what if you threw an olympics and no one came?

I've been watching the Olympics nonstop since they opened last Friday, which should explain my unusual silence over the past week. First, a recap: I remained in a state of anger that I would call 'high simmer' until Tuesday, when I played and won the corporate game and secured myself an apartment until I leave for Dublin. Now that I've moved into a place of my own, I am much, much happier. The rest of my time has been filled with the Olympics--I've watched all primetime coverage, and will continue this trend until the Olympics end next Sunday. Until I got my apartment, I was going to campus to watch with Tammy; now that I have the apartment, she's been coming over here.

I still love the Olympics, but the past week has been rather frustrating and disappointing. NBC and all of the major sponsors put too many eggs in a few small baskets (Bode Miller, Michelle Kwan, and Apolo Anton Ohno), when the great performances were turned in by unpublicized athletes (Ted Ligety and Joey Cheek). Tonight was great, though, when Bode Miller wiped out on the Super-G--and his performance was immediately followed by a Nike commercial entitled 'Bode on Happiness'. Ha! My opinions thus far:

1) I still love Apolo Anton Ohno, but there's no way he's going to beat out any Koreans for the gold. They have an *amazing* program, and they're all clearly much powerful than the rest of the world since they're able to pass on the outside of the shorttrack--which means that they're skating a longer distance than other skaters, and at higher speeds to boot. Insane! The Korean women almost swept the medals in the women's 1000-meters, but one of them got disqualified (v. sketchily), so China got a bronze. Yippee.

2) I think the Shani Davis thing has gotten blown out of proportion, and NBC is being rather negligent by not explaining anything about his situation. After he won the gold in the men's 1000-meter long track speed skating, he gave an extremely awkward interview in which he clearly didn't want to be talking to the reporter. From that, it seemed like he was a bastard with a chip on his shoulder, on top of the fact that he didn't skate the team relay earlier in the week. But, it's annoying that NBC is focusing so much attention on the 'controversy' over whether he skated the team event--we weren't going to win that event anyway (see: Korea), while Shani Davis obviously had a great chance at the 1000-meters. Regardless, whether he should have skated the team event or not, NBC devoted so much time to covering Chad Hedrick's annoyance over Shani Davis's refusal to skate that by the time Shani won his individual medal, he was already disliked by a sizeable number of casual viewers. NBC's handling of the situation has now tainted Hedrick's gold (since they only ask him about Shani, not his own races), and also Shani's win. I hate when the media makes up controversies by not explaining how things work and what the background is (see: the Cheney accident and how shooting quail with a shotgun is fundamentally different and more accident-prone than capping someone in the head with a pistol).

3) The Lindsey Jacobellis story was amazing and ridiculous and sad all at the same time. She's the snowboarder who was so far ahead in the snowboard cross event that she tried to grab her snowboard off of a jump just like she would have done in halfpipe--but this threw her off balance and caused her to fall, giving the girl behind her the opportunity to win gold. Lindsey won silver, which clearly wasn't enough since it was her fault she lost the gold. NBC lost no time in turning this into a morality piece for the 21st century--if I ever get to the Olympics (which is doubtful), I'll be sure not to grab a Method air near the end of a race. But since the only sport I could possibly participate in is typing, I don't think Method airs would be a problem.

4) Don't bake five cakes without confirming who's coming. So I made my five Olympic Rings cakes today because I was so excited that I have an apartment. I did everything you're not supposed to do as a hostess--gave only 36 hours notice on a holiday weekend, did not ask for RSVPs, did not offer dinner, and based the whole event around watching tv. Unsurprisingly, only Claude, Tammy, and Oniel showed up. Oniel also picked up the Indian food we'd ordered--surprisingly, I was really craving Indian food again. I never thought I would, but apparently butter chicken is now lodged deep within my soul. Anyway, if you're in the bay area and want cake tomorrow, please come over--there's more than enough cake for you!

I'm falling asleep while writing this, so it's time for bed--I shall endeavor to write more in the future.