More 'lyms

Ok, I promise not to keep doing this, but I had a couple more thoughts on the 'lyms.

First, I'm sorry I was snotty about luge. When I saw that luger sliding down the track unconscious under her sled, I thought better of my "sausage" comments.

Second, I think it's hilarious that the gold medal winner in women's halfpipe listened to her ipod during her gold medal run.

Third, Joey Cheek rocks for talking about Sudanese genocide, for donating his money to refugees, for retiring after the lyms, for being rejected by Harvard and telling everybody about it, and for being so pudding cute you could eat him with a spork, even if "hims" aren't your thing. Plus which his bio at offthepodium.com is hilarious, describing him as being listed in "The Cheek Family Chronicles" as one of the "nine most notable 'Cheeks' of all time." And emphasizing his tendency to puke during practice.

Fourth, the Canada/Sweden curling match this morning was really exciting (for curling). The skip of the Canadian team, a fellow named Brad Gushue (pronounced GOOSHOO) screwed up three times, first the the tenth end (don't I sound knowledgeable?) allowing Sweden to tie and then again in the eleventh (extra) end. Now, I'm delighted with his name. I gather (from LA Times of all sources) that he's seen as a bit of a maverick in Cananda, where the vast majority of the world's curlers reside. I also love the curling commentator for NBC. He's SOOOO Canadian. Plus is name, Don Dugid, is pronounced "Do good." GOOSHOO and DOGOOD.

Fifth, I like the beaver named Dodger Lodge on the cbc.ca Olympic site. So very not American.

Being from Atlanta, I am a little sensitive about the criticism leveled at my fair city about having a badly organized Olympics. Atlantans I talk to will say everything went fine. One thing that's hard to defend from the Atlanta games is the mascot, "Izzy." It was not cute, not clearly defined and made fun of. Ok, Izzy=very weak. But I challenge anyone to say that the Torino mascots are anything but very very weak. Describing them is hard. Disturbing is the word that comes to mind. And there's a whole mess of them: Gliz and Neve are the main ones, but they have friends Gelindo Calvo, Viva Kapendo, Jo Care (the most disturbing to me), Koji Kojito, and Jose Bueno. Plus there's their friend the snowflake. Named Aster. (Could be after Asta the Nick and Nora Charles dog from the Thin Man movies, I dunno). (The snowflake thing doesn't bother me.) Go look them up. Tell me what you think. But be prepared to be disturbed. Not SAW II disturbed. Worse.

Tomorrow: Not the Olympics.