Life beyond softball, yes, life beyond forums, ??? :p :D

You know what's really messed with my head after moving from Pacific time to Central time? Having to adjust to the TV schedules and how late events are, such as the Super Bowl. It turns out that when they say 8 PM / 7 PM Central, they actually mean something by that. As a result, I watch less TV, which I guess is a good thing. :)

There are olympics?

Yep, and apparently, we're pretty good at them this time around!

Too bad no one cares.

Oh. I care! No.....wait......I don't.

Ehhh... Some events are fun to watch (I've enjoyed the downhill skiing and snowboarding), and some are true measures of athleticism (like the biathlon).

Couldn't care much else about the other events.

Come on bkbjones, share your line about the men's figure skating! :cool:

Sport or exhibition?
 

I do care about the Winter Olympics, however can we say figure skating and ice dancing are sports or is it just an exhibition? A jury has to decide who's the best. That's not in the mind of "Higher, Faster, Further, Longer etc."
I do know they have to train very hard and long, but it all depends wether a jury say's "We like you the best; you win..."
No as a real dutchie I do like long track speed skating! I'm not sure you know how to skate on a 400meter track, but I do like it...
Shanie Davis lost in his 1500meter competition against the dutch outsider Tuitert. I didn't even considder he was one of the skaters having a chance for gold: He mostly fall down on the ice when it's real counts.

For myself skating is fun, but it realy starts at a distance of at least 25 km. I do prefer a 100km skating. Did once 200km in one day (8h32min) on a lake in Austria. The dutch winters ain't that cold that we can skate a day long...

I'm longing for spring and the summer however!

Figure skating and its ilk (ice dancing, etc) are always political... always. If there isn't cheating in the scoring, there is always accusations of cheating in the scoring. This applies to gymnastics (and diving, etc) in the summer games, too. The same brouhaha will eventually come to snowboarding, too. However, these events will always be there because they bring in the TV audience.

Short track speed skating it stupid.. a race should be about speed, not about following in line and falling when trying to pass (not to mention unenforceable rules against team tactics...).

Alpine skiing and cross-country skiing are both good, but they need to do away with the style score on ski jumping - who cares how graceful they are-- distance should be king.

Long track speed skating is certainly better than short track, but what they need is a track more the size of the running track in the summer games, where the skaters would actually compete on speed, not balance on skates.

Double luge is very, very odd, in a limp wrist sort of way.

Like the skiing, pure timing. You can have the cross country skiing and biathlon. I hated poling more than 10' when I skied, so doing it for miles isn't going to get my attention. Like the addition of ski-cross as that more resembles true-life skiing than anything else. Having once been a gate judge at a few professional skiing events, I can really appreciate the slalom. And I agree, the jump should be distance and ability to land and stay on one's skis.

Probably to the disbelief of some, I love curling as should anyone who frequents a pub with shuffleboard.

I also like watching any of the sliding, though I get bored with those who constantly try to find excuses for failure. Paraphrasing one of the senior lugers the day after the practice luge accident, our equipment includes a sharp blade that reacts to the person steering the sled. The track is the track and if something goes wrong it is because the person steering it made a mistake.

And as all of you have already noticed, you can take the politics and fluff and ...........well, I don't think I need to continue on that subject.