Sometimes things just come along that are plainly impossible to
ignore
– the kind of stuff you couldn’t make up if you tried. Take last
week for example:
Sometimes things just come along that are plainly impossible to ignore – the kind of stuff you couldn’t make up if you tried. Take last week for example:
Saddam’s half brother showing up at the trial in pajama-like attire, then sitting down with his back to the judge, glaring at the media. Apparently last year’s courtroom appearance of Michael Jackson wearing bedroom apparel did not go unnoticed in Baghdad. Does this mean that, henceforth, should one of us go to court to defend a parking ticket, we are allowed to don footie p.j.’s and act petulant and bad-tempered?
Meanwhile, “Big Media” was in a major uproar all week about the White House’s reticence to suitably explain the incident (Birdgate?) when Vice-President Dick “Deadeye” Cheney mistook his 78-year old friend for a quail, filling him with birdshot.
Speaking of the Olympics, would someone please explain to me the origination and the fascination of the luge?
Did somebody wake up one morning and say,
“Gee, I think today I will strap myself to a peculiar device while lying flat on my back so I can careen down a tube formed of ice and snow at – oh, say, 85 miles per hour, with my feet strapped to these goofy little gadget thingies that render me pigeon toed. All with the end result that I will look like a giant pincher bug that’s been fired out of a sling shot.”
And don’t forget the cool outfits. The Spiderman look is de rigueur for the luge athlete. That multi-colored spandex really makes ’em go fast.
The sportscasters certainly get going about the luge.
“Look at that, Jim,” gushes one announcer. “He’s laying really FLAT on the curves and over those rough patches.”
Well, duh! What other way is there to lay when you’re supine on your back, horizontal to the ground, with just your eyeballs peering over the surface of your chest while gazing at your impending demise?
Speaking of guys and chests – I guess even the gals are going in for this activity. Hard to believe because women just aren’t as, ummmm… “aerodynamic” as the men.
From the luger’s push-off with hands working flipper-like against the icy surface, through rocketing turns, until the bizarre finish when the luger inexplicably bolts upright on his sled, it’s quite astonishing and leaves me deeply dumbfounded.
Whatever it is that folks find fascinating about the luge, Italian spectators celebrated like their team just won the Super Bowl when their athlete took the gold.
American luger Tony Benshoof really summed it all up for me when he remarked after the race and his fourth place standing:
“It was sort of exciting. Well, it really wasn’t that exciting.”
Well said.
Short-track speed skating is a puzzlement to me, too. Here is this little group of guys gliding along on their long blades, looking for all the world like some laid-back Hans Brinkers out for a casual day on the ice, hands linked nonchalantly behind their backs when – suddenly – at some unseen signal – they abruptly break loose and a skater from the rear overtakes his mates.
Obviously, I’ve never learned the finer points of this sport because it seems to me if you’re competing in this event at the Olympics, shouldn’t you concentrate on charging hell-bent to the fore right from the get-go?
I’m afraid I’m showing my simplistic side now, but give me some good figure skaters, downhill skiers and ice dancing at the Olympics – THAT I can get. On the other hand:
IMPORTANT NOTE to Olympics officials: Please be sure to keep Vice President Cheney and his shotgun away from the luge.
First thing you know he’ll be pickin’ those guys off like…quail.
