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Balloon Juice

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

The republican speaker is a slippery little devil.

It’s a doggy dog world.

Stop using mental illness to avoid talking about armed white supremacy.

If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.

It’s easier to kill a dangerous animal than a man who just happens to have different thoughts/values than one’s own.

President Biden is doing good where he can, and getting it done.

Well, whatever it is, it’s better than being a Republican.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

They were going to turn on one another at some point. It was inevitable.

Trump’s legal defense is going to be a dumpster fire inside a clown car on a derailing train.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

Republicans don’t trust women.

In short, I come down firmly on all sides of the issue.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

Bogus polls are all they’ve got left. Let’s bury these fuckers at the polls a year from now.

Marge, god is saying you’re stupid.

Meanwhile over at truth Social, the former president is busy confessing to crimes.

Chutkan laughs. Lauro sits back down.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

It’s not hopeless, and we’re not helpless.

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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Olympics Open Thread

Olympics Open Thread

by John Cole|  February 8, 20148:58 pm| 100 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads, Sports

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Watching the Olympic snowboarders made me reflect on the fact that I have to sit down to tie my shoes.

I’m crabbier than usual tonight. Woke up in a total “not dealing with fucking people” mood today.` This is helping:

olympickitty

Yes, that is catnip shake on the top of his head. And it’s a big pic, so click to embiggen to get the full feel.

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Reader Interactions

100Comments

  1. 1.

    The Dangerman

    February 8, 2014 at 9:03 pm

    …not dealing with fucking people…

    Leaving Priests, Nuns, and George Zimmerman?

  2. 2.

    lamh36

    February 8, 2014 at 9:03 pm

    No offense John Cole, but isn’t that your usual mood until the pets soften you up?

  3. 3.

    schrodinger's cat

    February 8, 2014 at 9:04 pm

    How is your knee?

  4. 4.

    Cassidy

    February 8, 2014 at 9:05 pm

    You know to deal with that right? Get slipons.

  5. 5.

    John Cole

    February 8, 2014 at 9:06 pm

    @lamh36: Nailed it before the update. I hit publish when I meant to upload media.

  6. 6.

    Betty Cracker

    February 8, 2014 at 9:08 pm

    “Can’t hold onto that twizzle.”

  7. 7.

    kdaug

    February 8, 2014 at 9:11 pm

    Feeling this tonight. I’m going to throw on a pot of beans, listen to the stupid cat try to meow in english, and try to catch up on my backlog of shit I’ve recorded.

    (ETA: The cat ain’t stupid.)

  8. 8.

    raven

    February 8, 2014 at 9:11 pm

    Well what a bummer. We just watched “Captain Phillips”. Cool movie and Hanks and Barkhad Abdi are really good. The I hit the google and it looks like there is reason to believe it’s bullshit! What the fuck, The Butler’s son didn’t get killed in the Nam and Captain Phillips is a phony?? Ain’t nuthin sacred?

  9. 9.

    lamh36

    February 8, 2014 at 9:12 pm

    So I was just watching Law & Order: SVU episode with John Stamos and was just marveling at how Stamos has aged so damn well.

    Now watching Despicable Me and now thinking about how Pharell Williams doesn’t seem to age. What deal with the devil has Williams made?

    Pharell Willams…DOES.NOT.AGE!!!

  10. 10.

    jl

    February 8, 2014 at 9:13 pm

    “dealing with fucking people”

    Well, if done in a nice way, sometimes that will put people in a better mood. Cole should give it some thought.

  11. 11.

    Baud

    February 8, 2014 at 9:14 pm

    @Betty Cracker:

    Haha. And I thought holding onto twizzles was banned under Russia’s anti-gay laws.

  12. 12.

    Alison

    February 8, 2014 at 9:14 pm

    @lamh36: More like not aged at all. It’s sort of amazing.

  13. 13.

