Rota

Who's the biggest tool?

Hello! Yes, I have been remiss in posting. But I also have been in 3 states other than my own in the last week, so, you know, get off my back, etc.  I too am mostly only capable of miscellany, but miscellany with a theme! I would like to second Ro's words about Friday Night Lights. It's really good. It makes me cry every time; I guess maybe that's not a selling point for everyone.

I was on the west coast last week on election day (don't worry - in Cambridge, the Election Commission stays open all weekend before the big day). As a result of my location, I got to stay up until the Democrats were a mere two states away from awesome victory, so that was nice. And imagine how pleased I was when CNN took the time to send an email alert to my boss's blackberry about Britney dumping K-Fed, so that she could be the one to announce that fine news to me. Side note: I love a good pun, and I love the nickname "FedEx." Heh. Ro was kind enough to send me a list of all the awesome things that happened while I was gone, which included the above, along with news of Rumsfeld's departure. Woo!

While I am pleased that what went around came back around to the two aforementioned gentlemen,
what's up with O.J.? Dude. Not cool. I mean, not only is he publishing this book in which he basically says, "Yeah, not only did I kill my wife, let me tell you exactly how," CNN.com tells me this:

"Simpson has failed to pay the $33.5 million judgment against him in the civil suit. His NFL pension and his Florida home cannot legally be seized. He and the families of the victims have wrangled over the money in court for years."

Charming.

So who IS the biggest tool: FedEx, Rumsfeld, or O.J.?

I'm going to rule out FedEx. It is definitely not cool to spend like $50 million of your wife's money, especially since it was presumably on forties, pot, trucker hats, and manpris (tm Go Fug Yourself). And while in some ways it is awesome, it also is quite appalling that he seems to be totally unfazed by the way that people aren't even coming to his free concerts. Only a special kind of tool can continue to think he is a ladies' man and cool dude in the face of such public mockery. BUT. Britney did marry him and let him get away with that crap for a long time, so.

I guess Rumsfeld v. O.J. isn't really a tough call either. O.J. is definitely a world-class tool, and I am sure I don't need to enumerate the reasons. But Rumsfeld. Oh, Rummy. The hubris! Engaging in a course of action leading to the deaths of thousands of American troops and tens, possibly hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians, and the refusal, right up to the day of his "resignation," to admit that he made mistakes. Just because an apology can't fix the mistakes made in Iraq, just because it can't bring those people back to life, doesn't mean it shouldn't be made.

Only one of these people actually makes me want to vomit, and thus, Rumsfeld is the biggest tool. Props these folks for suing his ass.

Bits!

I have returned to America! Here are some things.

1) I had a lot of TV to watch when I got back. I am mostly caught up, down to just this week's Wednesday and Thursday shows. It's been hard, I'm not going to lie. Some stuff had better start getting canceled, or I will never be able to leave the apartment again.

2) On my flight from Barcelona to France, I sat next to the cousin of the character Janice from Friends. She was such an Ugly American, and coupled with her annoying voice, that made for a very cringe-y flight for me. No ice for her water? The French! Sigh.

3) Barcelona was very clean. They had people out in tiny cars doing trash collection and street cleaning all the time. In contrast to the cleanliness, there was a lot of graffiti.

4) I have a terrible cold. HF suggested that it was the Spanish Flu.

5) The subway was incredibly easy to use. The city as a whole was very navigable. But the commuter rail type train was impossible to figure out, which is unfortunate, since that is how you get to the airport.

6) In Barcelona, I ordered fisherman's paella, since the city is proud of its seafood. It came with two whole prawns, and two whole things that looked like tiny lobsters (I think they were langostinos). I didn't want to be rude, so I felt I had to eat one of each. I had no idea how to disassemble them, but I managed. It was really gross. Don't click on that thumbnail unless you are ok with sea creatures.

7) Something I did not order in Barcelona, but wanted to: Plate of Ham. Really, it's a plate of jamon de pais, which is really more like prosciutto. Just a plate of it, laid out in one layer.

8) Barcelona may be clean, but sometimes, not so much with the people. I mean, anywhere in Europe really, you are likely to encounter some serious B.O. (Here, too, of course, especially on places like the train, so that you can't escape.) Universality does not make it less stinky though.

