Thursday, February 07, 2002

Okay, gotta buckle down and finish an overdue laptop review for Hardware Central, trying to resist joining Patricia in her one bad habit of watching "Entertainment Tonight."  "What did Tom and Penelope say about this photo?  Which star might go stag to the Emmys in this dress?"  You can feel yourself growing stupider as you watch. Do you know the lyrics to the "Entertainment Tonight" theme song?  Leeza Gibbons sang them during one segment where she had to do a few minutes of stand-up comedy: We've got nothing to say, ba da ba ba ba We go on anyway, ba da ba ba ba ... 7:47:12 PM    commentplace ()

The Winter Olympics start tomorrow, letting us see at least a few remaining embers of world harmony and brotherhood amid the cinders of corruption and tribalism ... sure, the Bush Administration brushed aside the traditional request for a cease-fire during the Games, and it took something as huge as the horrors of 9/11 to finally sweep aside the topics of Salt Lake City's boondoggle bribery and the cesspool that Franco's friend Juan Antonio Sammaranch made of the Olympic movement, and tomorrow night's opening ceremonies are sure to be closer to the Hollywood-tacky American jingoism of the L.A. Games' than the magic of Lillehammer's or Sydney's.  But the ideal is still there, however diminished, forever pure. I'll be disappointed if the climactic surprise star chosen to light the Olympic flame turns out to be the 1980 U.S. hockey team, as is rumored — those men gave us a magical moment in U.S. sporting history, but only one moment, and one seen through the Cold War lens of U.S. versus U.S.S.R.  I'm rooting for Dorothy Hamill, who's not only one of the few celebrities I've ever had a hopeless crush on but a real person — lovely, sexy, and graceful (to this day; I watched her gliding silently solo around the Rockefeller Center rink prior to a "Today Show" two winters ago), but she also wore glasses to do her compulsory figures and got nervous enough to throw up before one championship appearance. 8:18:09 AM    commentplace ()