ken lewis is doing just fine, thanks for asking. what's that you say? wasn't he in charge of BofA when it bought out countrywide and entered into a hasty and ill-researched union with merrill lynch?
labored sigh.
oh sorry, doom & gloom are usually c4ts's beat. now back to the olympics. you've only got 3 days to revel in the triumph over adversityness of it all. then it's back to paying scant attention to our completely dysfunctional government and summits that amount to nothing.
I am resistant to NBC's deliberate attempts to pull at my heartstrings with all its dead-mothers, handicapped-siblings, return-from-injury Olympic backstories, but here's a story I can't resist: this guy, Muhammad Abbas, is the best.
holy shit, y'all, could it get more dramatic than last night's women's figure skating final? seemed like each of the medal winners had her own reason to cry. kim yu na cries with joy and relief.
i know, it's so predictable to be into women's figure skating. honestly, i don't think i've paid this much attention since the nancy kerrigan/tonya harding days. kim yu na is totally adorable!
730PM EST, you know what i'll be doing. i can't even deal.
so in my junior year in college i had what i still consider to be the most fun internship ever when i worked on the first iteration of nbcolympics.com. my job mostly involved transcribing interviews between my producers and athletes. yeah, that sounds terribly dull, but two important things: 1. olympic athletes almost never have predictable life stories. (case in point, check this one about bilodeau, the first canadian to win a gold medal on home soil). i'd be sitting there with headphones on, typing like crazy, and most likely crying a little. 2. it actually helped a lot in law school! so there you go, my unsolicited piece of advice for the day: best way to prepare for law school? transcription.
anyway, too many things with the olympics, so a few thoughts. 1. ohno is a whiner and even when he's trying to be gracious he can't help but needle. 2. that video ad up top really drives me nuts bc nobody in it actually lives in vancouver anymore. maybe except sarah mclachlan, but you get the point. 3. shaun white is freaking hilarious, despite being carrot top's identical twin. 4. johnny weir! he's awesome.
finally, who's got the best olympic coverage in my opinion? the wall street journal! maybe since there is no good news in the financial sector they've decided to channel their energies elsewhere. whatever the reason, i'm glad bc where else will you discover that a lot of ice dancing pairs are siblings? and for those of you who wonder how the eff do you get into bobsledding? by going broke, that's how. they also rank olympics parties!
The Olympics are such a weird combination of ridiculous atheleticism; obsessive dedication to things that seem like they might be fun, but not if you're doing them hours at a time almost everyday for the past four years (e.g., luge); minute differences in speed that have to be within the margin of reasonable error and are otherwise undetectable to the human eye (long-track speed skating); post-Cold-War nationalism; and bizarre theatricality.
Also, the Olympics are one of those things that people don't care about at all for years on end, but then for two weeks they care about them a lot. I am not immune to this sentiment myself: I don't like Apolo Anton Ohno. I don't know why, but I really, really like Hannah Teter. What's weird though is that I have not thought about either of these two humans since 2006, and this week I was made to remember they exist and respectively started hating and loving them again.
So, the Olympics are a weird thing is what I am saying. And I know they're E's beat, and I should end this post, but the weirdest thing about the Olympics is that humanity never allows two people to be as ridiculous as Sevchenko and Szolkowy (pictured above), but the Olympics does, and gives them bronze medals. In life if you open your routine with the old miming clown popping out of the window thing, aren't you automatically disqualified? Anyway, immediately after writing this, I am going to forget that they exist, and then when they pop up again in Sochi dressed like disco era Martians in blackface, I'm going to be what is up with those two? All over again.
the opening ceremonies went fairly well, although it would have been quite awesome if broken social scene had performed instead of (yikes) bryan adams. kd lang was great.
but lest we canadians get too big for our pear-shaped mountie breeches, what should have been the highlight--the lighting of the torch by 4 people, not just one, including canadian hero and man in motion rick hanson--fell rather embarrassingly short. although the rest of the torchbearers quite literally grinned and beared waiting for the mechanical malfunction to be resolved, wayne gretzky was just not having any of it.
so yeah, good for vancouver for incorporating the first nations people into the ceremony, although kind of cruel for making them dance for like an hour with those heavy costumes. also, we can feature a gang of fiddling tapdancers but no asians? and no love for mr. hockey?
ps that photo is for all you americans who couldn't care less about anything not american, i.e., all americans.
yes! we're finally coming upon the the convergence of two things nobody cares about (except moi, of course)--winter sports and canada.
the winter olympics are here, starting on friday. woohoo! the downside is that i have to rely on nbc's typically schmaltzy and american exceptionalism-y coverage. i remember back in college i ran into a professor of mine in the elevator. the sydney games had just ended and he had returned from a stint in london. the two of us grumbled about american olympic coverage and lauded the bbc. yes my friends, i can bring down the level of discourse on virtually any occasion. instead of asking relevant questions about reconstruction or lincoln with the premier scholar on these subjects, we talked about bob costas.
anyway, check out this inadvertently hilarious article from the times on canada's desperate efforts to win a gold medal on home soil. apparently canada spent several million dollars to study these Important Matters:
- super-low-friction bases for snowboards and whether curling brooms really melt the ice. (They don’t, but they warm it enough to reduce surface friction, especially if the broom is dry.)
- Scientists used a missile guidance system to track skiers, and built a giant catapult, a human slingshot, to hurl speedskaters into a turn to practice cornering.
oh well. just don't get adam gopnik or michael ignatieff involved. those guys ruin everything. (oops, too late).
btw, also check out this video introducing the olympics mascots. my bro-in-law composed the music!
Here's some dude trying to knock the LifeCall bracelet off Betty White's liver-spotted wrist. But Betty White is feisty. She will insinuate carnal knowledge of your girlfriend, and then partake in a Snickers bar, before morphing into some guy and being good at football.
In other Superb Owl news, it must be noted that Barack Obama, despite his faults, will make Presidential history. I have to confirm with the Library of Congress, but I believe he is about to be the only sitting President to meet with two sisters Kardashian in one calendar year. Last month, Khloe Kardashian, wife of Lamar Odom, was photographed shaking his hand at the Lakers' congratulatory White House photo op. With Reggie Bush now winning a Super Bowl title, can we expect his muse, Kim to follow suit?
In other news, both ALF and Joe Lieberman continue to resist the curse. Blog harder, people.
So, Here's what I've learned since putting a Google new alert on "Betty White": people don't really tend to report news about Betty White. This is really weird because I assume she's having so many affairs--so many blaffairs, in fact--with cast members of That 70's Show and she's always blowing rails with Mischa Barton at that new WeHo club. But I guess Google is not that into aggregating news about Betty White. Whatever. Sergey Brin is Racist Against Olds.
what's up with michael buble and why is he famous? he's a middling singer with a soporific repertoire and not exceptionally charismatic. he used to date emily blunt, who i think is kind of awesome and starred in one of the greatest movies of all time (yeah, i know, i watched it while studying for the bar so my perception may be skewed). and now he's engaged to some argentinian hottie. despite his utter boringness, he does seem to have a sense of humor.
i know the clip above has nothing to do with michael buble per se, but it's hilarious.
kim yu na
