Olympianisms

Having watched and lived the Olympics for the past few weeks, I thought I'd share some thoughts:

1. Dressage should be called Horse Dancing. And the horses should have to be born in the country they're representing since they're doing all the work. And also this shouldn't really be in the Olympics.

2. I followed both the Heptathlon and Decathlon for the first time. These struck me as being the Liberal Arts degree equivalents of sports: be good at many things, but probably not great at any. This isn't completely true of course since Jessica Ennis would've won the gold medal with her 100m hurdle time, and Ashton Eaton would have qualified for the finals in at least the long jump, but still... watching some of the athletes in some of the events seemed cruel almost. The 1500m final for the men was an awkward watch.

3. Maybe the best achievement of the games -- a Maasai warrior setting a world record in the 800m. Kenya dig it! If the Kenyans keep getting bigger and stronger they're going to start Jamaican us crazy in the sprint events too.

4. The medal count thing is ridiculous. And so is all the bickering and accusations of cheating. The teams and coaches from all of the big countries are using any advantage they can all the time, and calling out anyone for anything -- apart from taking steriods -- is a bit small. The whole medal table should be re-ranked by some sort of GDP and population algorithm.

5. Cool that the rowers don't stand on the podium for the medal ceremony. Weird that they give two bronzes in judo and wrestling.

6. Little disappointed that I didn't get any love for the "I say Lightning, U-sain Bolt" post. Thought that was pretty clever.

How to make an extra-small wool sweater

1. Take one part warm water
2. Mix with one adult large wool sweater.
3. Enjoy!

I say "Lightning",

usain "Bolt"

My contribution for The Onion

Would be something to do with the rider of a fixie (fixed gear bike with no ability to coast, no brakes, and narrow handle bars) in a big city being incredulous about crashing fifteen times in one day.

Fifty shades of awkward

Number of people sitting next to me on my flight yesterday who were shifting nervously while reading Fifty Shades of Grey: 2

Later I would learn that they were husband and wife.

As for me, I played Tiny Wings and slept with my mouth open. 

The Day of Er/uk

This article crossed my mind yesterday afternoon when I was peeing while eating a bowl of cereal: 

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/23/garden/the-freedom-and-perils-of-living-alone.html

Ponyriding on volcanos

I once read that real men should only walk or run. There is apparently no dignity in skipping or half-running or crawling or limping or speed walking. And I mostly agree that those are not ideal.

Horses of courses have more well defined gears: they walk, they trot, they canter and they gallop.

But not all horses.

Icelandic horses are very small. Perhaps in an effort to compensate, they decided to do more. So they learned to tölt, and some even learned to do the flying pace. The flying pace! It's like the human equivalent of parkour.

6 gaits! Or 5 if you lump cantering/galloping into one gait, which to me just seems petty.

Well done Icelandic horse.

Michael Lewis' new book Boomerang is proof that American novelists really love national stereotypes

Despite all that, I really enjoyed the book.

It's not really that new either and even thought it's topical it's definitely still worth a read. And that's the case even if you have little to no experience or even interest in the GFC, as it now seems to be affectionately called.

You might remember that, along with Lehman Brothers, Iceland was a first chip to fall in the GFC. Here are a few notes/stereotypes from the chapter on Iceland that I found most amusing. Having been there this past weekend for a wedding I've added my own conclusions afterwards.


Iceland


Many Icelanders believe in the existence of so-called hidden people, or elves. [This is cool enough that I purposely avoided asking questions that might disprove it.]

All Icelanders know Bjork. [Met some people that regularly saw her at the pool. Met others who just knew where she lived (a house painted completely black with swans in the windows). Spotting Icelandic celebrities in Reykjavik seems as easy as knowing who they are.]

Icelandic women appear to lack a genuine connection to Icelandic men. (Since I was there for a wedding between two natives, I can say that this one appears to be a bit of an exaggeration at best.]

Icelandic men like stubble. [Unequivocally.]

You know how when two people (usually males) are walking towards each other on the sidewalk, and both refuse to adjust their path or the trajectory of their shoulders to avoid bumping into each other? Apparently Icelandic men seek out the contact. [Didn't have any problems.]

