Sighinide

The skating gala was funsies. Pandas FTW.

Boo to Peacock for being a fuckhead and removing the skating replays so quickly from their platform. Seriously guys, don’t be asshats. I think they removed the Opening Ceremony, too. Not that I was planning on watching it again, but still. I hope the rest of the stuff stays up at least a little while.

I saw the Mixed Relays for SkiMo. … Wut? Seriously, wow. I’m actually at a loss for words, I’m not even sure what I even saw. I’m more than vaguely confused, honestly. Even the athletes seemed confused about basic principles at times, which one team doing transitions clearly outside a “transition zone”. Not that the confusion wasn’t entertaining. I got good laughs out of the moment when a weird asterisk appeared next to one of the team’s names on the scoreboard and the announcers collectively shit themselves trying to explain WTF that actually meant. They clearly had no fucking idea but it made for great TV. Hot mic mistakes, rule misunderstandings, and the general chaos of things made for a fun time. I loved the anarchy. WTF do all those yellow cards mean, anyways? Are those penalties? Disqualifications? What KIND of penalties? WHY are those teams getting them? Who the fuck knows? I loved the part at the end when the announcers cut to an “Interview with Team USA”, which apparently consisted of a camera trained on the audience bleachers for a solid two minutes. Absolute quality! I approve.

In all seriousness, that sport looks grueling AF tho.

BTW, I did notice in the Skating Gala, thanks to Peacock’s captions, that Ilia Malinin’s name isn’t actually Ilia. It is in fact Helium. Someone should tell him; I’ll bet he will be surprised. He may welcome the correction. Perhaps we have found the secret to his jumping prowess.

Also, Kaori Sakamoto’s first name is in fact “Cavalry”.

Alright, I’m off to bed. There’s going to be a get together tomorrow, so might not make the hockey game, but whatever, we’ll see.

No time to proof this one.

One additional thought, before bed:

After the games are done, I believe changes will need to be made. What changes, specifically? Well… I offer no specifics here, I need not, but suffice to say, some things that have remained undone will need to be accomplished. Challenges will need to be undertaken, and obstacles overcome. New roads will need to be traveled.

And- some wrongs must be righted. I speak rarely of proverbs and platitudes here, but one of my favorites is, appropriately enough for the times, one oft attributed to Sicily, and particularly to the Cosa Nostra: “If I die, I forgive you; if I live, we shall see”.

The future will be interesting.

Well, on THAT rather ominous note, lol, I’m off to bed. A new day awaits! A beautiful day! What fun I’m having. Seriously, this is like the greatest thing ever. Olympics FTW!!!!

A few random thoughts:

1. I may have, in the course of recent history, composed an original song titled Alysa Liu, Where Are You? set to the tune of Scooby Doo, Where Are You?. Before anyone mentions it, no, this song bears no resemblance to the song Eileen Gu, Where Are You? that I may or may not have written the other day.
2. I was wondering, naturally, while watching women’s, um, Two-Woman Bobsled… why is this not called, uhm, “Duobob”? I mean, think about it. One man Bobsled is definitely “Monobob”, right? I mean it says so right there on Peacock. So why is Two, uh, person Bobsled not Duobob? And 4 person not Quadobob? Seriously tho, don’t laugh. It would be A) Consistent, and B) It would clear up the naming shenanigans. I mean… just think about it. Monobob, Duobob… Quadobob. Right. Women’s Duobob. Men’s Quadobob. NOT Women’s Two-Man Bobsled. See?
3. Hot Dog Hanz FTW. If you get it, you get it. ‘Nuf said.
4. Short Track athletes are some hardcore motherfuckers. Goddamn, it’s like Roller Derby with literal knives on actual ice out there. Remind me to never talk shit to a skinny short Dutchman, he’ll shiv a bitch.
5. I’m going to need wake up fucking early to watch the hockey game on Sunday. I have NEVER EVER done this particular thing; in fact I have never dreamed I would ever type or even think that specific thought, ever, but here we are. All right, bitchez. If you’re going to bring it I’ll be ready for ya’ll.
6. Yeah I’m going to spreeaaaaad out these games, I will have to, I fully intend to watch the Paralympics, besides, the Olympic Games are the only fucking thing on television that my parents will permit themselves to watch that is not the fucking TV news. Ye Gods, their devotion to partisan bullshit is just sickening. I do enjoy talking to them about something that is not politically oriented.
7. The sliding sports are alllll about the helmets, and, to a lesser extent, the sleds. Some of those paint jobs are just beautiful.