9) People dressed very casually in Barcelona, surprisingly so, given the excellent shopping and proximity to Paris. Lots of jeans, t-shirts, sweaters, etc. And all the women wore flats! I really saw maybe 10 pairs of heels, and usually that was boots. But the hair. My greatest regret is not getting a picture of the hair. Two major "styles:" Dying your head one of two shades of unnatural red (orangey or purplish), or giving yourself a streaky, overly-layered longish mullet. Even more confusing was that only half of the women had done either of these, which means that they looked at all the other ladies with their lovely, simply cut hair, often brunette, often wavy, and thought: "I mean, that looks ok, but I think I should cut off great hunks of mine and dye it with cranberry juice."

10) The big, semi-open-air markets were cool, and filled with all these beautiful and interesting fruits, candy, peppers, spices, and vegetables. And then I saw a cow's head.

I Suck!

Unpacking today, I found an old journal. It's dated "Late '94" meaning I was 13-14 years old. In it I found a list entitled: Things to Do IN THE SUMMER!

• Collages galore
• Go for a walk to 7-11 for an Evian
• Call [cousin]
• Call [friends]
• Call [favorite aunt]
• Get a tan
• Read a worthless novel
• Essay on the decline of America
• Read, read read
• Decline something
• Write to [friends]
• Paint toenails red
• Dance
• Logic problems
• Talk to [little brother]
• Go on swings
• Develop a crush
• Find new methods of self-expression
• Redecorate
• Play the piano (need practice)
• Factor something
• Laugh for no good reason

Comments:
I'm kind of speechless. Reading this, I can't imagine how I wasn't the victim of a vicious hate crime.

Decline of America - I sincerely hope that essay was for school. Otherwise, why was I thinking about the decline of America? What did I have to say on the topic? "Not enough gummi products?"

Evian? EVIAN?

Worthless novel - I must have developed some rarified literary tastes when I was TWELVE. How refreshing that I was willing to lower myself in deference to the heat of summer.

New methods of self-expression - There is nothing I can add to that. It's pure genius. I will never say something that funny again so long as I live. Imagine this:

Mom: Hey, hon, what are you going to do today while I'm at work?
Me: Well, I thought I'd paint my toenails then really buckle down and find some new methods of self-expression.
Mom: Okay, don't forget the dishwasher is full.
Me: Kay!

Laugh for no good reason - Hee! This is awesome. Just image me, only tiny, and my glasses are huge, and I'm taking my summer logic problems VERY SERIOUSLY. Then I look up, and think, 'Wait. It's summer. I can let loose a little. Hah. H-hah? Ha! Ha! Ha ha ha! Okay, that's done. Now, onto Latin.'

This list is embarrassing, yes. But it's also encouraging. For one thing, I no longer have to wonder why I didn't have any friends as a kid. Mystery solved! Also, it's comforting that I've already BEEN a huge pretentious douchebag! I already hit rock bottom, when I planned a summer activity involving factoring! I'm so much more fun than I was when I was 13 - who else can really say that? I'm getting younger! Granted, I know depths of self-loathing I didn't suspect possible, but that's okay.
I'm going to go punch myself in the face now. Bye!

Dear American Eagle

WHY DID YOU DO THAT?

Last night, Ro and I were sitting down to watch the TV offerings of the day I like to call Awesome Tuesday. On Awesome Tuesday, the CW gives us Gilmore Girls, followed by the unspeakably incredible Veronica Mars. (Seriously: It's not like I forget how great a show it is, but every time it comes back from an absence I actually feel how great, funny, smart, sweet, scary, and perfect it is. It's as though it impossible to really hold in one's mind how good a show it is, because part of the goodness is actually a visceral reaction of joy that I have while watching it, and you can't really recreate that feeling in your mind when the show is off the air for a while. Yeah, that's right, all that over a TV show.)

Obviously, I feel really strongly about these shows, VM in particular. Because they are, at times (GG in particular), girly shows, dramas involving discussions of the dreaded "feelings," shoes, hair, etc. Everyone is pretty and shiny and on GG there are minimal car crashes and explosions (though in the season premiere, that was not true). VM actually has a fair bit of action and suspense, though if you don't watch it 1) start, 2) you won't believe me until you do. But Ro's enjoyment of these fine programs is a testament to the fact that they are so much more than girl-dramas, and in fact, they aren't even really girl-dramas at all.

