Ok, what in the heck?

I am talking about the newly unveiled mascots for the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic Games. You know...the games that are supposed to showcase Canada to the rest of the world. So its time to toss out a polar bear or an orca whale, slap a smile on its face and a Tim Hortons mug in its hand and be done with it right? Um...apparently not. Instead we get this:

What in the hey! I could summarize the stupidity of these mascots in one swift blow but I think its better to break it down one by one.
1 First you have Sumi, who appears to be a fox or a marmot who is also part hawk and who has the hairy feet of a hobbit duck. Is that accurate? And of course why not give him/her/it one of those toques with the 3 points on it that were cool for the month of February 2002 and not ever since. And then lets make the colours around it something really coastal and wintery...like some blues and grays and whites right? Nope, instead they have decided to go with the colour scheme of half of the country flags on the continent of Africa. If the games finish and you look back in ten years and you can't quite remember where the 2010 Olympics were...well this mascot should tell you. I would guess either Mauritania or Niger. Neither is a bad stab. Seriously.

It also appears that Sumi has just consumed a box of delicious cake donuts. I love those. Nothing screams "athlete" like scarfing down a box of cake donuts and then not having any energy left over to actually have your tongue circumnavigate the outside of your mouth and remove any excess icing. But everyone loves a future diabetic marmot. Especially the kids.

2 Okay then we have Quatchi who is a sasquatch apparently. He actually kind of looks like the fuzz I pull out of my belly button on a weekly basis. For the record, the fuzz also greets me with a smile and from time to time dons light blue earmuffs. I am thinking a royalty cheque is in order. Old Quatchi also appears to have had ink done. Its an "inukshuk" which is swell because it represents the Inuit population...none of which live closer than 2000km away from Vancouver. We might as well have given him a tattoo of a ten pound Saskatchewan rat or maybe the visage of Anne of Green Gables. Actually now that I think of it there is a good chance I am going out to get all three of those tattoos myself. It would make as much sense as these mascots.

And if someone told you that your Sumi-fueled assumption that the 2010 Olympics were in Africa was incorrect, you can smile in relief, look at this Yeti and remember the great moments from the 2010 Nepal games. Weren't they great.

3 I looked at this Miga thing like 10 times and from different angles before concluding that it was a skunk with irritable bowel syndrome. Something about the squinting face seemed to give that away. Then I skimmed an article and came upon this nugget of info: "According to the mascot creation committee, Miga is a combination of an orca and a bear and was inspired by aboriginal legends "of orca whales that transform into bears when they first arrive on land." Huh? Sorry guys but that could never happen. Hate to burst your bubble. Firstly, whales do not come onto land. If they do come on land, they die a horrible dried out death...not turn into bears. Ask David Suzuki. Or better yet, go and rent "Free Willy". Remember when the orca was out of the water and what did they do? They desperately kept him moist and try to get him back into the water. They didn't sit back, crack a few beers and wait for him to turn into a freaking bear! 'Cause it wasn't gonna happen. Ever.
So I still think it is a skunk that apparently mated with Alfalfa and is moments away from laying a poop on the foot of that sasquatch. Case closed.

I'll conclude with this thought about the Vancouver 2010 mascots. I don't like them. I have been to Vancouver a bunch of times and never saw anything resembling these creatures. They look like Gr. 2 art projects gone awry. Oh well, it can't be as bad as Torino 2006's overly sexy cake donut Timbit and what appears to be a developmentally delayed ice cube/molar. Maybe it's time to just stop with the mascots all together. Before someone physically gets dumber just by looking at them. Someone like me.

Sean Taylor (1983-2007)

Usually I am itching to get on here to write about someone or something from the world of sports who I want to give a sarcastic spanking and/or face kicking to. Not this time.

By now, I think most people know that Washington Redskins safety Sean Taylor was killed yesterday at his home when an intruder broke in and shot him smack dab in the femoral artery. After a full day of unconsciousness, Taylor was pronounced dead this morning. For those who never saw Taylor play football you need to go and Youtube some of his hits. I have watched football for many years and have seen very few hit like Taylor. There is a lot of footage of him mercilessly crushing running backs and wide receivers...and punter Brian Moorman on a fake punt...at the Pro Bowl! (Seriously, you must Youtube that one). This year he was leading the NFL in interceptions when he was injured a few weeks back. And he was only 24 years old!