Alright, well, yeah. I think that’s enough for this one.

Well!

Some more thoughts, in a semi-random order:

I think today’s basket of ideas just re-enforce the things I was thunking earlier.

1. Sports have a definite element of randomness to them; and
2. The media does I believe try to play up some divisions sometimes; and
3. This is one epic vacation!

Regarding 1), I saw Michaela Shiffrin’s win in Slalom, she was fantastic ofc. I’m glad she got the fantasy closure that she needed(?). Well, I’m glad she got the fantasy closure the media said that she needed, lol. I did notice something interesting when watching the other skiers, though- I saw not one, nor two, but three other athletes get disqualified for missing the first gate! Yes forreals. In the Olympics. I mean I’m not judging them personally; I’m just using this as evidence to point out the randomness of athletic competition. Sometimes, you can be the best out there and… stuff just happens.

I saw as well Jordan Stolz’s race today, the 1500 meters. He got in second. Not because of anything he did that was wrong, he just got beat. So he exits with two golds and a silver. It happens. Another racer pulled a perfect race out of nowhere, annihilated the OR before Stolz hit the ice and that was that. I saw Stolz’s two other races before this one and I was rooting for him, but even I could tell that when that time was posted that it was going to be impossible for anyone to beat it. It was fun to watch tho. It’s stuff like that that makes the Olympics worth watching. So much fun.

So before the Women’s Free Skate, I checked out the backstage training / warm up session on Peacock Premium. It was kinda… voyeuristic? Also performative, on the part of the athletes. It’s not at all what it pretended to be, a free, open behind-the-scenes look at a performer’s life. Some thoughts:

1. It was vaguely creepy how the skaters didn’t look at the camera. All except, of course, for the ones in the far off corners, who would occasionally cast fleeting nervous glances directly at the camera lens. It was in those moments that I got a minorly creeped-out voyeuristic vibe from the whole show.
2. I did admire Skating Barbie’s (Amber Glenn, *ahem*) efforts to not look at the camera or at the camera human when the camera was pointed directly at her, or when the camera human was LITERALLY ON TOP OF HER. Nah, the linoleum floor is much more interesting; we’ll look at that instead.
3. Amber Glenn’s workout routine is bonkers BTW. I took note of some of her stuff, some of it I know I can incorporate in my barre routine. Thnx Amber!
4. The skaters obviously knew each other very well and were very comfortable in each others’ spaces. NBC et al. likes to paint stuff like The Olympics as some kind of bloodsport or gladiatorial combat but that is obviously not the case IRL. I mean of course there is competition, but not… that much. I’ve criticized TV in general for this before, and here it is again.
5. Back to the camera people- One funny moment occurred when the picture slid too far to the right, catching an actual cameraman in-frame. He was an overweight, middle-aged Italian man in a scruffy black baseball cap, with a bored expression on his face, sitting on a chair by the door. This was apparently NOT ALLOWED, because the picture quickly jerked backed to the left, putting him out of frame.
6. A different camera dude found his way in frame, behind Skating Barbie when she was doing one of her performative workouts. He was another Italian, very tall and very fat, who was trying in vain to hide his frame behind a TV showing Jordan Stolz’s skating event. Oddly, his camera looked like one of those packs from “Ghostbusters”. To say that he looked out of place amidst the sea of tiny, lithe, teenaged waifs in bedazzled outfits practicing their twizzles was an understatement. There’s something to be said here about the media, but I’ve not sure what, yet.
7. All of the athletes seemed to be “on”. And it seemed to be so natural to them that I wonder if they, having been raised in the age of social media, even know what “off” is. A scary thought, and one that just occurred to me. Of course, I of all people should not complain, and I’m not. I’m just… thinking.

