Every four years the best and brightest gather to complete.  Wee lads and lasses dream of glory on the Olympic stage.  The showcase for the world is supposed to be an unparalleled event.  Americans have the Superbowl, but no one else in the world gives a rat's behind.  Europe has the World Cup, but everyone else in the world has difficulty stomaching 0-0 double overtime ties.  The Olympics is where every country is supposed to compete for their pride and all have a chance.  But the Olympics has some serious flaws.  It has degenerated over the years.  Recently the ratings of the Olympics have been so poor that American Idol, Survivor, Lost, all stomped it, and I presume Sewing with Gladys on PBS probably held its own.

Why are the ratings down?  It has to be the events.  These events are garbage.  I mean a bi-athlon?  Of course!  It's so obvious!  Peanut butter and Jelly move over, make room for sharp-shooting and cross country skiing!  Shouldn't this event be called "Deranged Serial Killer?"  I realize there may have been some value in this skill back in WW2, but to be realistic, no kid grows up dreaming of being the best in the world and hitting little targets after stomping through three miles of snow.  The same can be said for Curling.  Remember the very short lived movie "Men with Brooms?"  This disaster of a movie attempted to cash in on the bump in interest curling gained in the 2002 Olympics.  I suppose no one informed the producers that the interest was not inherent interest in the sport, but rather a eye-brow raising curiosity among the general public about what ridiculous schlock can earn you a gold medal these days.  It is shuffleboard on ice.  Anyone who says otherwise either plays curling and doesn't want it insulted, or plays shuffleboard and doesn't want IT insulted.  Maybe a better movie would have been "Geezers with Poles" about the travails of soon to be dead shuffleboard champion of old mackin on the ladies in the retirement home as he tries to regain shufflin glory from the new wave of baby boomers checking into to Sunny-vale Acres (It would win an Oscar if he were a confused bisexual fogy).

Bobsledding???  Who was the first guy to get into a drunken bar argument and yell "Oh yeah! Well, me and three of my friends can squeeze into a sled shaped like a bathtub and get to the bottom of a hill faster than you!"  Or maybe I've got the origins all wrong.  Maybe bobsledding was born out of need when four guys were in a bathtub when their wives walked in (maybe they were filming an award winning movie).  Whatever the case, it just seems ridiculous.

Olympic sports need to come back to reality.  They need to be competitions that people have whether they are training to be in the Olympics or not.  Who can run the fastest, that works because everyone, everywhere, runs.  Who can throw a heavy rock the furthest-check.  Who can jump the highest-check.  Who can slide around on ice in a spandex the best-nope.  Some new games will have to be instituted to replace all of the crap competitions they have now.  I formally propose snow-ball fighting (a panel of judges will determined who got creamed worse).  Also, sprinting and running long distances in two feet of snow, snowball throwing accuracy, capture the flag, and snowfield wrestling (over when someone yells "uncle" while having snow mashed up their nose).   These are much more entertaining and practical events. 

All of the Olympics needs an overhaul.  That the whole of the Olympics has turned into a hodge-podge of strangeness makes it only fitting for the opening ceremony to include: life sized cow effigies, athletes marching in to the Village Peoples "YMCA", a Ferrari doing donuts, Yoko Ono reciting a free verse poem.  What a ghastly, bloated production this is.  It couldn't have less to do with, you know, the Olympics.