Which is why it was so appalling to see the the CW had placed, at random commercial breaks, some sort of short . . . thing featuring a bunch of girls sitting around a sectional sofa in their casual best, talking about the shows. I died inside. It is already nigh impossible to convince people to watch these shows if they do not already. THIS WILL NOT HELP. Ro termed it insipid, and she is not wrong. It was. A little research this morning on on the Interwebs (yes, I am leaving on vacation in like 6 hours, shut up) revealed that this is some sort of devil-inspired collaboration between the CW and American Eagle, purveyor of surprisingly good jeans. (Really, try them out, they are great, and cheap!) It is called "Aerie Tuesdays," and apparently, it is meant to make me want to buy clothes from AE's new line of clothes.

Problems ABOUND, people. The first of many is that while I am sure that these shows do draw a fairly large audience from the girl-teen population, they also draw a good number of smarty-pants 20- and 30-somethings. Moreover, having these terrible Aerie Girls moments? Not going to expand and grow that audience, CW! The shows don't have stellar ratings, and any guy just tuning in at the behest of his girlfriend or wife or friend is going to take one look at these girls chatting and giggling and RUN AWAY. As he should.

I can't tell from the "Meet the Aerie Girls" section of the above site how old these girls are, though in fairness there appears to be a good spread of ages. And I actually can't tell you what they talked about in the spots, so deafened by my own rage was I. Maybe it was about the social implications of having a sexual code on college campuses, as provoked by an Take Back the Night rally on VM. I doubt it though.

In sum:

1) Watch Veronica Mars (you should watch GG, but it is in less danger of cancellation)

2) CW: please kill off the Aerie Girls in a terrible, soft clothing-related accident.

Endless Love

Sometimes, when I think about the eight years Bill Clinton was president, I get so sad. He wasn't perfect, but a quick rundown and compare of "Major Problems Caused or Faced While President" between Bill and our current "leader" really gets me in the gut.

Last week, Mr. Clinton was on the Daily Show. I didn't get to watch it until this weekend, when I was cleaning out the old TiVo (much more fun than, say, cleaning out the fridge). It was as excellent as every episode of the Daily Show always is.  But the real fun was yet to come, when Bill appeared on FOX News in an interview with Chris Wallace.

FOX News gives me hives, so I didn't watch it live, but of course it's been all over the news. Chris Wallace is now saying, asshat that he is, is acting all confused as to why Bill got so riled up in his answer, claiming, "All I did was ask him whether he felt he did enough to connect the dots and go after Al Qaeda."

Actually, CHRIS, I am looking at the transcript right now. What you actually did was ask the world's longest question. You started by saying this was a question that many viewers e-mailed into you: "Why didn’t you do more to put Bin Laden and al Qaeda out of business when you were President?" Then you highlight claims made in the book The Looming Tower, which says that Bin Laden was talking shit about the U.S. back in 1993, and you wondered why, after the attack on the U.S.S. Cole, we didn't strike back. You end with: "[B]ut the question is why didn’t you do more, connect the dots and put them out of business?" That seems to me like a pretty confrontational way to ask that question, Judgy McBlamey.

Clinton goes right after him, though, bless his heart. He points out that while he will answer all of the questions that Wallace smashed in there, he wants to note that he is being asked this on FOX news.  He goes on to acknowledge that he tried and failed to get Bin Laden, and calls Wallace out for doing "FOX's bidding" and doing "a nice little conservative hit job on" him. Wallace tried to make out like Clinton is not answering his questions. This brings us to my favorite part of the interview, which I will quote in full, because it's awesomeness cannot be contained by summary. My comments are in brackets.

Clinton: It was a perfectly legitimate question but I want to know how many people in the Bush administration you asked this question of. I want to know how many people in the Bush administration you asked: 'Why didn’t you do anything about the Cole? I want to know how many you asked: Why did you fire Dick Clarke?'  I want to know . . . [Bring it, sir!]

Wallace: We asked . . .

Clinton: . . .

Wallace: Do you ever watch Fox News Sunday sir?

Clinton: I don’t believe you ask them that. [Ohhhh, SNAP!]

Wallace: We ask plenty of questions of . . .

Clinton: You didn’t ask that did you? Tell the truth.

Wallace: About the USS Cole?

Clinton: Tell the truth. [Do it.]

Wallace: I . . . with Iraq and Afghanistan there’s plenty of stuff to ask.

Clinton: Did you ever ask that? You set this meeting up because you were going to get a lot of criticism from your viewers because Rupert Murdoch is going to get a lot of criticism from your viewers for supporting my work on climate change. And you came here under false pretenses and said that you’d spend half the time talking about . . .

Wallace: <laughs> [Yeah, laugh it up, jackass.]

