gaffe games

Apparently there’s an AP article calling this Olympics the “gaffe games” – a description that’s way too fitting. Every day there’s something new to embarrass the Olympic organizing committee. First it was the torch not going up. Which, ok, right there is bad enough. The symbol of the games? You mess up the symbol of the games? Ten bucks says someone forgot to plug in the power cable on that particular leg of the torch. “Eh there Bob, you got all those cords plugged in der?” “Eh, Molson, maple leaf, you bet!.... Oh wait…. Did I plug in the cords or did I play curling? Hmmmm, oh well.”

(that’s the best Canadian imitation I got)

Did you notice Wayne Gretzky’s lip sweating when he was waiting for the torch? Check the replay ;)

Yesterday we have a curler literally crack the ice. He was trying to keep a stone from going out of bounds, but he accidentally flipped the stone and CRASH! Cracks the ice and ruins the curling course/ice/track – whatever the heck they call that thing. Curling has a lot of terms to learn – so far I know “stone”. Seeing as there are about 443 curling matches a day, I’m sure I’ll learn more. Yay for higher education.

Some other gaffes:
- the mountains are somehow missing snow (Not technically anyone’s fault but hilarious nonetheless)
- the viewing area in Cypress got flooded and they had to shut down their 20,000 standing-room viewing area for the snow sports up there. (returned about 1.5 million in tix revenue – ouch!)
- The zambonis in the speed skating ovals break down (now this one is WAY embarrassing. This country’s first and most popular car is a zamboni! How can they possibly have the countries only 2 broken ones at that Olympic oval??!)
- They have the Olympic torch behind this ridiculous chain wire fence. It looks like they plopped it down in the middle of a construction site. It’s ridiculous.

We were cracking jokes about Canada to try and get a laugh out of our curling producer (who’s Canadian) and nothing, no reaction. She finally turns around and tells us that she’s so used to it, Canadian teasing doesn’t even faze her anymore. She said, “You guys have no idea what it’s like to be Canadian and totally fail at everything!”

We all about died laughing.

Poor Canada.

The one thing about this Olympics is that it has this really laid back, fun vibe to it – which I’m hoping Canada remembers. Most of this country has spent the past week drunkety drunk drunk. I’ve been walking home every night around 1 or 2am and the six block walk to my hotel is spent stepping over passed out Canucks with the Canadian flag drawn on their faces. (and sniffing lots of herb which apparently is totally legal to smoke on the streets here)

Random trivia for the day - did you know that Norway has won the most Olympic medals? Yea, who knew?

No skating event today – hoping to get a good nights sleep tonight. I could really use it! I was washing my running clothes in the sink this morning and about ten minutes later I heard what I thought was the coffee maker bubbling over. Hmm, that’s weird, I thought to myself… such a small machine, such loud gurgling. Walk into the bathroom and omg – I left the water running in the sink! With the drain closed! Thank god the sink had one of those idiot-proofing extra large drain hole thingys. I would have flooded my bathroom – or at least ruined my make-up case.

Gaffe games indeed!