Well- to the performances- There’s not much to say, it’s all on streaming. Props to Amber Glenn for holding out so long in first. Perhaps barre really is the key. I enjoyed myself immensely. It was so much fun. I mean I can’t even imagine having a better time doing anything else. And I mean that exactly as I typed it; I cannot imagine a better experience. Seriously, like… I can’t even fathom what one could possibly even be. I mean, I was having fun with the athletes, the announcers, and anchors, the crowd, I mean, it was just incredible, a stupendous, mind-blowing, beautiful experience. Doing a “mind-sync” with Alysa Liu during the final part of the Free Skate-including the medal ceremony-was a breathtaking, awe-inspiring thing to behold. I cannot imagine anything on Earth that could compare.

So that’s it, lol. It’s the pinnacle, there, of human experience. Once you’ve felt that, experienced that, channeled that, allowed that energy to flow through you and connected to that kind of… vibration, everything else seems less than.

I buoyed her with my power and she allowed me to feel her experience. Pretty awesome stuff.

You know- for a moment- a brief moment- during the free skate, I felt a twinge of regret. A small twinge, but it was there. It had to do with Ekaterina Kurakova’s performance to a medley of Moulin Rouge. See, one of my girlfriends, the erstwhile Meg Donnelly, is on Broadway finishing up her run on that particular musical, and before the Olympics I was wondering… should I be watching that, instead?

Now, I can say: No, lol. Sorry, Meg, sorry, everyone else, but there really is nothing that compares to this experience. It truly is superior to everything I can think of.

I mean, we’ll see what the future holds, but Goddamn, lol.

Alysa Liu and her F-bombs FTW!

A few more random thoughts:

I may have, in the course of flipping through events, composed an original song titled Eileen Gu, Where Are You? set to the music of Scooby Doo, Where Are You?. I’m not saying I necessarily DID, mind you, but….. I’m not saying I DIDN’T, either.

*Ahem*.

There has been some hullaballoo on the internet, and, presumably, in other places, about stuff like certain people not performing up to expectations, etc. There’s been a lot of talk. Personally, I monitor sites like Reddit for stuff like this. There, analyses abound. Pressures of this, circumstances of that. Honestly- speaking as someone that has played a lot of sports in my day- sometimes you just lose. That’s the nature of athletics. Nobody wins 100% of their matches. Nobody. EVER. No matter how great, no matter how dominant, wins 100% of the time. That’s reality.

TBH- consistently winning over 50% of your matches / games in a professional setting must put you somewhere near superhuman territory. I mean even that is virtually impossible.

I think that a lot of the internet chatter is coming from people that don’t have much personal experience playing sports or competing themselves. I could be wrong, but that is what I would bet.

In my own life, I’ve played quite a few sports. Obviously, none were professional level, but I’ve played on organized baseball, basketball, soccer, football, TaeKwonDo, Karate, wrestling and other teams. Mostly high school-ish level but a couple above that.

Sometimes you can come in the favorite, prepare perfectly and do everything to the best of your ability and still lose. It happens. It happens a lot in sports, all the way from kids playing T-Ball to the Olympics. It’s life.

So I choose not to involve myself in Reddit discussions and the like.

Other stuff- there’s a lot I’ve missed, obvii. Will need to watch, and will do so, in the coming weeks and such. And I believe I will catch the Paralympics as well. So there will be more of these coming.

One more random thought- Huh, wow. Been watching Snowboard Parallel Slalom- Woah, a handful of athletes there in their mid 40’s, and at least one in her 50’s! Wow! Hmmn, interesting.

Been watching YT videos about certain people not aging as fast as they should, or at least as they used to (mostly celebrities, natch). Not going to cue up the lecture here about myself and my creepily youthful appearance, but… hmmn.

Food for thought.

Back in the 80’s, an Olympian in her 50’s in any capacity would have been an impossibility. I mean I’m saying this without googling, but… wow. And, really, snowboarding isn’t curling! I know there are curlers that are older, but snowboarders? Wow.

And she made the finals! I mean she qualified, knocking off a bunch of twenty five year olds! I haven’t seen it all the way through yet, I just started but man, that is… kind of unreal.

The number one qualifier in the finals was a 45 year old on the Men’s side. Hmmn.

Weird stuff, but very very cool and so interesting.

Not too much to say with this one, but I suppose I’ll title it “Birthday Edition” for dramatic effect. I mean, I’ll probably hit “post” very slightly in the a.m., so technically… lol.

I guess wanted to say in a general way that the modern Olympics experience is nice because it seems to be a vacation in a self-contained living room, or even bedroom, experience. Or even better- a vacation without the hassles or expense of travel.

