitler doing Russia/Soviet Union/Germany and your response is to fast forward from 1936 to 1938-39 in days?
What were you thinking? Putin, you've just got a lock on 2014 Jerk of the Year and you have embarrassed Russia and hurt Ukraine for no good reason.
Asshole.
==================================
And we are back today in Сочи, Россия for the Paralympics Games. NBCsports is giving limited coverage, but I caught the end of the women's biathlon. Amazing. I think we get slide hockey at 1am.
Don't ruin the moment, Putin.
Dr. Phil
Oh poop -- I am not going to go all frothy about the Olympics.
It is so refreshing to see all this competition with minimal invasiveness by commercial concerns. Sure, equipment is plastered with names and logos. But the venues are clean. You can watch kilometers of cross-country skiing and see only Olympic rings, Сочи and Sochi 2014, and pastel colored wraps -- in the future you'll be able to instantly distinguish Sochi footage from Vancouver, Torino, Albertville, etc.
And everyone pushes so hard. Latvian bobsledders never won a medal under the Latvian flag? Take that white four-man missile down the ice. Canada takes hockey and curling gold... four times? (G)O Canada. Forty-one year old Noriaki Kasai of Japan pulls a silver medal out of the air in ski jumping, twenty years after his last medal? He will be back in four years. The home town Russians got some spectacular victories in skating, cross-country, etc. Though the venues were not all full, the crowds were Olympic crowds -- we personally saw this in Atlanta in 1996 -- you applaud all the efforts.
We ended up not watching much of the Closing Ceremonies. I later saw a photo showing that the Russians were good sports and played homage to the poor 4½ Olympic Rings of the Opening. I'm sure the audience roared with amused appreciation.
I love the Olympics -- Winter, Summer, doesn't matter. It was a glorious two weeks.
==================================
And then...
Look, the world does not stop for the Olympics, as lovely as an ideal that sounds. Never has, never will.
So things will happen during the Olympics. Venezuela, Kiev...
But really. Beating Pussy Riot with Cossacks wielding horse whips in Sochi? "Invading" Ukraine?
I mean, there were already comparisons to Putin/Hitler doing Russia/Soviet Union/Germany and your response is to fast forward from 1936 to 1938-39 in days?
What were you thinking? Putin, you've just got a lock on 2014 Jerk of the Year and you have embarrassed Russia and hurt Ukraine for no good reason.
Asshole.
==================================
And we are back today in Сочи, Россия for the Paralympics Games. NBCsports is giving limited coverage, but I caught the end of the women's biathlon. Amazing. I think we get slide hockey at 1am.
Don't ruin the moment, Putin.
Dr. Phil
