Friday was the other big pre-planned excursion for this vacation: we rented a car and drove up to Whistler, the site of much of the skiing for these past Winter Olympics.

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No more posting about snow -- let's talk about the Winter Olympics! Er...

First off, Captain_Squid was still right years ago -- the best way to watch the Olympics is to record them, and watch them later while fast-forwarding all the commercials, "moments," and cross-country skiing. I'm sure there are many people for whom cross-country is the most riveting ( Read more... )

Remember that Olympics game for the PS3 I mentioned a while back? Well, Elora snagged a copy from eBay, and we gave it a try. It's...mixed, to say the least. Some parts of it turned the events into a rhythm game, which is clever. The floor exercise, in particular, worked well as a rhythm game, where you have to press the appropriate button as ( Read more... )

The oddest culture-shock moment I've had so far during these Olympics is seeing the Chinese athletes high-five each other. I've noticed it most in gymnastics, but I saw it in the archery too. Not that it's a particularly Western gesture, although it kind of is. It's just that I'm used to the Chinese athletes being so serious and stern, much like ( Read more... )

Question for the group: Is it pathetic to buy an Olympics game for the PlayStation? It's nearly universally acknowledged that the last decent Olympics video games were Summer Games and Winter Games from Epyx, back in 1984 or so. But it seems that Beijing 2008 is...well, not bad, anyway, if not excellent, and certainly a step above previous ( Read more... )

As promised, I went to the open house at the Philadelphia Curling Club today, along with my wife, son, and shiny_bauble. To say it was crowded would be an understatement.

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I'm not real happy with the American media's spin on the Olympics this time around. First there was the whole Michelle Kwan disaster -- you'd think Kwan was competing in figure skating, alpine skiing, bobsled, and curling by the way the media cried "the sky is falling!" when she dropped out. Michelle is gone! No reason to watch anymore! We'll ( Read more... )