    Comrade Mary

    February 8, 2014 at 9:15 pm

    This would be a bad time to tell you that they guy who won bronze in slopestyle did it with a broken rib, eh? CBC (you may not get video). This infographic / video from the NY Times is pretty cool. Potentially easier-to-load video version.

  14. 14.

    raven

    February 8, 2014 at 9:17 pm

    Horrywoooooood!

  15. 15.

    IowaOldLady

    February 8, 2014 at 9:19 pm

    I’m reading a book in which two characters are climbing and one of them sees the other start to fall. She’s tied on, so she jumps after him and CATCHES UP. Sweet cartwheeling Jesus. Ya canna change the laws of physics.

  16. 16.

    raven

    February 8, 2014 at 9:19 pm

    @lamh36: Tijuana Tuck and Roll baby.

  17. 17.

    schrodinger's cat

    February 8, 2014 at 9:19 pm

    More Caturday Kitteh

  18. 18.

    Betty Cracker

    February 8, 2014 at 9:21 pm

    I miss my dogs so much. I’m staying at my mom’s for a few days, and she’s got three little ankle dogs that weigh about 20 grams apiece. The three combined arent as big as one of my dog’s heads. They’re officious little shits too, barking witlessly at the slightest provocation.

    I almost had to consult the BJ brain trust on how to uncork a bottle of wine with no cork screw or power drill. But luckily I found a cork screw.

  19. 19.

    IowaOldLady

    February 8, 2014 at 9:24 pm

    @Betty Cracker: Perhaps you could have pulled the cork out with your teeth. That probably works in this book too.

    Dogs are the best. No one loves you like a dog.

  20. 20.

    jl

    February 8, 2014 at 9:25 pm

    Local weatherwoman says 6 to 8 inches of rain for NorCal by Monday. Another storm system, slightly smaller heading through NorCal, though skirting southern SF Bay area on Wednesday.

    Four to 5 feet of super wet heavy snow in the Sierra Nevada by Monday.

    So, we are making slow progress from Total Mega Drought Disaster to mere Major Drought Disaster.

    Edit: the super heavy wet snow is important. The climate has gotten so screwy that California cannot even depend on the snow after it falls. The winter minimum temps are getting high enough so that a lot of the dryer light snow has evaporated before it could become runoff in the spring over the last two years.

  21. 21.

    Tripod

    February 8, 2014 at 9:26 pm

    ….”his brother Blaze”….

  22. 22.

    raven

    February 8, 2014 at 9:27 pm

    @Betty Cracker: It’s been a long time but I seem to recall just pushing the cork through into the bottle. And making a pipe out of an apple

  23. 23.

    raven

    February 8, 2014 at 9:28 pm

    @jl: But not much south right?

  24. 24.

    ? Martin

    February 8, 2014 at 9:28 pm

    @Betty Cracker:

    I almost had to consult the BJ brain trust on how to uncork a bottle of wine with no cork screw or power drill. But luckily I found a cork screw.

    Two techniques I’ve used:

    1) slip a narrow knife blade (small pocket knife works well) down the side of the cork, gently twist it to the side and use the friction against the cork, and the now reduced friction against the glass to pull it out. Takes a few iterations.

    2) Wrap a towel around the bottom of the bottle and bang it downward against a solid surface. I did it against dirt so as to not risk breaking the glass. The force of the wine pushing upward after impact will push the cork out a bit. Also takes a few iterations. Don’t try with champagne – will end messily.

  25. 25.

    maeve

    February 8, 2014 at 9:29 pm

    I’m stlll obsessing about Philip Seymore Hoffman

    Twister is on tonight – the only reason I’m watching is because I was working at the University of Oklahoma when they filmed a scene in our building – supposed to be the fictitious Muskogee State Collage but was filmed in the Physics and Astronomy building at OU (a building built post WWII but based on 30’s plans and sort of deco-30’s with stone murals on the walls showing the advance of Man from stone age (labeled as Homo) through Greeks etc. to the modern age. Everyone was labeled by their last name except M. Curie because it was considered rude to label women by only their last name.)