This thought struck me even before everything. It hit me during the Pre-Show Show, The Opening Ceremony Ceremony, that odd little Red Carpet thing in the museum with Shaun White, Marisa Tomei and Jeff Goldblum, as well as my always-slightly-out-of-place Gracie Gold. It seemed awfully… packaged. During the festivities indoors I noticed out of the corner of my eye a doorman move out of place of the cameras who had to be hurriedly shooed into the correct position, amusingly. He walked outside to greet someone too early. He had to be walked back in so then he could walk back out all natural like for a different camera angle from the outside of the museum.

The guards standing outside the museum seemed almost painfully photogenic, too. They looked almost catwalk model-like, and decidedly not like typical rent-a-cops. The guests arrived one at a time, interestingly. It was all very… paced. Not of it was impromptu, even the “casual” conversation picked up by the cameras.

Well, I guess that’s to be expected ofc.

I did get a laugh out of the Gargoyles-esque street toughs that were let in as a group.

When I noticed Stanley Tucci I perked up a bit at the confirmed Italian theme and kept my eyes peeled for any wandering Maranos in the vicinity. Alas, ’twas not to be, although they did have two impersonators. The real Princess Laura was however playacting Italian café on Insta around the time, tho, if that means anything.

Well… I’m really off track here.

Ok, back to the thing… it’s a vacation, right? Best seat in the house, always, every event, all the time. You get to see EVERYTHING, every piece of whatever you want, I mean you get to see even the training rooms for fuck’s sake! You can see the skaters for example do their warm up routines, see them do their stretches, jog around, see them ride exercise bikes- a month’s subscription to Peacock Prime or whatever they call it will give you a better viewing experience than any all access pass that the Olympics itself can give you, I mean if that is even offered. You get up close during the medal ceremonies, you can interact with the crowd, I mean I literally am having telepathic fun with the athletes during their practice sessions on the ice! Starbucks even made a commercial out of it! So fucking cool.

This is a far far better experience than ANY conventional two week vacation than I can possibly imagine.

There is no way, no chance anything on God’s Earth could possibly compare to this.

Besides, this is something that I can do with my family that does NOT involve politics, which is immensely refreshing. I really despised NBC cutting into the Olympics coverage with that 10 minutes of stupidity involving some “Breaking News” of some “Lead” in some such nonsense or other. How ludicrous.

I’m not going to comment too much on the Ice Dancing result; I am not a good judge of that sport for a myriad of reasons, the most important of which is that I have never done it myself. I thought all three teams who medaled were good. I loved the Canadian duo very much. Something there really moved me. I loved the Americans. In both cases you could feel the experience they shared together as a team. I thought the French were very good technically but lacking in some kind of emotional chemistry.

But I am not a judge, take that as it is.

I’m not going to comment further. It’s after midnight and I need to sleep.

Ah yes- one more thing- it is very nice indeed seeing Italy do so well in these games! Well done guys!

Well, I saw Rhythm Dance today, ofc. And I saw it without commentary, which was clearly the correct choice. Later on I caught the tail end of the NBC commentary coverage of the competition and wow, what a different experience. The music was muted, substantially, the “skating” sounds were muted, the crowd sounds were louder somehow, and loudest of all were the voices of the commentators.

No shade here for anyone hired to comment on the games; I’m just saying. As far as Rhythm Dance goes, the music needs to do the talking.

Personally, I loved it, which I’m sure you could see coming ofc, but seriously, the experience was SO MUCH better with all of the extraneous sounds removed from the equation. Skating has really come into it’s own as a sport. Visually and sonically it’s so exciting I’m not even sure it needs commentary anymore.

The music was fantastic. I thought three Ricky Martin medleys was one too many but otherwise, it was spot on. I never thought I’d see the day when I’d hear The Offspring featured in an Olympic Games but here we are lol. I mean it was good, really good. The theme seemed to be “Best Possible Club Hits of the 90’s, Order Now!”, lol. Honestly, it was like… amazingly good. I pumped up the volume on my TV and just… watched, it was very fucking cool.

I was talking with the parentals tonight and it they said it seems like an entirely different sport than it did a few decades ago and I agree. It’s like… all sports are different than they were 30 years ago, but skating, and skate-dancing especially, is radically different. Somehow, a revolutionary mindset took over that overhauled things there for the better, somehow.