Clinton: You said you’d spend half the time talking about what we did out there to raise $7 billion dollars plus over three days from 215 different commitments. And you don’t care.

No, they DON'T CARE. I love you. There's enough fodder here for a series of posts - not just the rest of the interview, which continues to be super, but also the reporting on said interview in the conservative press, which is infuriating, or the things he says in the interview about the administration's lack of focus on Afghanistan, or on Bill's Global Initiative, which has potential.

I think the thing I like best about this, besides the calling out of FOX, is that Bill admits he failed. I'll grant you that the consequences to him for admitting this failure are not as great as they would be for, say, a current President. But still, he admits that he tried and failed. SOMEONE could learn a lesson from that, surely.

Half-Assed Review 1: Chicken Little

I had to take a Peter Pan bus this weekend, from Hartford to Boston. It's been a while since I took a non-Fung Wah bus, and it turns out the ride from Hartford is just long enough for them to show a movie. As I was pretty tired, and the TV that was easiest for me to look at was on the fritz, I mostly looked out the window and listened to my iPod. However, on a bus they just play the movie over the speakers, so you can't help but listen a little, and I found myself sort of paying attention. Sometimes.

[Spoilers after the cut]

Ro Reads GOOD

Well, the cover at least.

Good Magazine (GOOD) is Al Gore's baby - he's listed on the masthead as Associate Publisher (Advertising), but I think he's also been involved in the creation and direction, and the vibe is definitely Gore-esque (politics, environmentalism, caring). The tagline is "GOOD is for people who give a damn. It's an entertaining magazine about things that matter." Which is great, as I do give a damn and also enjoy being entertained. Sold!

A few meta points: it was $4.95, which is a lot, but it's apparently an every-two-months deal. The premier issue is September/October.

Cover: Excellent design. First of all, I think the font is Lord St. Etzen, or a close friend thereof. That is an awesome font, and Ta loves it. The cover design is good (heh - that's going to happen a lot, I bet) - it looks exactly right for what it wants to be. Design is something I find difficult to talk about, mostly because I don't know anything about it. But here's what I liked: white as the background color, the size and placement of the GOOD logo, that the cover is mainly text (rather than being built around an image or person), the icons along the bottom telling me that (a) the magazine is environmentally friendly, (b) it's on recycled paper, (c) the issue's theme is I Heart America, and (d) that there are free stickers inside. I like the top right, which lists the feature articles (with page numbers, THANK YOU), then other contributors all together.

    I'm not so sure about the cover idea - a "Do-It-Yourself Personal Manifesto" - consisting of _______ LIKE YOU GIVE A DAMN. You are supposed to write in your verb of choice. The little pen in hand icon is cute, and I get what they are driving at, but it's a little general. It doesn't say much about the magazine's point of view. It makes it seem that the magazine is just about doing things earnestly, not about the things you actually do. An adverb rather than a verb. Does that make sense? This is a very minor quibble. 

    On the other hand, the articles and contributer's list gets me where I live: "America's Place in the World," "Migrants vs. Minutemen," "Buy A Senator" (guide to the Midterm Elections), Joel Stein, Neal Pollack, Kurt Vonnegut. Excellent!

Spine: Clean, neat. I like the use of a quote along the spine, following the title of the issue. I like the purple at the very top to set off the issue number. They clearly thought about everything - how it would looked stacked up with following issues, making it easy to read, giving a lot of information very simply, and having a modern look.

Back Cover: An ad, but it's an ad for Timberland, announcing that their shoeboxes will now have "ingredient labels" - how much energy was used to make the shoes, where they were made, how much child labor (0%, hee), how many hours Timberland does of community service, etc. I really quite like this idea. None of it is actually meaningful - I wouldn't know how many is too many kilowatts of energy to use making a pair of boots. Still, I love the transparency, and the move toward conscientious manufacturing.

Subscription Card: While I was juggling this and my lunch, two subscription cards fell out. At first I was angry, as everyone hates subscription cards and I'm no exception. (I particularly hate the ones that come to me in the magazines TO WHICH I ALREADY SUBSCRIBE.) Anyway, I was mad, but then I looked at it, and my heart grew three sizes. $20 for 6 issues (one year) - 100% of which goes to your choice of 12 listed non-profits. Donors Choose, WWF, Unicef, Teach for America, City Year. 100%. Dear Lord, that's wonderful. 

In conclusion, this magazine is awesome.

