The Olympic Round-Up

  Tomorrow night, as far as I can tell, is the last night and closing ceremony of the Winter Olympics. The most shocking event so far? Had to be when the Undertaker burnt his face while entering the Elimination Cham- oh wait, wrong every. Sorry. As I was saying, the most shocking event has to be the death of the Georgian bobsledder during a practice run on the morning of the first day of the games. That was just awful and reminder of the peril that many of these athletes go through in order to compete at the highest level.

 The Games went on, however, and had all of the intrigue of - well, I dunno. Truth be told the Winter Olympics just aren't THAT exciting. They're only exciting when someone crashes, which happens a lot. The most compelling story lines were that of Lindsey Vonn, Bode Miller, Apolo Anton Ono, and Shaun White, not necessarily in that order.

  Lindsay Vonn, or 'Princess' as she prefers to be called - is one of the world's top skiers. She's also pretty hot and has made no attempt to not use that to her advantage. Prior to the Olympics she did a photo shoot for Sports Ilustrated in various states of undress - the cover had her butt in the air in a downhill pose. As our favorite American Idol cast-off says "lookin' like a fool with your butt in the air and your pants on the ground and your hat to side and skis on the slope.' Something like that. But she won, and got into a catfight with her teammate who seems to be resentful of her looks and success. On girls, keep it clean.

Next up - Bode Miller. Mr. Miller, who was raised sans television and internet but amongst beer cans and pot plants, is also a great skier. He once did an interview with 60 minutes where he described his partying lifestyle and his propensity to drink a lot and habit of being drunk on the slopes. Not quite a media darling - we'll call him the John Daly of skiing. He did, however, win the gold in the Men's Super Combined - and celebrated with a toke and keg stand. Go Bode Go!

Apolo Anton Ohno. Also goes by the moniker AAO. He's a freaky speedskater and he won 'Dancing with the Stars' in his four-year off season. A nice guy. There was story on Yahoo! about why he yawns before a big race. It's not because he's bored or disinterested, it's because it helps fill up his lungs with air for the race. I mean, who didn't know that?

Finally, we have Shaun White. The Flying Tomato. I've studied him, and I mean this with lots of respect - he looks like the lovechild of Jenna Jameson and Carrot Top. He's a snowboarding freak, and he's not afraid to smash his head into the wall while attempting a move called the Do-Hickey-JoePa-Must-Go-Ocho-Drinko-1260. He's also a gold medalist, and he has a good dealer.

 There are some other unique personalities in these Winter Games, but they're not American so they don't get good press. I will, however, give a shout out to my skating buddy Sven Kramer of the Netherregions. He is a serial lane switcher - just when you think he should stay in his lane - he will switch.  It's a strategy that results in losing but gaining of attention and media coverage. That's the Olympic spirit. And a final shoutout to Cheryl Bernard of the Canadian Curling team and all the members of the Dutch Curling Team. Whatever they did, they look good doing it.

K-Mon Eye-Lon

  Any good trip outside the U.S. should start with a flight delay. It's sort of a rule of thumb. So we waited and waited, and waited some more. Nothing. The Superbowl comes, still nothing - what kind of bizarre joke is this. Our 8am flight to Charlotte will be running as scheduled? I don't believe it, hallelujah. Oh wait, it's 11pm, the Superbowl is over, the phone rings, and the automated message commences. Your flight out of LaGuardia has been cancelled and you are sh*t out of luck. So we call the airline, and they say, 'Congratulations, if you really truly want to go on vacation, your flight will be leaving from Newark Airport at 6am.' And everyone jumps for joy. So long story short, you get in to bed at midnite, you fall asleep around 1:30, you wake up at 3am, hope out of bed, find a cab, get to Penn Station, hop on the train and voila, you're in Newark. Yee-freakin-ha.

 So fast forward a few hours, and you're in the Caribbean - specifically the Cayman Islands. The Caymans are a group of 3 islands - Grand Cayman, Cayman Brac, and Little Cayman. It's warm, and very near Cuba, which means illegal cigars can't be far off - I mean if you smoke them they aren't far off. I don't, so they were pretty far off. We landed, found our living quarters, and off to the beach we go. Our weeklong trip consisted of the beach, the pool, the sun, the beach, the pool, a nap or two, a fancy haircut, some Stingrays, a little Karaoke, and some birthday cake.

 Funny story, I walk into a barber shop in need of a haircut. I wait through two guys to get their hair cut, and then I step up to the plate. When you have a beard, and you're protective of it, everytime you get a haircut you get asked for a beard trim, and everytime I say no thanks. This guy, however, he was persisent, determined - if you will, to trim my beard. He says 'hey mon, let me clean up ya beard now..' I say 'no mon, don't need to touch da beard, i take care of it now.' He say 'relax mon, I take care of the beard, it'll look fan-tas-tic.' I say 'really, don worry 'bout it, mon.' Then your girlfriend chimes in 'you can trim his beard and make it look nice.' And so the beard is trimmed.

 Funny story number 2. So we head to karaoke night for some singing, and by that I know someone who likes to sing - a lot. So my girlfriend, she signs up for a song, and no one thinks anything of it. The show starts, the MC sings two songs, and then he hands over the microphone. This woman, we'll call her Brandi - she gets up, starts blasting 'Creole Lady Marmalade' and everyone looks on in amazement. Who is this woman and where did she come from? The MC stops the show, he can't believe it, he is shocked, they don't get this everday at Singh's Roti Karaoke contest. He makes her start over, which she does, and is still wowed - and then dismisses everyone else who has signed up for karaoke and says it's not necessary, they're wasting their time. Except me, I was egged into it. He approaches me, and he says 'what song do you want to sing?' I say 'I don't want to sing a song, trust me.' He says 'no, you gotta sing a song.' I say ' you will lose half your dinner crowd if I sing a song.' He says 'how 'bout we sing Crash Test Dummies?' and I say 'fine, let's do it.'

So we it, it was horrible, and it will never happen again.

And now for the Stingrays. There is a snorkle trip with a stop in Stingray Bay. If you're never seen a Stingray, it is a LARGE animal. Imagine a horsehoe carb on steroids. These things are not messing around. So of course all of the tourists get to jump in the water and get their pictures taken. I personally find it a little tacky and against the laws of nature that all these strangers should be grabbing foreign sea creatures. I don't like it, but I stood in the water to oblige my tour guide and I mingled with the rays as they plotted against us. You get to kiss a stingray for 7 years good luck. It kissed me and I swear it whispered in my ear 'do you feel luuucky?' and then it told me to f&*% off.

The third order of business is the man called Large Richard de Noir. The translation is Big Black Dick, which takes a while to sink in. He is first spotted as the emblem on the rum liquor and cakes they sell everywhere. You are perusing the liquor aisle and you spot 'Big Black Dick' and then you say 'hmmm... how very lewd and inappropriate of them,' and then you grab 3 bottles for yourself. The story goes, Big Black Dick was a slave who was thrown overboard and swam to shore and began harvestng the best rum known to man - or the Carribean. So go on, everyone, get your hands on some Big Black Dick.