The Winter Olympics

There are a lot of things to like about the Winter Olympics (curling, curling commentator Colleen Jones - who didn't fall in love when she said "oopsy-daisy" when a stone missed its target) but I'm feeling curmudgeonly so here is what I hated.

Chris Collingsworth
He's ruined Sunday Night Football but I can turn down the sound and mostly ignore him there and it's only once a week. But Collinsworth was there daily during the Olympics. Worse, I had to see his smile, really more a psychopath's smirk. He wants to be cute (fail), he wants to be insightful (double-fail), and he insists on comparing every Olympic athlete to retired football players. Every Collinsworth piece was just his personal tribute to Chris Collinsworth.

Skaters Helmet Hair
For some reason women figure skaters insist on tying their hair back in the most severe buns this side of a prison matron and slicking what's left down with about two tons of axle grease. The result is that most women figure skaters look like department store mannequins with painted on hair. Fortunately, ice dancers have more taste.

Ice Dancing Ethnic Insult Night
Unfortunately, the ice dance committee that set the theme of the original dance lacked any taste at all. Without guidelines the “folk/country dance” theme degenerated into a parade of stereotypes. The worst of the lot was the Russian pair whose Aboriginal dance descended into racism.

Meg Whitman
She did a saturation ad buy during the Olympics and it had an effect. I wasn't going to vote for her before but I didn't really care about her either. Now I have an abiding, all consuming loathing for her. I don't just want her to lose the election she is determined to purchase outright, I want her go bankrupt and be personally humiliated doing it.

Parenthood, Marriage Ref, and Leno Promos
I like Lauren Graham and think Jerry Seinfeld is funny. After a couple trillion promos for their new series(es) I just want them to go away for, like, maybe, forever. As for Leno, I've managed to avoid him for decades and I wish NBC would respect that.

NBC's Jingoism
I'm used to it by now but that doesn't mean I have to like it. For NBC the Olympics are not a grand international sports congress but a US/Canada lovefest. When foreigns inject themselves into the proceedings by, for example, winning, they are treated as interlopers undeserving of the attention. Let's go interview the American losers.