I can't believe that it's February of 2010 already. It feels like yesterday that I was hearing about Vancouver winning the bid for the Winter Olympics. The games start on Friday. That's exactly four days from today. I'm excited that it's nearly here. This being British Columbia, and more specifically Vancouver, there are also obnoxiously high amounts of anti-games protesters that support causes that are issues above and beyond the Olympics. Yet they some how feel justified in placing all of their anger on the fact that the Olympics are happening. They'll happily be protesting even as the games are happening. Did anti-games protesting happen in any of the other relatively recent Olympics host cities? They might have just been extremely vigilant at hiding them. Well, I'm excited that the games are happening. I'm actually going to attend an early round Olympic Hockey game on February 17 between Finland and Belarus. I got free tickets from the Spina Bifida Association of B.C., I guess there are perks to having this supposed disability, hah hah.
What else have I been doing lately? I saw the movie "Dear John" twice this past weekend. The second viewing was because of a failed attempt by me and my cousins to see "Avatar" for a second time. It has an incredible performance by Channing Tatum and a very good performance by Henry Thomas, the actor best known as Elliot in Steven Spielberg's E.T. :Extra-Terrestrial.
It's another one of those love stories based on a novel by Nicholas Sparks. I've always been interested in these movies because they're love stories told from a male point of view. There's usually also extremely well developed undercurrents about the nature of relationships between males. By this I mean, friendships and Father/Son relationships. I almost don't wanna think of "Dear John" as a love story. The female character is the "heart" of the movie but it feels more like she helps the different male characters to articulate their emotions towards each other. Interesting movie.
What else is going on. I've written a first draft of an essay for Shakespeare and am currently in the process of writing an essay for Canadian Literature on the novel "Swamp Angel" by Ethel Wilson. It was an interesting read despite all the stereotypical depictions of men and people of non-white ancestry. For 1954, it's actually pretty fair to it's few Chinese characters. The men however are of the chauvinistic pig and gentle harmless disabled dumb guy variety. I enjoyed it nonetheless. The female characters have so much depth.
Oh, and in a few days I might be getting some minor surgery to help the healing along for some health related issues that I don't care to elaborate on. This is one bit of info that I'm gonna hold onto. I get incredibly somber when I start articulating my history with medical professionals and health care.
And this concludes the online creeper report, hah hah. Just kidding. Later. Oh, the Aussies were allowed to fly their Boxing Kangaroo flag during the Winter Olympics, if that matters to anybody.
Later
There was a time back when I used to get excited about the Olympics. That was way back during the Cold War. It used to be fun to root for the USA against a "villain" like the USSR or East Germany. I kinda still like the Summer Olympics ( track and field and swimming are kinda cool ), but the Winter Olympics just consist of sports that most people only care about for two weeks every 4 years. I can't really get into it anymore. If I haven't cared about luge for the last 4 years, why should I start caring now? I dunno - maybe I'd feel differently if there was a female figure skater worth having a crush on, but at 40 I think I'm past that stage, even if another Katerina Witt type of skater appeared on the scene.
ReplyDeleteOf course, I would think it would be a bit different in Canada, especially as far as hockey is concerned. I really hope you guys pull it off, even if it comes at the expense of the USA hockey team. Honestly, I'm sure it would mean so much more to you guys than it would us. 99% of people in the USA could care less about the USA Hockey team, and would only pay attention if the USA got to the gold medal game. Of course, it was different in 1980, but without the commie Russians to root against, it just isn't quite the same.