Month: February 2006

Excellant stop motion photo of the Chinese skaters fall last night. You can see why it happened.]]>

Do I care about figure skating? Not really, but as a human drama about the desire to persevere, tonight’s pairs skating was pretty amazing. The Chinese skaters, as you’ve probably seen on a dozen highlight films, took a monsterous fall, with the female skater Zhong hitting the ice hard early in her program. But after a few tense moments, she got back on the ice and nailed a triple and continued a rather excellant performance. Was it enough for a Silver? Well, the judges thought so, but after a fall like that, you have to wonder if she was getting some sympathy points. NBC’s website is sure to have highlights–go take a look if you haven’t watched already. Reminds me of the Joe Theisman hit a decade or so ago. Hard to watch, but hard not to also.]]>

Mike Wise spins in a circle as to whether people are too young, too old, or just plain stupid for figure skating at all. You get the feeling the guy doesn’t like figure skating (though I’m sure he’d just say, no, ‘I don’t like figure skating parents.’). Feel free to have a read–I can’t figure out why his panties are in a bunch either.]]>

San Jose Mercury News which has made Bode-bashing its feature of the week, so it seems.]]>

The Vice President accidently shot a lawyer (god, what a headline). Cheney was out hunting when a friend of his got in the line of fire and took a face full of shot. I mean, you have to laugh. I feel sorry for the guy who is recovering at a hospital, but we are a pretty funny country sometimes. I remember one of Bush Sr.’s cabinet secretaries died in a rodeo accident, but this is just going to fill the European press with a gold mine of material about the backwards US. Of course it won’t be about the guy who walked into the field of fire, but about our Vice President who was quick to pull the trigger. Thankfully, the extra-large staff of medical attendants near the VP were able to help the guy.]]>

The NBC Olympic site has a photo spread of some of the USA Women’s hockey players. Some of them look like, well, kind of what you would think Womens’ hockey players would look like, but some look more like your basic college gal. It’s 3-0 over Germany now. The announcer just said that every team, save Italy, has at least one American-educated / US college player on their roster. Italy, in case you are wondering, will probably be outscored 30-0 before the end of the preliminary round.]]>

East Coast mega-blizzard really didn’t bother us out here. We got about four inches, but it is suppose to be quite a bit worse just a few miles inland. I posted some pics over at Flickr, mostly of snow covered trees. US is now up 1-0 over Germany in womens hockey. No doubt this will be another blow out.]]>

Michelle Kwan has pulled out of the Olympics, according to the Washington Post. I’ve often wondered about atheletes who come back from injury and how they are better (post-injured) than non-injured players. Often I think there is a bit of a draw (tickets, viewers) in seeing someone ‘coming back’ rather than just another athelete performing. But I’m sad to see Michelle Kwan have to pass. I think I have a picture of her from Salt Lake. Let me see if I can post it here…

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The British MOD reports the United Kingdom and France have reached an agreement on cooperation concerning the future design of aircraft carriers. Didn’t know they were even considering such a thing. But from these images it looks like they are well underway. ]]>