(no subject)

Parents are off at brunch. My plans today: laundry, go for a walk to Riverdale Farm, throw stuff out, possibly rearrange furniture, probably better do some dishes as well. In between, glue self to TV.

I'm not a sports watcher in general, but when the Olympics are on I turn into a fanatic. (Fortunately, CBC seems dedicated to replaying the good bits over and over and over again, so I'm unlikely to miss much even if I try.) Caught the tail end of the Canada-Italy women's hockey game -- which, as several people have pointed out, must've been psychologically tough for both sides. Jen and I were in Gabby's at the time and the score in the top left corner of the TV screens looked like 10-0 (bad enough); it wasn't until they put it up in large print that we realized it was actually 16-0. Ouch. But the Italian goalie did a great job, considering the shots on goal.

Yay for Jennifer Heil! and poor Beckie Scott, although sixth isn't exactly disgraceful.

...oooh, the Canada-Russia game's starting, have to go.

more Olympics

A good site to keep an eye on: DFL. (I forget who linked to this. If it was you, thanks!)

For those of you unfamiliar with this site, here's what I'm doing.

During the course of the Olympics, I will be reporting on the last-place finish in each event (or, in each event for which a single last-place finish is possible). To qualify, it has to be a finish -- disqualifications, DNSes and DNFs are not eligible for this (admittedly dubious) honour.

Why am I doing this? For several reasons.

First and foremost, it's a real celebration of participation, that concept about which many of us sing platitudes but to which few of us assign any real value. Simply put, with very few exceptions, those who finish last at an Olympics are generally far better than the rest of us at their sport -- hence this site's tagline: "Because they're there, and you're not."

Indeed.