Thursday, February 25, 2010

Report On The Winter Olympics

I haven’t had much interest in the Olympics until recently. The Olympics seemed more important back in the Cold War when we had to beat the Ruskies. After not watching the last few Olympics, I’ve been watching the 2010 Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver and have actually found myself enjoying it.

I didn’t really care for the opening ceremony, especially the “cultural” ceremonies. I figure everything I need to know about Canadian culture I already learned from Bob and Doug McKenzie. The ceremony was pretty heavy on Indian culture too. I don’t care about the culture of American Indians, much less Canadian ones. (Both groups are pretty much the same, except one is legally obliged to send smoke signals in two languages.)

The other day I was watching the biathlon, which involves athletes cross-country skiing to various shooting ranges where they must shoot rifles at targets. Back in 1950’s they fired service rifle calibers like .30-06 and .308 out to 250 meters, but as more and more Europeans (and many Americans) became mewling socialist pussies they had to drop that down to .22 rimfires at 50 meters.

The great thing about watching the Olympics is that you never know when you may see history in the making. When I was watching the biathlon, for instance, when the shooting started, the French biathlete immediately set a new world record for distance of a rifle thrown into underbrush, followed quickly by two new cross-country speed records (with and without skis). Of course, the judges won’t be able to give him an official time until he actually stops running. He was last seen running east along Alberta Provincial Highway 3. If anyone spots him please contact the RCMP.

Much to the surprise of Bawb and me, there are actually sports that don’t even involve firearms. (When did this happen?!) One example of such a gunless event is the “sport” of curling. In this game, one dude shoves a heavy weight (called a “stone“) across some ice (called the “curling sheet“), then two idiots run along sweeping in front of the stone with special brooms (called “brooms“). When I tried to explain this game to my wife she thought I was either pulling her leg or I was back on the sauce.

Other no-firearm events include figure skating (more commonly referred to as “that gay crap”), skiing and snowboarding, the bawbsled and the loogie, and speed skating. [Message to the Olympic committee: Please note that ALL of these events would be much more exciting WITH firearms. Like one-time I saw 007 get chased down a bawbsled run by a bad guy on a motorcycle with machine-guns on it. That was awesome! Change the rules or my brother and I will come there to Mt. Olympus and kick your ass.]

So now, as the 2010 Winter Olympics near their end, we can contemplate the significance of this gathering of many nations as both competitors and as friends, a global brotherhood of man, competing against each other peacefully. Whether or not you were infected with “Olympic fever” (officially H7C3), it appears that the Vancouver Games will be one for the history books, setting many new records, including number of spectators eaten by sasquatch.

5 comments:

Bawb said...

Did you see the doughnut-eating and beer-swilling events? That was AWESOME. Some guys named McKenzie took the gold and silver in both events. Homer Simpson came in a distance third with the bronze. Go team Maple Leaf!

Anonymous said...

You guys are at least my fourth maybe third favorite blog. (Mine is first, of course, followed by Sipsey Street Irregulars.) I commented on the same subject last week. For the curious, http://iowapatriots.blogspot.com/2010/02/winter-olympics.html I even wrote that I thought that the biathlon would be cooler with M1's or M1A's at 300 meters and iron sight. Curling had to have started as a drinking game. Can't think of any other way that I'd think to chase rocks on a frozen lake with a broom. After seeing that a few of the women curlers are good looking gals, I can't help but think that bikinis would really increase the fan base. And you're right, guns would improve this sport. Rock doesn't stop where you want it...shoot it into submission! Later gents.

NorthBridge

Ben said...

Thanks NorthBridge. Just read your Olympic post. Quite right.

Bawb said...

Let's not discriminate against our Muslim brethren and allow RPG's and IED's to be used in the Biathlon.

Mattexian said...

You and Tam's View From the Porch both touched on something that rattled thru my brain, about how the Olympics have gotten away from it's foundation of peaceful competition of military skills. And maybe it's the engineer/mechanic upbringing I had, but all the events that need judging for qualifying, not quantifying, sure they're pretty to watch, but if it's not the fastest, most accurate, then it's like comparing DaVinci and VanGogh, arguing who's better.

WV: comano; Heh, I think it's missing a few letters, shouldn't it be "Commando"?