That can be said for many many sports in the Winter Games I believe. Especially, I guess, for the ones that didn’t use to be there, lol.

*Shrug*

It does seem to me, still, as an outsider looking in, that many of the ‘Murican sports are too mired in the past, and, for all of their bluster, are too afraid to seriously innovate.

But then, I don’t give them much of a chance, anymore. Frankly, I find the games too long, and the culture too… all encompassing. It’s too much to learn, and you only live so long on this spinning rock we call “Earth”.

Plus- and this is a big negative- which, ah, makes it a big plus, lol- I don’t believe you can see that stuff sans commercials, and, crucially, without… commentary.

Or beautiful scenic backdrops, as you can when it comes to Olympic competitions.

Plus- that John Williams theme? Unbeatable.

Yup.

Rhythm really is a dancer, as it turns out.

A few random thoughts:

1. I was pleasantly surprised to see Italy medal in three of the events I saw today. Granted, all three were bronzes, but bronze is far better than I have ever done lol. Italy is really kicking ass and it is always nice to see the host nation rock their own games.
2. Watching the events I was wondering… aren’t there, like, Russians? I was noticing a distinct lack of… Russian-ness. And not just in the athletes, I mean even in the conversations. Nobody was even talking about Russians. It was vaguely eerie. The scenario I’m envisioning here, which may be somewhat over-imaginative, is something along the line of a black hole developing in the middle of the Russian Olympic training camp, which sucks in all the athletes, staff and coaches, and which creates a some kind of quantum anomaly which wipes all memories of Russian athletics from global consciousness… or something. Ah, I see. Well, it’s nothing quite that dramatic, lol. Google tells me it’s because of the Ukraine yadda yadda yadda, which as you already know I think is absolute nonsense. Whatever you think of the war, it is the height of stupidity and arrogance to punish athletes for the actions of politicians. Think about it: the war has been ongoing since 2014, so an 18 year old Russian athlete would have been only 6 years old when it started. Why should he / she be punished for it’s existence? Utterly dumb, truly. I like the “black hole” thing better. I mean at least it makes a certain kind of sense.
3. Ski Slopesyle is fun as hell. It’s been a blast watching this sport grow from it’s humble beginnings in Microsoft Entertainment Pack 3 to what it is today. I have yet to see an adorable carnivorous yeti on an Olympics obstacle course but that might be a fun addition in future games, and maybe even in the upcoming finals!
4. Speaking of skiing, I hope Vonn and the other racers in the final I saw today that crashed recover well. Congrats to the winners, esp. to Breezy ofc.
5. Team Skating was epic, truly. More than anyone else on the ice I have ever seen, Ilia Malinin truly embodies the Olympic motto of “Faster, Higher, Stronger”. He IS the Olympic spirit, incarnated. A truly awesome individual. Absolutely inspiring. The other skaters- all of them- are great, but Malinin comes across like something else entirely, some alien yet beautiful far off new plateau, like Mount Olympus / Olympics itself. But I mean… it would take an entire essay in an of itself to dissect this topic, all of different parts, breaking down all of the skaters, the different routines, the different ways to watch this stuff (I saw some feeds with commentary and some without, etc.) I mean I would be up all night, literally, until fucking 6 a.m. or something equally absurd. Yeah I’m not doing that.
6. I’m staying off of social media this Olympics, I think. I’ll return afterwards, perhaps, with a fresh perspective.

Ok, question time… why does NBC keep calling this the “Milan Cortina” Olympics? I mean, even in their logos? It’s like… not that, right? Because I’ve been hearing that so much I’ve actually been double checking. It’s “Milano Cortina”, right? I mean during the Opening Ceremony “Milano Cortina” was actually printed on the stadium itself, on the bleachers, in multiple places. So… it’s that, right?

I’m getting this image now of a dude in NBC headquarters with a bad keyboard who needed to come up with a logo and was like… “Damn, that fucking ‘O’ key! Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t! Fuck it, it’s good enough! Nobody will notice anyways.”

It’s really weird and jarring, in an uncanny valley sort of way. During the Opening Ceremony speeches, Milano Cortina was obviously the place everyone thought they were. Everyone, of course, except for the NBC announcers.

Huh.

