EXCHANGE INTERFACE

i hope the americans in the audience who had the day off had a relaxing and/or fun one, and that for everyone who didn't have the day off (or who doesn't live in the us...) it wasn't too monday a monday. i have watched almost no olympics but i did take myself out for lunch (steak tips! side salad! a pile of very good rice pilaf!) and, uh, bring a bunch of clothes to goodwill. and i read! an actual book! for once! which was very relaxing.

(i also got a rice pudding to go because i wanted it but i was too full after lunch. i got it with whipped cream which might have been a mistake because said whipped cream has totally lost its structural integrity in the fridge. rice pudding still looks good at least and will probably be breakfast tomorrow.)

canada finally won a couple gold medals - both kazakhstan (men's figure skating) and brazil (men's alpine skiing) beat them to gold - brazil got a gold altho the guy used to ski for norway (his mom is brazilian) so, y'know, he grew up in a winter-sports country - also his gold was the first winter olympics medal for any south american country ever which is pretty cool - anyway. canada set off a curling scandal! boopgate. which is evidently only partly about the fact that some of the men were touching the stone after throwing it, which is technically illegal but unevenly enforced (i think the whole thing started when sweden wanted some clarification on the rules over booping), and more about their very unsportsmanlike conduct. like, there was swearing. and lying. (a hint: if you're going to insist you didn't boop the stone and fuck you, sweden, for suggesting it, maybe first make sure there isn't video evidence of you doing that very thing.) (because one of the canadians was caught on tape very obviously booping the stone.) it's apparently a thing that happens - the booping, not the swearing, i mean curling is generally a pretty polite sport - and there's always the possibility someone booped the stone unconsciously, but did i mention the highly unsportsmanlike swearing? it seems to have snowballed a bit and caught the canadian women as well and now that everyone's so focused on the booping a bunch of other teams have been seen doing it.

curling, man.

the baby has a broom. SOCUTE.

i've seen mostly bits and pieces of other sports - a few ends of the women's curling (us vs china), some pairs skating, some women's monobob (not monoboob, self), some women's biathlon (i wanted to see the greenlandic biathlete but no luck), some men's figure skating. poor quad god. he fell twice and came in eighth and i felt so bad for him altho he sounded very mature and thoughtful and philosophical after his program when he got off the ice and some reporter stuck a mic in his face and basically asked "so how does it feel to have fucked up your chance at a gold medal?" so many of the guys fell tho. and he and the kazakh skater hugged and it looked like ilia congratulated him and it was very sweet.

i have yet to see any skiing. just moguls, no downhill.

local curling last night went better than last week - by which i mean no one fell and hurt themselves - and i made a couple good shots altho we lost anyway. and saturday for valentine's day i went to the dentist and got my comics (well, comic) and met my sister for dinner and a 40th anniversary showing of pretty in pink. pretty in pink is forty, good lord. it was never my favorite john hughes movie but jon cryer and annie potts remain extremely adorable. but the love story is kind of half-assed - like, why are these two kids interested in each other in the first place? - and for all the judging of blane being rich it's andie's hangup, not his. he seems legitimately earnest and sincere in his attraction to her and she second-guesses him because he has money and she doesn't. also i didn't like her remade prom dress the first time i saw the movie and i don't like it now. it's ugly and boring. but the soundtrack is still *chef's kiss*. whatever else you want to say about john hughes movies, they always had absolutely banging soundtracks.

for the heated rivalry fen in the audience, if you haven't seen it, have an interview with rachel reid. i keep wondering how many people are watching olympics hockey because of the show and/or books.