O Canada! (True North, Strong and Free)

Point the first: Let's let everyone know whose game they're playing.

Point the second: FuckYeahKateBeaton.

Point the third: The CN Tower is gold.

Point the fourth: Did Canada own the podium? Canada did not win more medals than the US. It did win more gold medals than any other country, and more gold medals than any other host country, ever.

In conclusion: Canada, I know it's not your wont, but feel free to bask. Just a little bit.

Hooray for the Olympics!

Can I just say? Can I just say? I love it.

Ice Dancing!

I do not own a TV. As such, my Olympics-watching has been happening mostly post-game (although that's what everyone is doing, thanks to NBC's not exactly simulcast).

But you guys! My roommate knows Charlie White, who is totally a medalist in Ice Dancing! I'll get my roommate to give me the rundown soon. In the meantime, have a picture of Plushenko looking peeved (or like he's whipping his body around much faster than normal).

V. V. French

While Shaun White was melting everyone's faces off with his Double McTwist 1260, you might have been asking yourself, "What are the French snowboarders up to?" (Please note, if you were thinking this during Shaun White's performance, you are le crazy).

 

Two words: Sharpie Moustaches.

The coach! The coach has one!

YEAH.

Olympic Overload!

Oh man, there is so much Olympics going on, I can't even say.

First off, we have an amazing entry into the field of sports journalism by Timothy Eagan, about Canada broadly and his fake ID specifically and national identity and all that good stuff.

And then we have some malfunctioning zambonis, that meant an intermission of about an hour for no good reason... but it gave us more time to ogle the speed skaters.

There's a good story in here somewhere about gender bias in the Olympics and why women aren't allowed to ski jump (spoiler alert: it's because they would beat all the men) but a Canadian curler could be competing while five months pregnant (awesome!!).

I've got to write more in-depth about the NBC coverage and the internet and twitter and Olympics Triple Play (and Dick Ebersol and Dick Ebersol's sweater) and why something like this can totally happen in this day and age:

Aaaaaand that's not even getting started on the incredible tales of athletic prowess, speed, precision, and artistry that are going on. So yes! I am going to get back to watching Shaun White beat the pants off everyone. In the meantime, here:

Enjoy your mind trip as you watch Quatchi watch himself WATCH YOU.

Reasons I love the Olympics:

#123010398834: Great cover music.



#2039238480209393: Team Norway's curling pants. Update! Now available for purchase!

#32311232109292: Graham Watanabe:

When asked in a press conference (for probably the five-hundredth time this week) what it feels like to participate in the Olympic games, Watanabe, an American Snowboarder, said, “Try to imagine Pegasus mating with a unicorn and the creature that they birth. I somehow tame it and ride it into the sky in the clouds and sunshine and rainbows. That’s what it feels like.”

 

Graham Watanabe

An approximation of the beast he tamed and rode into the sky

Opening Ceremony!

When I was but a wee lass, my family had an antenna system attached to the TV. Because we lived in the middle of nowhere, we had exactly three TV stations available to us: CBS, ABC, and PBS. All were grainy, but I was young and bright-eyed-- I didn't care. My friends had cable, but I didn't mind our grainy stations.

But no NBC, back in those days, meant no Olympics.

There was only one time that my dad went out and started tapping into the neighbor's cable. This was in 1992 for the Winter Olympics. For those two glorious weeks, I held my breath as Kristi Yamaguchi triple axeled her way into my heart.

Flash forward to today. I again find myself without cable, but no matter! I have a laptop with which to watch the live stream.

Only... NBC wasn't streaming. And CTV was inaccessible to Les Américains. So there I sat, refreshing three different liveblogs and reading twitter streams and imagining what it must be like.

Apparently it was a nice ceremony. I've been able to see some clips now, and I'll be sure to watch the entire thing someday soon. In the meantime, a big shout out to Kate Beaton, or @beatonna as she is sometimes known, for keeping me happy while I was not watching the torch being lit.

 

Yes.