The Olympics roll, but enthusiasm wanes…

For a lot of sports at least. I always allow the Olympics to consume me. TheLockhart even had a two day hiatus because of the XXI Olympiad. Olympic coverage begins live with curling at noon, additional coverage begins at 2 or 3 pm on NBC with a multitude of sports (surpisingly I’m digging cross-country skiing events), some hockey at 3 and 6, more curling at 5 pm, and primetime action at 8 pm. I get sucked in. I always have. I wrote over 30 pages of my coverage of the ’88 Summer Games in Seoul.

But, while swimming and track can excite me, what with 8 athletes lining up next each other, watching alpine skiing, luge, skeleton and bobsled, I have a hard time getting excited. Wins and losses are determined by hundreths of a second. Can I really tell the difference between a gold medal run and a 10th place run? Usually, heck no. Now, widen the course, throw 4 bobsleds on the track at once, allow a little bumper car action, and yes, I’m engaged. I just don’t see that happening anytime soon.

Thankfully, curling and hockey have been sports to get excited about. While the US men’s and women’s curling teams bombed out, the overall level of fun in watching the sport has been HIGH. I’ve learned Kevin Martin is a stud. The man is like the Tiger Woods of curling…well, can you really use T-Dubs as a reference anymore? Why not. I just did. I need to get involved in more curling. I tried it for a work social event a few years ago. Time to give it another try. So glad we have the Curling Club of Detroit in Ferndale.

The US continues to lead the medal count, although it is tied with Germany and Canada for the most golds with 8, so for those across the pond keeping score by 1st place totals, Canada, alphabetically is actually “Owning the Podium” as they so wanted.

Did you know Canada has about 1/2 the number of people that England does?

Canada land area in square miles – 3,800,000 (that’s 3.8million)
England land area in square miles – 50,300 (yes, thousands)

WOW! That’s incredible. Ok, so tons of Canada is uninhabitable iceland in the north, but still. That’s a lot of land per person.

We’ll get to see an Olympic comparison in two years when England throws the Summer Olympics.

Quick hits of the day:

– What the heck is it with politician’s in New York? Former Senator Clinton would never have been confused with an angel. Governor Eliot Spitzer set the bar pretty high on the scandal-meter with Ashley Dupre. And now the current governor and House Rep are in hot water. Get your act together New York.

– The quote-machine of the VP we currently have nailed one on B-roll tape today, “It’s easy being vice president – you don’t have to do anything.” Hysterical. We need to let him speak publicly more often. It is never a dull moment with VP Biden. Harry, Nancy and The President bored me to death today.

– And on the boring note, whose idea was the health care “summit”? That was awful. Political wrangling and storytelling wasting time, money and valuable TV airspace. I, and no one else, needs or wants to hear about every politician’s run-in with a sick person or a sick person’s sad family member. They are out there. We know it. Talk about what you can do. Let’s pass out a degree in time-wasting because there was a roomful of those who deserve one.

– Huge props to Joannie Rochette, a figure skater, from Canada. She won the Bronze Medal tonight, within a week after her mother passing away. I…couldn’t…do it. Amazing.

– Boner’s dead. Not something you would expect to see from a sad headline.

– Did it really take 3 incidents to think “Shamu” needed to be taken away from humans? 3? Is this baseball for goshsakes? God bless the family of the woman who died.

– My sister has INCHES of snow in Austin, TX. Inches! In Texas! I told her to take pictures because she could be there for 50 more years and not get weather like that which the global warming is delivering right now.

– Mayor Bing, you’re draining Js like you did at Cobo. Great, honest take.

– Learn Mandarin. Really. No, I’m not kidding.

Goodnight and God Bless,

Scott