    The entire scene (when Bill Paxton showed up at Muskogee State to find Helen Hunt, found out she was not there and then caught up with her late in the field) was cut from the movie and never shown.

    But I digress. What were we talking about?.

  26. 26.

    jl

    February 8, 2014 at 9:30 pm

    @raven: A SoCalian will have to answer you on that. It’s every watershed for itself these days, and I haven’t heard a peep about anything South of the Central Valley in the local news for months.

  27. 27.

    ? Martin

    February 8, 2014 at 9:31 pm

    @jl: Good news. No real rain down here to help. My city gets water from a local aquifer, but it’s not topping up, so we need the rain here as well.

  28. 28.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    February 8, 2014 at 9:31 pm

    @? Martin: or just buy boxed wine.

    I’ve actually tried a couple, and they weren’t bad, but I can’t quite get over the prejudice.

  29. 29.

    raven

    February 8, 2014 at 9:32 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Or, gasp, don’t drink.

  30. 30.

    Cassidy

    February 8, 2014 at 9:33 pm

    @? Martin: Or, put bottle away and open whiskey.

  31. 31.

    MikeJ

    February 8, 2014 at 9:34 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Screw top rather than boxed. There are some decent quality wines with screw tops these days. Much better at preventing oxidation than cork.

  32. 32.

    lamh36

    February 8, 2014 at 9:35 pm

    @raven: @Alison:

    I swear da dude is either a vampire or he drinks babys tears and feeds off children’s dreams

  33. 33.

    Baud

    February 8, 2014 at 9:35 pm

    I can’t believe what a big deal the broken snowflake has turned out to be.

  34. 34.

    ? Martin

    February 8, 2014 at 9:35 pm

    @raven: We got a tiny bit over the last few days, but nothing useful. Much of the southland gets their water from up north anyway, so really it’s mostly needed up there, but like I said, we do have some aquifers down here that aren’t in nearly so bad a shape as up north, but they aren’t getting any better either. We’re also a little bit more dependent on local rain for agriculture here along the coast, and that isn’t happening.

  35. 35.

    Calming Influence

    February 8, 2014 at 9:36 pm

    @Betty Cracker: The largest wood screw you can find, and vise-grips.

  36. 36.

    raven

    February 8, 2014 at 9:36 pm

    @? Martin: I thought I saw some thing that said ya’ll would have to get record rain every day for two months to break even.

  37. 37.

    raven

    February 8, 2014 at 9:38 pm

    @Calming Influence: Bust the fucking bottle neck and pour it through a strainer.

  38. 38.

    Calming Influence

    February 8, 2014 at 9:42 pm

    @Betty Cracker: Pull back the plunger on your largest heroin syringe, jam it into the cork like you haven’t had a hit in a week, and push down the plunger so the air forces the cork out.

    [Too soon?]

  39. 39.

    kindness

    February 8, 2014 at 9:43 pm

    It’s rained most the day out here. Not monsoon but we’ll take what ever we can get. Saw Monument Men. It was actually good. I like all the actors in it. Good thing to do in the rain.

  40. 40.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    February 8, 2014 at 9:44 pm

    @Betty Cracker: This is how all the French waiters are doing it these days.

    Okay, not really. Would be fun though. Could be called opening wine a la Khrushchev.

  41. 41.

    James E. Powell

    February 8, 2014 at 9:44 pm

    @IowaOldLady:

    he’s tied on, so she jumps after him and CATCHES UP. Sweet cartwheeling Jesus. Ya canna change the laws of physics.

    But I’ve seen this happen in cartoons.

  42. 42.

    srv

    February 8, 2014 at 9:45 pm

    @raven: Alan Arkin got asked about Argo this week at a local event and obviously has had it with people who think that MOVIES are DOCUMENTARIES. If McCain would kick-over, I think Alan could pull him off.