The football side of Sean Taylor was nothing short of spectacular. The other side of Sean Taylor was the opposite. He was a young guy who had a history of run ins with the law highlighted by DUI and weapons convictions. However, there was word that he had recently been cleaning up his life and making positive changes. Like I have written about before, I will reserve any judgments for a good period of time until the whole story emerges. The information I have does not grant me the right to say that Taylor was shot because of his lifestyle. A lifestyle that seemed to embrace the darker sides of life. I don't have the right to make that declaration.

I will however say this. When a fellow teacher told me yesterday that news had come out that a Washington Redskins player had been shot....Sean Taylor immediately came to mind. And thats kind of sad. And a part of me really wanted to go home and find out I was wrong. And that part of me was disappointed to come home and find out I was right. Despite any of the circumstances surrounding his death and the junk that is going to be played up so that newspaper/tv writers can slant his death to voice their own opinions...the fact is this: that a 24 year old man with all the god-given talent anyone in this world could ever want, is dead. And that seems like a tragedy to me.

Two and half cent quickies

The extra half cent on this month's quickies reflects our solid Canadian dollar. Enjoy it.

- I am cheering for Kansas or Oregon to win the NCAA football championship. Oregon because I really like the way their field and jerseys look. And Kansas because again the jerseys are spiffy and their coach is Mark Mangino. If you haven't seen Mangino I would describe him as the love child of golfer Craig Stadler and "the Penguin" when played by Danny DeVito in the Batman movies. Can't wrap your brain around that one? Maybe this will help. Fun! And don't think I am taking shots at him, because the Jayhawks are 9-0 and this is Kansas football! Not Kansas State.

- I would rather poke my eyes out with a rake then re-watch a game like the Raptors-Bulls affair the other night. Apparently Bulls coach Scott Skiles agreed because he benched his starters 3 minutes into the second half and we never saw them again. Which was good...and bad. Because then we had to watch 20 minutes of Sefolosha, Duhon, Nocioni, Khryapa and Gray. And I watched. It was like when you come across a train wreck and you can't turn away. I am guessing however that if a train full of basketballs crashed and there happened to be a hoop sitting near the tracks...more shots would have been made in that situation then by the Bulls. Sefolosha (who hails from the bball hotbed of Switzerland) took about 10 shots and I think 2 hit the rim. And one was a sloppy dunk.

- Great CFL playoff games or so I heard. It seriously has gotten to the point where I would rather watch the Bengals and the Ravens then a CFL playoff game. Shame on me. I did see Troy Westwood with what appeared to be the tail of a lemur sticking out of the back of his helmet come out to kick the winning Bombers field goal. I thought man he's ugly...and then changed the channel before the winning kick. Couldn't miss a mid 2nd quarter Ravens 3 yard run now could I?

- Speaking of the Ravens...its like their QB's are having a contest to "outsuck" each other. McNair seems to have the grip of a 3 year old girl and the fine motor skills of a 3 month old sloth. And Kyle Boller sits on the sidelines waiting for his chance to seemingly come in and try to do worse. Yesterday in relief he threw an interception and actually fumbled while warming up on the sideline. Not even joking. Luckily it was recovered by this fella below...who now has a 60% chance of starting at QB next week against the Browns.

- Is it sad that the Canucks are playing better now that their so-called top defenceman of Bieksa and Salo are out? Alex Edler is going to be an awesome hockey player for years to come. And Luke Bourdon hasn't messed up in the minute he gets to play once we are up three goals and its the last shift of the game.

- Players that some people think are good whom I never want to see on my Fantasy Football team: Jon Kitna, Willis McGahee, Steve McNair, Julius Jones, Vincent Jackson, Philip Rivers, Eli Manning, Vince Young, Shaun Alexander. Help you one week and murder you the next.

- My fantasy football team this year (the best I've had in a while): McNabb and D. Anderson, Westbrook and Jones-Drew, Colston, Edwards, Fitzgerald, Winslow, Josh Brown and the Ravens/Vikings D. Nice. Needless to say I have become way more interested in Cleveland Browns football than ever before.

- Remembrance Day is a good thing. But c'mon there has to be a better singer in the army, navy, air force, coast guard, or the national war cemetary then the guy who sang the anthems at the Canucks game the other night. Nothing honours the country more than racing through the national anthem in a key only dogs can hear.

Thats all I got this time. Hopefully by next month we will be up to three cent quickies.