And now for a couple of my own preconceptions with comments having actually experienced the place:

Icelandair seems like an awesome airline. [No, it's not.]

Icelandic people eat strange food, like sheep brain. [I think so. Strangest thing I ate was whale sashimi.]

It looks like mars there. [It looks like mars there.]

Inspired, nay brazenly stolen and slightly adapted from the works of Werner Herzog

Graca. Woman.

You constantly revile me with your singular lack of vision. Be aware, there is an essential truth and beauty in all things. From the death throes of a speared gazelle to the damaged smile of a freeway homeless. But that does not mean that the invisibility of something implies its lack of being. Though simpleton babies foolishly believe the person before them vanishes when they cover their eyes during a hateful game of peek-a-boo, this is a fallacy. And so it is that the unseen dusty build up that accumulates in the furthest and darkest corner of the bedroom exists also. This is unacceptable.

I will tell you this Graca, not as a taunt or a threat but as an evocation of joy. The joy of nothingness, the joy of the real. I want you to be real in everything you do. If you cannot be real, then a semblance of reality must be maintained. A real semblance of the fake real, or “real”. I have conquered mountains and visited the cold shallows of the ocean by snorkel. Nothing I have witnessed, from cloud canopy to crustacean, assailed me liked the caked debris haunting that small plastic soap hammock in the smaller of the bathrooms. Nausea is not a sufficient word. In this regard, you are not being real.

Now we must turn to the horrors of nature. I am afraid this is inevitable. Nature is not something to be coddled and accepted and held to your bosom like a wounded snake. Tell me, what was there before you were born? What do you remember? That is nature. Nature is a void. An emptiness. A vacuum. And speaking of vacuum, I am not sure you’re using the retractable nozzle correctly or applying the ‘full weft’ setting when attending to the lush carpet of the hallway. I found some dander there.

I have only listened to two songs in my entire life. One was an aria by Wagner that I played compulsively from the ages of 19 to 27 at least 60 times a day until the local townsfolk drove me from my dwelling using rudimentary pitchforks and blazing torches. The other was Dido. Both appalled me to the point of paralysis. Every quaver was like a brickbat against my soul. Music is futile and malicious. So please, if you require entertainment while mopping the flat, refrain from the ‘pop radio’ I was affronted by recently. May I recommend the recitation of some sharp verse. Perhaps by Goethe. Or Schiller. Or Shel Silverstein at a push.

The situation regarding small, oversized or shallow spoons remains unchanged. If I see one, I will kill it.

That is all. Do not fail to think that you are not the finest woman I have ever met. You are. And I am including on this list my mother and the wife of Brad (the first Brad, not the one with the thumb). Thank you for listening and sorry if parts of this note were smudged. I have been weeping.

Your money is under the guillotine.

er/uk

To you mom

To my mom, who started swimming lessons. And to everyone else who never stops making the most of their extra seconds.

Every second counts

And today, we all get an extra one. Make the most of it.

Here are a few suggestions:

1. Start a garden.
2. Take a cooking class.
3. Write a thank you letter.
4. Watch Season 2 of Game of Thrones
5. Read up on Skrillex, the hot new DJ who looks like a lot of alt/emo Spanish girls. 

It's been a long time -- nearly 3 years -- but I've decided to try my blogging hat back on.

Though that couldn't mean less to the entire population of the world minus about 30 people, I still feel some pressure to find my old voice.

So for that reason I'm going to start with a bombshell; something hard hitting and topical and thought provoking. A blog post that will get everyone talking and make everyone remember why they checked into er/uk regularly or semi-regularly or maybe once by accident.

Not many of you will know this, but about 8 months ago, I made the decision to stop wearing jeans.

Change is never easy, but it was a change I wanted to make, because I didn't find jeans to be comfortable any more. These days you'll find me in cotton twill, linen, cotton-linen blend, and very occasionally wool, which is far less comfortable than jeans.

No regrets. Thanks for tuning in.

Part 2