These are things I hate

1. The load time on Adobe Acrobat.  Look, Adobe. I don't need to see that stupid screen every time I want to open a PDF. I certainly don't want to wait a full minute while you do whatever it is you need to do to load yourself, then open a second window to load the file I double-clicked on a century ago. Come ON. Portable document format my ass.

2. Vincent Libretti from Project Runway.  Ro put it best when she described Vincent as insufferable. That is the perfect description. Not only is he always wrong about whatever he is saying about other people's designs, he is also crazy, so makes no sense. But he thinks he is both right and making sense, and he's just so damn sure of the wisdom of his totally unsolicited advice.  He probably thinks is just the most kind and thoughtful colleague when he makes his sympathetic concerned noises about Michael's ruching on his couture gown, but Michael doesn't want to hear your crazy nonsense.  And your noises of concerns are obnoxious, and also, we already have lovely Tim Gunn to advise people as to potential pitfalls, so shut up. If you tell the viewing audience that one more think turns you on, I am going to beat you over the head with an industrial sewing machine, such will be the Hulkian strength of my rage. Also go away. Also your clothes were so boring and not very good and I have not idea how you made it through so many episodes. I hate you, I hate your 401k, and I hate your propensity to work in your undershirt.

3. Wheat pasta.  I have tried to like wheat pasta. I really like regular pasta. And I eat kind of a lot of it. Everyone once in a while, I think, "If I am going to be eating so much pasta, I should try to eat this wheat pasta sometimes, because it is better for me." So I will pick up a bag from Trader Joe's, thinking this time it will be different. This time, the pasta won't taste just like cardboard, but drier. It won't scrape across the top of my tongue and crumble as I try to chew it, despite the fact that I cooked it so long it should be more waterlogged than a lemming.  But it WILL be like that.  Wheat pasta is gross.

4. Everyone on the T, often including myself.  On the Green Line, I used to run through the list of kinds of riders I hated. I think the tie was between Guy Who Leans Against the Pole because he Can't Be Bothered to Hold Himself Up So Now No One Else Can Hold Onto the Pole (GWLATPBHCBBTHHUSNNOECHOTP) and Lady Who Must Get Up a Full Minute Before We Reach Her Stop and Move Toward the Door Forcing Everyone in Her Path to Let Go of What They Are Holding Onto So She Can Pass (LWMGUAFMBWRHSAMTTDFEIHPTLGOWTAHOSSCP). I promise you, Lady, the train will stop and it will let you off even if you don't hover by the door like a potential prison escapee. And Guy? Lots of people, including yours truly, are too short to reach the top pole and we really, really need to hold onto that and oops, did I stab you with my fingernail? My bad. I hate myself on the T because I become totally enraged, and by the time I get to work I am murderous. I don't like to start my day with killings.

The Red Line is better, except that the seats are small (read: regular sized) and Americans are...not. I don't like strangers in any form, and I especially do not like strangers touching me. I don't want to sit thigh-to-thigh with some businessman who can't fold his newspaper in half but must read fully opened, as though it is an eagle and it must SOAR. Right into my personal space. I don't like constricting every muscle in my body in a futile attempt to shrink myself so that I do not have come into contact with the people who take up more seat space then they have been allotted. It's not really anyone's fault that they don't fit properly on the seat, and the MBTA should know better, but it's still uncomfortable, and I wish people would endeavor to at least try and not touch me, as opposed to actually making things worse by sitting with their legs all spread out like they are on their couch instead of commuting.

5. The Government Center T station.  Why so hot? I understand that the subway of Boston was first built like 200 years ago or something, and that we didn't have air conditioning, and that even if we did, it isn't really feasible to climate control an entire underground cavern.  But I think it's possible to, you know, ventilate the hole in the ground. Not understanding anything about the "science" of thermodynamics or whatever, I already don't understand how it gets so freaking melty down there when there is a giant open stairwell to the surface. I guess trains are hot? Ok. So drill some air shafts though to the street and put in some fans. That should work, right? I mean it's hot like the surface of the sun is hot. It's a punishment to have to be in that station for even one second, let alone the ten minutes it takes to wait for a train.

6. The mystery flecks of something in the Teriyaki Sesame Simply Asia noodle box.  Look, Simply Asia noodle box. I want to like you. I purposely carefully examine the pictures alluringly placed on each box of noodles, trying to choose the flavors that do not have tiny flecks of stuff in their sauce. My aversion to flecks is long-standing. I don't like to use the packets that come with Ramen because of the little green flecks in them. I mean, what is that? Parsley? Scallion? Anyway, I want a smooth, fleckless sauce. And Teriyaki Sesame looks like it has teriyaki sauce, sesame seeds, and nothing else. But when I open packet of sauce? SWIMMING with flecks! I think they are shredded ginger or something. I don't know. I hate them.