    I’m crabbier than usual tonight.

    It’s good that someone has finally had it with Obama’s attempts to undermine the glorious Sochi Olympics because he’s still butthurt about Chicago losing the 2016 games.

  43. 43.

    raven

    February 8, 2014 at 9:47 pm

    @srv: Fuck Alan Arkin, he hasn’t done anything interesting since “The Russian’s Are Coming”.

  44. 44.

    IowaOldLady

    February 8, 2014 at 9:48 pm

    @James E. Powell: Apparently so had this writer.

  45. 45.

    Calming Influence

    February 8, 2014 at 9:48 pm

    @raven: I’ve found that the bottle doesn’t always break at the neck, and yeah, I’ve done it enough to do a statistical analysis. So sue me, I’m a wine lover.

  46. 46.

    Chris T.

    February 8, 2014 at 9:51 pm

    @jl: Ah, good ol’ Sierra Cement, eh?

  47. 47.

    Calming Influence

    February 8, 2014 at 9:51 pm

    @IowaOldLady: Watch Point Break. (I bet your author did.)

  48. 48.

    CaseyL

    February 8, 2014 at 9:53 pm

    @Betty Cracker:

    I almost had to consult the BJ brain trust on how to…

    I read that far and said “Uh oh,” because the BJ Brain Trust is a Very Special Knowledge Base, but it looks like some folks have offered a few decent solu–

    @raven:

    Bust the fucking bottle neck and pour it through a strainer.

    …. and there’s the BJ Spirit I know and love!

    Good luck breaking into the bottle, one way or another :)

  49. 49.

    Santa Fe

    February 8, 2014 at 9:54 pm

    My wife just brought home a three-legged chihuahua. I’m not happy about this.

  50. 50.

    Calming Influence

    February 8, 2014 at 9:54 pm

    Point Break epic skydive scene.

  51. 51.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    February 8, 2014 at 9:54 pm

    @raven: He was pretty good in Glen, Gary, Glen, Ross, Bob, Carol, Ted, and Alice.

    The Russians Are Coming is one of my favorite movies.

    Egermency. Everybaady to get from strit.

  52. 52.

    raven

    February 8, 2014 at 9:57 pm

    @Bill E Pilgrim: Great line, I always pop it on people. Bikel is great, Brian Keith is wonderful Paul Ford kills it and Jonathan WInters. . . .damn.

  53. 53.

    LAC

    February 8, 2014 at 9:59 pm

    @lamh36: it is always his mood. He has even made buying a car into something out of an Ingmar Bergman movie with Death as the car salesman.

  54. 54.

    ? Martin

    February 8, 2014 at 10:01 pm

    @raven: I think that’s true up north. Not sure about down here.

  55. 55.

    Calming Influence

    February 8, 2014 at 10:02 pm

    Oops, wrong scene.

  56. 56.

    IowaOldLady

    February 8, 2014 at 10:02 pm

    @Calming Influence: That was quite beautiful. I have no idea how maneuvering affects your fall, but unless you’re wearing a chute your speed increases 32 feet/second/second. That’s one of the few things I remember from my HS physics class, during which I mostly read the novel hidden on my lap.

  57. 57.

    kpete

    February 8, 2014 at 10:03 pm

    Here is some great news!!!
    Scripp’s Institute just came out on February 3rd, 2014, with their ENSO outlook for the next winter, ( The winter of 14-15). They are forecasting a major EL Nino. This is usually associated with big time snows for the Eastern Sierra, Tahoe South.
    – See more at: http://mammothweather.com/#sthash.OLyaizKv.dpuf
    http://meteora.ucsd.edu/~pierce/elnino/fcst_gifs/fcst_made_2014-02_for_2014-12.jpg

  58. 58.

    raven

    February 8, 2014 at 10:03 pm

    Man I am going to really have adjust. All this shit they are showing was splattered all over the world wide internet this morning. BJ won’t even be safe.

  59. 59.