Well… the quirks of language, I guess.

Other things- Damn, the USA contingent is fucking HUGE. Christ, it is so big I’ll bet it dwarfs actual countries, somewhere.

A random factoid that literally and amusingly popped into my head during the ceremony- a few years back I was browsing the local megamall for Christmas presents and popped into a clearance store tucked away into a corner. This was post- COVID, I remember. So it was a ways back, but not too far back in years. There, in a corner, I found one of the strangest merchandise finds I’ve ever seen in any store- a gigantic box of mint condition copies of Picabo Street: Downhill Dynamo. Seriously; I kid you not. How on Earth an enormous pile of this product came to exist in this location, in this time, in this place, in this condition, is beyond me, and is probably beyond rational thought. Seriously; it was unreal. I remind you- this was POST- COVID. I think they were being sold for something like a quarter each.

The internet tells me that based on what I remember of the cover, I was seeing the revised edition.

Absolutely unreal.

I was sorely tempted to buy one, and probably should have, just for the conversation piece.

The scenario I’m imagining in my head for THIS situation: Some guy starts a new job at a book depository / factory. There’s no room on the floor for this enormous box of Picabo Street books, but his office is empty, seeing as how he’s new and his stuff hasn’t been moved in yet, so, he lets the crew use his office for temporary storage. Fast forward twenty five years. He retires, and finishes moving the last of his stuff out to his car, and then… wait, what’s this? What’s this gigantic box sitting here in the middle of my office? Oh yeah, THAT. NOW I remember!

Literally, I can think of nothing else that would make sense for this.

Well back to reality- Bocelli can sure sing, can’t he? Darn tootin’. His collab with Sofia Carson was aces.

Speaking of Disney / Descendants chicks- Yes yes, I noticed it as well, and I REALLY wasn’t going to mention it, I mean I specifically didn’t mention her name on purpose in the other post by literally calling her “you-know-who-else” but since EVERYONE ELSE is practically begging me to, YES FINE, I did notice the rather obvious and vaguely blatant reference to Dove Cameron during the Opening Ceremony which I thought might be coming but frankly, even I was shocked as to how in my face it was. Which, I know, was the point of it.

And yes, I am well aware of the purpose of choosing Charlize Theron to deliver said message. This was done because of her previous behind-the-scenes mentorship with Disney Princess AnnaSophia Robb, am I correct? I mean, I get it. I just… you know, it IS the Olympics, you know? And this is about athletics, not…

But… I know. It’s not, really, although it probably SHOULD be. They’ve (The Olympics) really crafted a web, this time. It’s rather insidious. And Disney obviously has one as well.

And, unfortunately, I’ve crafted one, myself, and now everyone has been left dangling all awkward-like.

Enough of this, it’s ludicrous.

Let the games begin!

Opening Ceremony Tidbits:

1. I liked the first part of the opening ceremony a lot. It was fun, and not overly long, or too ambitious. The Eurobeat flavor was cool. The colors were nice. It was nicer than the French one I thought. In retrospect, perhaps the Paris opening was too ambitious for it’s own good. But, meh, that’s neither here nor there at this point.
2. The parade of nations even seems more fun, oddly, than usual. Not even sure why. Maybe it’s the “fun” setting, with the fake snow and the cool glowy entrance ring and such.
3. The NBC captions occasionally provide a source of amusement of their own. On the Olympic pre-shows I watched yesterday, skating pairs was captioned as “skating pears”. I intentionally avoided mentioning this yesterday because I wanted this error to go uncorrected during the livestream during the games; I so so desperately wanted to see see “Skating Pears” in the Olympic Games, lol. Unfortunately, during the team event they showed this morning that error had since been corrected. I did note, that, however, that the Japanese greats of Miura Riku and Kihara Ryuichi did not skate to “Paint it Black”, they in fact skated to “Peanut Black”, apparently. I mean, who knew, lol.
4. And on that note, fittingly, the country of Chile becomes the country of “Chilly” during the Winter Olympics. Because of course it does.
5. I missed Gracie Gold, apparently. She was in the Opening Ceremony pre-show, which I WAS watching, but the stream stopped like 5 minutes before she showed up or something. It is / was upsetting. The only reason I know she was there was because I saw a second of her on a promo. ‘Tis unfortunate. Le sigh.