Absence

It has been a while since I last updated, and mostly because the past week has been fairly difficult to get through.

This brings up an interesting question about how personal I want this blog to be.  Generally, I don't think I will write anything here that is too personal, or violates the privacy of any of my friends.  So I'll talk a bit about what has been going on, but not much.

Sadly a very close friend of mine passed away about a week and a half ago.  I knew it was coming, but it was still very upsetting and shocking.  Her parents asked me to help them with a number of things to try to give her the best funeral possible, so I spent most of last week using my meager talents and skills to honour her memory as best I could.

Wherever she is right now, I hope she is watching me, and willing to pass on to me tons of strength to help me continue on and push through this life of mine.

Okay, that's now done.

Now on to random musings on the Olympics.

I have become addicted to watching curling lately.  It's a fascinating sport.  Once you know the rules and strategy behind it, the pace of the game suddenly picks up, and the tension mounts.  I'm impressed by how well the Canadians have been doing, but I am worried they will get upset in the gold medal matches.  We shall see!

I kind of want to try it out.  I have some friends who play on teams...maybe I can talk to them about it.

(I probably won't).

And last night, I am not ashamed to say, I watched the Ice Dancing competition.  Canada won Gold, and I don't think is should be considered as any less of a gold medal than any purely athletic competition.  I think people should be rewarded just as much for creativity, artistry, and originality, as for getting the best time in something.

I often hear people (mostly men) complain that they shouldn't have artistic competitions in what should be an entirely athletic competition.  I disagree.  Why shouldn't the olympics also be about artistic achievement?  Isn't art and creativity also a component of the perfection and idealization of the human form?

In the ancient games back in Greece, they would include competitions in Poetry and Music composition.  Though yes, these technically didn't happen in the proper OLYMPIC Games, but instead in the PYTHIAN games, which were held in the two years between the Olympics, at Delphi in the honour of Apollo.  But I think my argument here still holds up.  Artistic achievement was viewed as just as much of a way to honour the Gods as the athletic events.  And the ancient greeks had no qualms about differentiating a winner from the group.  There was none of this "oh, but it's all so subjective" nonsense.

Sure, art can be subjective at times, but I think we often say "it's all so subjective" as a way to prevent us from actually thinking about the piece of art we are viewing in a meaningful manner.

Speaking of the ancient games, I really wish they'd bring back the Pankration.  Though I guess that's technically what UFC is these days?

#fakeolympicsports

I've been trying to start a twitter trend called #fakeolympicsports, but so far it seems I'm the only one who has put up any suggestions.

I even petitioned John Hodgman to see if he'd be willing to mention this hashtag so that other people would get on board, but he hasn't replied to me.

So I'll list some of the fake events here:

1.  Snowball Fight

2.  Biathalon - 15k pig shoot

3.  Polar bear provocation

4.  Mass-start bobsled

5.  Romantic snowscape poem composition (free-form)

6.  Romantic snowscape poem composition (iambic pentameter sonnet)

7.  Exposure

8.  Avalanche triggering

9.  Avalanche rescue

10. Name pissing

11. 5 m spring board diving (outdoors)

That's all I can think of right now.  Does anyone else out there have any suggestions???  I'll try to think of more later....