    IowaOldLady

    February 8, 2014 at 10:05 pm

    @Calming Influence: Wait. Are you telling me you can really do that? Don’t screw with me now! I’m an English major. My grip on this stuff is fragile.

  60. 60.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    February 8, 2014 at 10:05 pm

    Death as the car salesman.

    That sounds like a Bergman/Arthur Miller collaboration.

  61. 61.

    Betty Cracker

    February 8, 2014 at 10:05 pm

    @Santa Fe: Name suggestion: Tripod.

  62. 62.

    Roger Moore

    February 8, 2014 at 10:07 pm

    @Betty Cracker:

    I almost had to consult the BJ brain trust on how to uncork a bottle of wine with no cork screw or power drill.

    One more advantage of the move toward screw-top bottles.

  63. 63.

    Baud

    February 8, 2014 at 10:09 pm

    @IowaOldLady:

    If you’re Keanu Reeves.

  64. 64.

    Roger Moore

    February 8, 2014 at 10:10 pm

    @? Martin:

    Don’t try with champagne – will end messily.

    Sure, but you never need a corkscrew with champagne; enough of the cork sticks out of the bottle to grab it and pull it out. If you know what you’re doing, you don’t even have to remove the foil or the wire cap first; just loosen the wire, grab, twist, and pull. I learned that one back in my waiting days.

  65. 65.

    raven

    February 8, 2014 at 10:11 pm

    @Roger Moore:
    The waiting is the hardest

    part

  66. 66.

    PurpleGirl

    February 8, 2014 at 10:13 pm

    @kdaug: TY for that. They are great guitarists.

    TCM has shown three movies I really like this afternoon/evening and will show a fourth one at midnight. First there was Mister Roberts, then Auntie Mame and The Heiress. Later they are showing Twelve O-Clock High. Last night they showed Stalag 17. A whole bunch of movies I like and haven’t seen in a while.

  67. 67.

    Betty Cracker

    February 8, 2014 at 10:15 pm

    Love the Pink Floyd selection in the figure skate!

  68. 68.

    PurpleGirl

    February 8, 2014 at 10:15 pm

    @lamh36: The Picture of Dorian Grey.

  69. 69.

    raven

    February 8, 2014 at 10:17 pm

    @Betty Cracker: This is the Floyd cover band my brother manages in LA.

  70. 70.

    PurpleGirl

    February 8, 2014 at 10:17 pm

    @IowaOldLady: They found a loophole.

  71. 71.

    Roger Moore

    February 8, 2014 at 10:19 pm

    @raven:

    I thought I saw some thing that said ya’ll would have to get record rain every day for two months to break even.

    That sounds unlikely. The record for most days in the winter is a substantial fraction of an average year’s rainfall. You could probably get to above average annual precipitation with one week where the rain broke the record for that day. The bigger problem is that the ground gets saturated quickly, so anything after a few days of record rain does little good because it all runs off too quickly to replenish our aquifers. We’d do better with one day of heavy rain each week for the remainder of the winter.

  72. 72.

    raven

    February 8, 2014 at 10:20 pm

    @Roger Moore: Dang, I stand corrected.

  73. 73.

    Heliopause

    February 8, 2014 at 10:21 pm

    If I’m reading the schedule correctly the men’s downhill commences at 11 PM PST tonight. Meaning I can watch it live on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation if I choose to stay up that late (probably not).

    Also, sorry for the SPOILERS, but Norwegians are really, really good at nordic skiing. I mean, as good as Americans are at blowing shit up. I think John should settle down with a nice Norwegian biathlete and start having some babies.

  74. 74.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    February 8, 2014 at 10:29 pm

    @Roger Moore: It’s been raining not very heavily but steadily for days now in Northern California without much of a pause at all. This is good because of the runoff thing. Other times it will break a drought with some huge violent downpour and just when you’re thinking good lord that ought to do it, you read a report saying nope, most of it is running off. So this is the good kind, anyway.

