Got Luge?

The weather in Boulder (and pretty much everywhere else east of Las Vegas) has taken a turn for the worse, and many experts believe that at least half the country will die in the next week (by many experts, I mean me and the unstable guy who sits next to me in my media history class). Thankfully, this weekend is the start of a wonderful television event that will unite people from all different walks of life and countries to yell at each other in different languages. That’s right, it is time once again for the Winter Olympics; which along with presidential elections, leap year, and Jake Gyllenhaal movies, is one of those dreaded events that occurs every four years.

Now, allow me to explain why I don’t like the Winter Olympics. It somehow manages to combine so many things that I do not like: Canadians, snow, cold weather, Canadians, hockey, men in leotards, NBC, Canadians, extreme sports peoples, people with funny accents, and last but not least, beavers (I am going on the assumption that beavers are somehow involved in the Winter Olympics). Also, I don’t like sporting events that the US doesn’t dominate. I am a patriot. So you can imagine why I would not look highly upon an event in which miserable little snowbound countries like Norway get glory. The only reason these countries do well is because they have nothing else to do trapped in the snow all year but practice skiing and inbreeding.

I mean, just think about it for a second. At least three-quarters of the events in the Winter Olympics aren’t even sports (or if they are, they are very boring sports). Take curling for instance. If you want to go see people sweeping the floor, go into a kitchen and watch women (that horribly sexist remark was sponsored by “Valentine’s Day,” starring a whole bunch of people you can’t stand and five large fish). I mean, there are a bunch like the biathalon or the octathon or the geriatricthon that I’m pretty sure just randomly combine a bunch of stuff together like a winter sports hot dog. I’m not certain here, but I think there is even one that involves skiing and shooting a gun, which is not so much a sport as something a person might do in winter after consuming too much alcohol.

One of the more popular “sports” in the Winter Olympics is ice skating, even though I am still not exactly sure why any male would ever watch ice skating. Maybe you could say that it involves women in skimpy outfits, but most of them are five years old and are raised in the same cages used to stunt growth that house gymnasts. Ice skating just sort of involves going around in circles and then jumping and falling down (which, let’s be honest, is the only interesting part). And don’t even get me started on Johnny Weir.

Thankfully there has been a recent shift towards more extreme winter sports. This is good because US competitors tend to be better at these events. However, this is bad because nobody who isn't stoned knows what the hell is going on in extreme sports. Have you ever watched extreme sports with a stoner? This person can’t remember how to spell their last name, but they can watch some random flipping and instantly identify it as a “540 backflip over-under daisy chain cross-grab.” I’m almost certain that the announcers are just making things up as they go.

Announcer #1: “And he approaches the ramp… oh my god he just pulled a 645.8 double-pump tomahawk twisty-tie celery biscuit triple-bypass spiral notebook spleen toss! Dude that was rad!”

Announcer #2: Cough, cough. Gasp. “Man I’m hungry. We should order like fifty Sausage McMuffins.”

It doesn’t help that unlike the Summer Olympics, I have school during the Winter Olympics. That means I’m a little too busy pretending to be busy to watch bobsledding in the middle of the day. And apparently nobody else does either, because NBC anticipates they will lose $10 million dollars on the Winter Olympics. Now I am neither a business major nor a math major, but something about that doesn’t seem smart to me. I think they might be better off televising a large pile of money being burned. I actually might watch that, because it might make me feel a little warmer.

The one thing that is kind of cool about this year’s Games is that they are taking place in Whistler. I’ve been to Whistler two times and I liked it. Not because of the skiing or the snow, but they had this really good restaurant called Mongoli Grill. But while we were up there a few years ago we did see some of the sites where some of the events were to take place. The locals were pretty excited about the Games; you could hear it in the higher pitch of their “ehs!” And after walking around, I understood why. Unlike NBC, Vancouver was ready to cash in on this thing. You couldn’t walk five feet without seeing some sort of Olympics merchandise. They just take a $5 t-shirt, put that stupid Olympic multi-colored lego-Frankenstein logo on it and BAM: it costs you $50.

Of course, the only thing I want from there is poutine. Poutine is a Canadian dish made by topping fries with cheese curds and gravy and is my favorite food in the world. You know what’s fun? Eat an entire bowl of poutine while watching curling and see what kills you first: boredom or severe artery blockage.