20 Questions Tuesday: 404? This post is not found.
I have been consuming an inordinate amount of the Winter Olympics, which is delightful. I love me some Olympics. There are many sports that I would watch on the daily if they were offered by the sports TV networks. I understand why there is not much buy-in from the sports ball watchers and producers do not provide more continuous winter sport coverage, but I think there are some ways that this could be made more available to us here in the States.
Anyhoo… I asked people for questions about the winter Olympics and Lsig, the Baklava Fairy, Scott LeMien, Alesha, Erin, Grapes, Bob, Lars, Matt, Sandy, Susan, and Brian sent me a slough of questions.
Here we go.
1. Which do you prefer, Winter or Summer games?
I think I prefer the summer games because of the larger variety of events. I have been underwhelmed by the paucity of variation so far. That makes sense though, there are significantly less competitive winter activities.
2. Do you have any insight into what makes someone good at Luge? I can’t figure out by watching.
The only thing I can see is that to go the fastest requires the luger to lay their head back and not watch where they are going. It has something to do with leg placement and micro adjustments.
3. Do you root for (non-injurious) falls and crashes, or is that just at my house?
Of course… I was just talking with the wife how adding the channels to the ski-jumps has cut down on the amount of falls… and that secretly makes me sad. Snow and Ski cross are the best bets now... when I was a kid it was the snow jump.
4. How do you feel about athletes who change their citizenship to compete for a different country?
More power to them. I think it is fine, so long as they honestly identify with the country in question. If they don’t consider themselves a real citizen of the adoptive country, it feels a little mercenary.
5. Did you like Team USA’s opening ceremony outfits?
Meh… They were... a bit, how do we say, suspect? More on this in Question 14. That being said most of the US Team uniforms are super boring. And what the hell is the crotch spot on the US Speed skaters?
6. Sibling skating teams— sort of creepy, right?
They need to not do intimate moves and deep soul searching looks to each other. If they keep the music fun and the moves like people who are in a dance troupe, it can work. One deep soulful look into each others eyes will kill that immediately.
7. Ice dancing: just why?
Because the pairs skating routines started to just be athletic and not artistic. They became more about what throws could be done and less about how the moves went with the music. Ice dancing is very similar to pairs skating from the 1960’s.
8. What is? How So?
That which does not belong to “What is not.” Like so.
9. Should they add ice skating sumo wrestling?
If that is an actual thing, most definitely yes. If it is not a thing, it should be, and then it should be added to the Olympics. I would also have accepted the idea of Thin Ice Sumo Wrestling
10. Is there any point to any other country even TRYING to win half-pipe?
In regards to the ski half-pipe being introduced this year, that is how all the adoption of the x-games-like events have gone. First olympics it is all US medal, next Olympics, there are less US medaling, but still dominant, third Olympics, US is just competing like everyone else. In 8 years, the US will contend for the medals like any other strong competitor.
In regards to snowboard, this year was an especially strong group, but they did not do so well 4 years ago.
11. Would you be more inclined to watch if Idiot Hockey were an event. (Hockey with Chuck Taylor's as footwear)
In college there was a game called Broom Ball that was basically hockey rules with a ball and brooms and people with street shoes on the ice. It was dumb and super slow. I would rather watch curling.
12. Do the winter games exist to ensure Europe walks away with a few medals?
It is only for the Dutch to get some speed skating wins. The rest is just a ruse to not make it look so obvious.
13. No NHL players in hockey. WTAF?!
NHL did not want to risk injury to their players and is hurting financially and in the middle of the season right now. So to make sure their best and brightest are still on the ice so that their ticket holders will buy more tickets and see their favorite NHL teams and players even though the Olympics are going on, they did not allow any team to release their players.
14. What do you think of the Dumb and Dumber/Lloyd Christmas winter gloves? (Google it. It’s a thing.)
Who doesn’t like leather fringe? I mean seriously? Leather. Fringe. Is.Teh. Awsomestest!
15. How can you tell the difference between male and female bobsledders?
Super easy, you have to turn them over.
16. What's the deal with that backwards skiing thing and when did it start?
I think that is only a thing on the freestyle slopestyle. I think it was snowboard jealousy.
17. Curling? I just don't understand.
I am trying to think of the summer games equivalent, but coming up a bit short. So, it is slippery team shuffle board… or Sorry Sliders.
18. Do figure skaters look at ice dancers as peers or is there some condescension that goes on?
It is kind of like Mississippians and Alabamians… they both look down on each other.
19. How will jet-packs change the Olympics?
Umm… they won’t impact them at all. Since snow-mobiles are not a in a sport, why would jet-packing?
20. How many words can get from the letters O, L, Y, M, P, I, C, S?
The best one is Miscopy, but occurring to wordsolver.net there are 137… I think I probably could have come up with about 10.
To recap:
Snowcross is amazing
I would watch the hell out of speedskating any time any channel wants to broadcast it
My understanding is that this is a sport that is watched in the Netherlands
And there is only the sole announcer for the English feed from the Olympics
So, maybe someone can get the rights to an online feed and pay that dude to announce and then I can watch speedskating
I used the word “slough”
Little Man is happy that Stage 2 of Overwatch League starts tomorrow
I need to be done for the night
I have some more Olympics to watch tonight
Have a great week everyone