7. That Justice and Standoff turned out to be totally watchable.  I already have too much TV to watch. My current model of TiVo only tapes one thing at a time (and I can watch something else at the same time). I'm delaying upgrading until the HD box with a dual tuner comes out. That could be MONTHS, people. And I already have several conflicts between established shows: Grey's and The O.C., Veronica Mars and House. I count on the majority of new shows totally sucking, or at least being totally uninteresting to me. Vanished lived up to its promise. But Justice, which I watched only because of Victor Garber, turned out to be kind of interesting and fun. And Standoff, which I literally had no interest in despite the delightful Ron Livingston, was maybe good. It had humor, it had drama, and the acting didn't suck. I am so screwed.

Cliches I Work With

• Lady with the really long ponytail.
• Lady who asks me if I'm "good at computers."
• Lady who seems compelled to mention her weight several times a day, apparently loving an awkward silence.
• Lady who actually says, "Tut-tut."
• Guy who thinks people are following him in the hallways.
• Lady who is coming down with something
  • Lady who wonders if you are coming down with something
  • Lady whose kid is coming down with something
  • Lady who hears something is going around
  • Lady who didn't feel well yesterday
  • Lady who hasn't felt well since she got back from vacation
  • Lady who heard that Other Lady is out sick, and wonders what she has - is it the thing that's been going around?
  • Etc.

• Lady whose pants are too short.
• Lady who lapses into baby talk. (I am not a baby.)
• Lady who steals my sticky-tabs.
• Lady who declines my offer of Fritos, then eats half the bag.
• Lady who shows me her vacation pictures within one hour of meeting me.
• Middle-aged lady with barrettes.
• Guy who chats in the elevators.

I have worked with all these cliches before, especially long ponytail lady, who apparently moves from job to job with me, radically changing her appearance and identity, but I always spot her because she won't cut off her goddamn long ponytail. It's SO LONG! There are scissors on your desk! Cut it! I'll cut it for you, no problem.

Tomorrow: Ro reads The Atlantic.

It's all adrenaline...Adrenaline and HEART!

Perhaps this is not the ideal post to be the inaugural tagged with "judging" post.

I was watching the figuring skating last night while I got read for bed. It was the pairs long program, and before each pair went on, they did a little human interest story about them. This year, I have to say, NBC is doing a really nice job with the tales of bittersweet victories and triumphs over adversity and whatnot. So the Russians are about to go on, and NBC tells us the harrowing tale of the time this pair was in the US in 2004 to skate in the World Championships but then there was a TERRIBLE ACCIDENT. They showed the guy skater lifting the girl and then . . . dropping her. HARD. On her head. And she slid motionless across the ice. The fall was so ugly that as they showed it, I heard a loud "Ohhhhh!" from across the street, the sound of 3 or 4 guys watching a particularly rough hit during a football game or something. That part was actually kind of funny, because that means there were a bunch of dudes across the street watching pairs figure skating at 11pm last night.

Anyway, it was bad. And then we learned about how the guy lost his confidence and it took forever for him to regain it and here they are about to totally win Another Gold Medal because they are the Russians and that is what they do.

I feel like that story really set the stage for the Chinese pair that followed them.  This Chinese pair had planned to attempt some crazy kind of throw never before attempted in comeptition, and they only had a 40-50% success rate during practice. I can't remember the name of the throw, as it was immediately replaced by the Pamchenko Twist in my head. Anyway. It was the first throw in their program, and as they went to do it, I felt like it was not going to go well. And I was right. The girl didn't make her final rotation, and she landed in a semi-split on her knee.

It was so sad, and scary, but then she totally shook it off! And they finished their program, AND got enough points to win the silver. Damn, you know? I would have been all, no, thanks, I'm done, this is WAY too stressful and now my knee hurts. I'm just going to sit this one out. Can someone get me some hot chocolate maybe? And ice, some ice? Thanks.

I will never be an Olympic athlete.

The announcer lady was suitably awed. She just kept saying that it was amazing, and how the skater must not be able to feel anything. She thought it must just be pure adrenaline at that point. "Adrenaline . . . and heart."

That announcer is lame.