    What I’ve read is that yearly average by now would be 14 inches, we had had only 3, and this week’s storm may bring as much as 9. Another two or three of these would certainly help, anyway.

  75. 75.

    Roger Moore

    February 8, 2014 at 10:34 pm

    @IowaOldLady:
    You accelerate at 32 feet per second per second only for a short time. After a few seconds, there’s so much drag that you stop accelerating and stabilize at a terminal velocity of about 120 mph or 180 ft/s. That terminal velocity depends on drag, though, so you can go faster if you streamline yourself and slower if you spread eagle. If you’re in a long fall like the one shown in the clip, a diver who is trying to fall rapidly can catch up to one who’s in a normal skydiving pose. A bigger issue would be the distance the plane flies in the few seconds between when the two divers jump. Since the plane is probably going faster than terminal velocity for a skydiver, the lateral distance between the two will be bigger than the vertical distance, and the guy who’s trying to catch up will need to go a considerable distance sideways to get to his target.

  76. 76.

    max

    February 8, 2014 at 10:38 pm

    @IowaOldLady: Are you telling me you can really do that? Don’t screw with me now! I’m an English major. My grip on this stuff is fragile.

    Your grip is fine – that rate is the rate at which any object would fall in a vacuum. If there’s air resistance, specifically one person is stretched out and flailing and the person aims themselves straight down the second person will fall at 32 feet per second and the first person will resist the acceleration. You need a lot of distance to cover the gap. (They did it in a James Bond movie with stunt parachutists. But that was from thousands of feet up.)

    In any event someone falling from the sky will top out at something like 120-180 mph maximum speed due to air resistance. None of this catching up stuff will work on the moon (no air, no air resistance), and if the people in your book aren’t very high up, it likely isn’t going to work for them. Unless maybe the rescuer jumps *downwards* right at the point they see the other person starting to slip.

    max
    [‘Probably still wouldn’t work.’]

  77. 77.

    The Dangerman

    February 8, 2014 at 10:38 pm

    @raven:

    This is the Floyd cover band my brother manages in LA.

    They are quite good; I’ll have to find when they are playing my neighborhood.

  78. 78.

    max

    February 8, 2014 at 10:39 pm

    Heh. Roger & I were writing same thing at the same time.

    max
    [‘Agh.’]

  79. 79.

    raven

    February 8, 2014 at 10:43 pm

    @The Dangerman: Yea, they are all pretty high level musicians. It’s funny, they had a lead player that was incredible and he moved back east and they thought it might be curtains. Turns out they have done quite well anyway. It’s also funny that he picked/fell into a Floyd band. They just we not a band I cared very much about from those days. I do like to see them on those rare occasions that I am out there.

  80. 80.

    Roger Moore

    February 8, 2014 at 10:49 pm

    @max:
    There are enough people who understand this stuff around here that it was inevitable that more than one would try to answer. I guess this kind of confusion is the price of teaching people about physics using spherical objects moving on frictionless planes.

  81. 81.

    Omnes Omnibus

    February 8, 2014 at 10:50 pm

    @Roger Moore:

    spherical objects moving on frictionless planes.

    Cole on ice?

  82. 82.

    John Cole

    February 8, 2014 at 10:52 pm

    @Betty Cracker: Here you go. It works. I’ve won money proving it.

    Thirty years as a drunk was not completely worthless. You should see the ease with which I can open a beer with a bic.

  83. 83.

    patrick II

    February 8, 2014 at 10:55 pm

    @IowaOldLady:

    That formula is for a vacuum. When people jump in air, they hit maximum speed and level off due to wind resistance. If you stay flat like you are doing a belly flop you max out at about 120 m.p.h. If you point straight up and down you can do over 180.

    I see Mr. Moore covered this already. Probably knew it from his James Bond experience.

  84. 84.

    Boudica

    February 8, 2014 at 10:56 pm

    In college I would take a pair of scissors and push the cork in. Helps if you plan on finishing the entire bottle and don’t need a cork to restopper it.

