Olympic Update, etc.

We're a week into the Olympics now, and I have some thoughts. First of all, I was somewhat under-whelmed by the opening ceremonies last Friday. I mean, visually, it was very pretty, and I liked the general concept of the projected images on fabric that moved (the Orca whales moving across the floor was very cool), but mostly I thought it was a little slow. I love the song "Allelieuia" (and I did not know it was written by a Canadian!), but I don't think having k.d. Lang (who's Canadian -who knew?) sing it at the opening ceremonies strikes quite the right "yay athletes! go get'em!" vibe. For me, it was a bit of a throwback to the '94 (I think) Barcelona games, when everyone generally had no idea what was happening during the opening ceremonies. But, in general, good effort Canada!

I've pretty much watched all of the prime time coverage since then, and my top moments so far are definitely Evan Lysacek winning the gold medal in figure skating and Apollo Ono winning his silver medal. This probably isn't a very politically correct thing to say, but I really miss the '80's, when the USSR was our arch rival in all things, and every athletic competition turned into a contest for the fate of the world. So, when Evan Lysacek had to go up against Evgeny Pleshenko (sp?) to win the gold, it just felt like the good ol'days! I'm really looking forward to seeing more hockey as it gets into the more competetitive rounds, and they just started Skeleton yesterday - still in my opinion the craziest of all winter sports - so I'm looking forward to that. Today I plan to pretty much park myself on the couch and watch a full day of coverage! Why couldn't the Olympics have started during the Snowpocalypse two weeks ago, when I was desperate for something to watch??

In other news, I have broken my vacuum cleaner. This is a major crisis, because I vacuum a lot. Like every day. Its genetic - my dad does it, too. I accidentally ran the vacuum over a cat toy and sucked it up, breaking the rubber belt thing that turns the motor. So, before I settle down for the Olympics, I have to go in search of a vacuum repair shop that hear tell actually exists in the local area. Here's hoping a cat toy extraction is cheaper than buying a new vacuum!