Sliding Stones

Anybody with a TiVo (or similar device) and cable want to record all the curling events on MSNBC and CNBC and send me a tape?

(Don't knock it. Curling matches get intense.)

Daily Words 2/10/6

By playing disco and '80s American pop during the opening ceremony, the Italians are demonstrating that they love the international tradition of prominently displaying the worst American exports.

Daily Words 2/11/6: Sleek Speed

Back.   Forth.   Back.   Forth.   Switch.   Back.   Forth.   Back.   Forth.   Lap.

There is beauty in speed skating at any speed.
Turn up the volume, listen to the cowbells, the coaches screaming as the skaters zip by.
Now hit mute. Watch the event in slow motion. Watch the grace of every leg stroke. The poetry of metal sliding through ice. The telling body language of an athlete striving against the clock.
Now hit pause. Admire the body on screen. A speed skater's thighs are massive. Every curve in her body is accentuated. Her face is outlined in her national colors, her eyes shine with passion through well engineered glasses, her hair hidden until the final moment of relief or anguish.

Some people are turned on by figure skaters. But I'll trade everything on that ice for the power, the strength, the speed, the meditative grace, and the lack of drama on the oval.

Daily Words 2/12/6: Executive Danger

It would seem that not even millionaire friends of Dick Cheney can get their hands on body armor and the Bush administration continues unnecessarily to put Americans in harms way.