  85. 85.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    February 8, 2014 at 11:25 pm

    @John Cole: Owe me a Château Latour.

  86. 86.

    danielx

    February 8, 2014 at 11:33 pm

    Catnip shake? Nay, not so….this is a catnip shake, or might could be a catnip wallow.

  87. 87.

    catclub

    February 8, 2014 at 11:33 pm

    @James E. Powell: 1. more aerodynamic. 2. reel in the rope.

    How much time/distance involved?

  88. 88.

    Betty Cracker

    February 8, 2014 at 11:38 pm

    @John Cole: I’ll be damned.

  89. 89.

    mainmata

    February 8, 2014 at 11:46 pm

    So Cole gets no soulful on Sochi Day 1. Yeah, that’s how this blog rolls.

  90. 90.

    Tripod

    February 9, 2014 at 12:00 am

    @Betty Cracker:

    Ashley Wagner is Team USA’s designated heel. She took that nice girl’s spot and made her cry. Gracie Gold is the face.

  91. 91.

    pseudonymous in nc

    February 9, 2014 at 12:04 am

    I just can’t be doing with the freestyle events, and it’s not just that they’re X Games things for stoner kids, and it’s not just that they’re judged events: it’s the way that you simply can’t tell a good performance from a bad one unless the bad one involves falling over. Even the commentators seem unable to determine whether a performance is good enough for gold or 8th place.

    Downhill starts in two hours.

  92. 92.

    Omnes Omnibus

    February 9, 2014 at 12:12 am

    @pseudonymous in nc: I want Bode to win. I like him; I always have, but this was cool.

  93. 93.

    pseudonymous in nc

    February 9, 2014 at 12:55 am

    @Omnes Omnibus: I don’t have any particular preference for who wins, and probably haven’t since the days of Franz Klammer, which betrays my age a bit. Downhill needs a certain amount of measured crazy.

  94. 94.

    Omnes Omnibus

    February 9, 2014 at 1:01 am

    @pseudonymous in nc: Klammer’s ’76 run was perfect. He could not have skied faster without crashing and he coould not have won if he was slower. I have read accounts of it tha say the at least three Austrian officials announced that Klammer was down during that run. Obviously, they were wrong. FWIW I thnk Klammer is the greatest Downhiller there has ever been.

  95. 95.

    Tripod

    February 9, 2014 at 4:21 am

    @pseudonymous in nc:

    Oh bullshit. That’s like me claiming I can’t pick out the finer nuances of Cricket because I never watch it. Well duh.

  96. 96.

    Snarla

    February 9, 2014 at 7:30 am

    Isn’t it normal to sit down to tie your shoes? What do limber people do, lift up one foot at a time and tie it while standing crane-style?

  97. 97.

    IowaOldLady

    February 9, 2014 at 7:48 am

    @catclub: The people in my book are climbing a tower and the rope is tied above the second person, so there’s no way the second one could catch up.

    But I now know more than I did, so thanks, BJ!

  98. 98.

    Jebediah, RBG

    February 9, 2014 at 5:17 pm

    @Snarla:
    Well, that’s what I do, but I have to tie my laces one-handed since I need to wave the other arm around om order to keep my balance.

  99. 99.

    pseudonymous in nc

    February 9, 2014 at 7:25 pm

    @Tripod:

    That’s like me claiming I can’t pick out the finer nuances of Cricket because I never watch it. Well duh.

    When you have commentary from people who understand the nuances of the sport along the lines of “well, that should put her in the med–oh, she’s tenth” then you have a problem with your sport. If the differences at the top are indiscernible to most observers and decided opaquely, then you might as well have Olympic watch repair.

  100. 100.

    Jebediah, RBG

    February 10, 2014 at 10:53 am

    @pseudonymous in nc:

    then you might as well have Olympic watch repair

    I’d watch that.

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