Rolling Out Of Vancouver

I'm a much bigger fan of the Winter Olympics than I am their summer counterpart, primarily because the winter games consist of events that, from top to bottom, I could never participate in.  I'd love to ski, sure, but I'm 6'5", and my center of gravity is precariously high. Snowboarding looks fun, but my shoulder hurts when I sleep on it, much less if I were to fall and slam it into a mound of snow.  Could I go on about other winter sports for which I'm duly unsuited? Sure. But I'll spare you.

And yet, every 4 years I enjoy sitting on the couch and watching people do all the things I can't.  The athletes and the competitions in this year's Winter Olympics were as entertaining as ever, but I came away with a few unanswered questions:

• What are the long-term effects of mogul skiing?  I have a genuine concern for the mogul skiers.   There's no way that hitting those bumps at downhill speeds can be anything but detrimental to any joint located at or below the hip.  I just know that in 20 years, every mogul skier is going to have graham cracker bones like Sally Field.
• Where has aerial skiing been?  I don't remember ever seeing this event before this year's Olympics.  Hurling oneself fifty-some odd feet into the air on skis is brave enough, but performing loop-do-loops and whirleybirds during the descent back to earth is downright ballsy.  I'm now obsessed with finding an aerial ramp and pushing someone toward it against their will.  Y'know, just to see what would happen.
• How many entertainers must have said "No" before Anne Murray seemed like a good feature performer?  The opening ceremonies featured the Canadian Songbird, but there's arguably no singer more irrelevant in 2010 than Anne Murray.  If I could put it in terms of American talent, I'd say it'd be the equivalent of having the Crystal Gayle performing at an Olympiad on U.S. soil.
• How do you really pronounce "Olympic"?  It's basic knowledge that it should be pronounced as /əl'ɪmpɪk/, but this rule was thrown out by Morgan Freeman.  Freeman's voiceover for the Visa spot touted it as the official card of the O-lympic games.  There has never been a long "O" in Olympic.  Consider this a pretty bold statement from someone who grew up hearing lazy Southern drawls for words like go-rilla and mo-ron.
• Is Bob Costas afraid of Father Time?  I want to tell Bob Costas that it's okay to age. Really. He doesn't need that awful dye job that looks like someone spilled furniture polish on his head.
• Is anything less exciting than curling?  My first instinct when I try to write about curling is to hold the "z" key down on my computer.
• Is Lindsey Vonn hot?  Call me hard to please, but I don't think so. Her eyebrows are too manly.  Not terribly thick, but much too wiry.  To me, it makes her look sinister and untrustworthy.  A woman's eyebrows shouldn't look like Snidely Whiplash's mustache.
• Does hockey matter to Americans?  I average watching one hockey game in it's entirety every 2-3 years, and I'm not in the minority.  I'll admit that it's an excellent sport to watch in person, and it would've been awesome to see the US beat Canada, but no one capable of tanning in the sun follows this sport closely.  So, now that the games are over, Americans can go back to not caring and Canadians can go back to not mattering.