Yes, finally, the Winter Games...

I am so freakin glad that the Winter Olympics are here again. Yeah, sure, there are a lot of sports in there that people don't understand nor have ever seen before (for example, curling), but once every 4 years is not a bad time frame to trot this stuff back out and throw it into people's faces. Of course, we'll have the damned figure skating extravaganza again this year, as for some reason, people still seem to love this crap. A nice "subjective" sport isn't it? Hey, the German judge only wanted to give you a 5, but the US judge gave you a 6, whatever. Then the scandal that they had back in '02 in SLC where they ended up awarding 2 gold medals instead of one. Ridiculous. I can respect their athleticism indeed, because skating, jumping, and spinning around is hard as hell, but the judging portion of it, it really needs to go. Don't know how else they could determine a winner though. That being said, they have made some changes in the judging, and in most cases, the right person, or pair does win the event, so yeah, I just can't stand the hours and hours of coverage it receives. I guarantee you that at some point in time, there will be a medal event going on, and they'll be showing the 14th figure skating practice session for the individuals in primetime, and then they'll break off and do a human interest story about so and so who had to endure such a hardship to get to where he/she is now. Can't we just show the games and the competitions without all of this fluff? But then again, the American viewing public loves fluff, so I am in the minority when it comes to this methinks. I wish that I wasn't. You know how it goes. This person's mother is sick. This guy's dog is blind. So and so's girlfriend's luggage got lost on the way to Italy. A good hardship story, that's what Americans like. They like to see someone pull themselves up by their old bootstraps, or at least, they like to think that they've done this.

I got home this morning just in time though to see the last half of the 20km biathlon event, which for those of you not in the know of things, no, this isn't a run bike run kind of thing. It's a cross country ski, shoot, ski kind of thing. Essentially you've got a group of the most fit athletes in the world skiing around a course, and stopping at certain intervals to shoot at little small targets with a small caliber handbuilt rifle (.22 I believe that it is), and then they ski off again. Sure it doesn't sound hard, but toss your heart rate up over 170 bpm, then stop and try and hold still. This is what these guys have to do to shoot their rifles into the targets down range. Of course, you miss a target, you get time added onto your final time. Out of the entire field of competitors today, only one guy shot clean, a Frenchman even. The Norweigians, who are typically one of the stronger nations when it comes to nordic skiing and shooting at the same time had to settle for silver and bronze medals at the 20k distance. A German one, first German to take the gold in a long time in an Olympic biathlon event. An American named Hakkinen placed 10th, which you might say, so what he placed 10th, but it is the best finish by an American in a biathlon event ever. So that's saying something right there. It's not a medal, but it's taken someone from the US 20 Olympic games to get in the top 10, he should be pretty proud, and actually, if it weren't for his shooting errors, he could have easily taken a medal in the event. Got to shoot better son. Maybe he should learn from the Frenchman who shot clean. The commentators were saying that the American guy, this Hakkinen has a good chance to take a medal in the other biathlon events that are more geared towards the skiing portion of the event, instead of the shooting. I'll be keeping an eye on that stuff to see what happens. Could be interesting to see if he can do it. It's good stuff, if you can catch it, check it out.

Of course, my other favorite winter sport to watch is ski racing, downhill, slalom, GS, Super G, doesn't matter which discipline, I'll take them all, and for a change this year, the Americans look strong out there. We have Bode and Dahron, and we have a ton of women who are skiing well this year, so the Americans indeed do have a very good chance at taking home some more hardware at this Olympics. Again, we'll see if Bode can keep his mouth shut long enough to win something, and you never know when the Herminator is going to come out and whip some ass again. It's funny to me that Americans for the most part don't know anything at all about the Winter Games. They avoid it like the plague. I think I know why. There are no "balls" involved in the Winter Olympics. This is true. No baseball. No football. No basketball. All of the sports take place on snow and or ice, and for the most part are not so-called within the big 3 mentioned before. Sure there is hockey, but hey, how many people in the US watch the NHL? There ain't many. I think it's also hard for people to follow along with these sports, because most of them are about time, and most of the timed events are not about head to head competition. Yes, there are teams, but the teams are more or less competing as individuals, and we as Americans seem to have a hard time with that concept. Sure there are sports that keep score, but they are pretty limited. Hockey, figure skating, and curling, I think that's about it. There is stuff out there that we only get to see once every 4 years, and then we love it, for about 3 weeks. Skeleton, luge, bobsledding, ski jumping, and a few others that we'll fall in love with, and then quickly forget after the Winter Olympics are over, which is why I believe, we don't do as well in the Winter Games as we do in the summer. We just don't have the support over the Winter Olympics. The Americans still do pretty damn good, but compared to other powerhouse winter sports countries like Norway, Austria, Germany, Switzerland, and a few others, we get trounced. We're catching up, just not fast enough. Anyway, watch the Winter Olympics, they're fun and different (for most).

I went to this restaurant last night that was supposed to be outstanding. Ju Ju Be I think was its name. In full disclosure, I will mention that the SO thought that her food was exceptionally good. Anyway, we walked in and the first thing that hit me was that the design of the place was all off. They had no room near the door in which to stand and wait for your "table" (I'll get to that in a minute), and I do mean nowhere to stand. A small aisle that the hostesses and the waiters also used to bring food out and to get drinks from the bar, and things like that. It was crowded near the door, and you constantly had to move around to avoid being run over either by a the waitstaff, the hostesses, or someone just coming in the door. I mean, if you have a busy place, at least have space for folks to stand around, or sit even, to wait for their table. That was the other thing, there was nowhere to sit either, let alone somewhere to stand. That was just silly. We did get seated in a timely manner though, which was at a bar like countertop if you will. Now the counter we were sitting at was high enough, and the chairs tall enough so that if you wanted to put your feet on the ground while you were sitting in the chair, you couldn't do it. Your feet dangled in the air. The chairs that they sat you in were so poorly designed for use in this space (think stools with a backing on them) that the peg you could place your feet on was so high that it got uncomfortable fast just sitting in the scrunched up position. If you removed your feet from the peg, they just floated in the air. And before someone makes a crack about how short I am, you'd have to be exceptionally tall to be comfortable with your feet placed squarely on the floor at this place. The side of the restaurant we were sitting on was the side the open kitchen was on, and hence, it was loud. Really loud. So loud in fact, that it made me not want to talk because I am sort of a low talker, and I couldn't be heard about the din of the kitchen clatter, and the head chef yelling out orders, and the guys back there tossing around pans and pots, and slamming steamers, and things like that. Note to self. If you ever open a restaurant, don't put the kitchen out in the middle of everything, that's just stupid I think.

We've been sitting in our most uncomfortable chairs now for about 15 minutes, when finally our waiter Ian comes over. I'm willing to cut the guy a little slack on being late to the "table" but 15 minutes is a tad too much to come over and take drink orders from us. I will say though that once he engaged us, it was pretty decent service, and they were very busy. So like I said, a little slack for the waitstaff, but damn son, I needed a glass of water pretty bad, and you didn't show for 15 damn minutes. When we do place our drink orders, we just place our orders at the same time, because we've had time to read their menu about 6 or 7 times by now, and I could probably repeat it verbatim. I forgot to mention, this is one of those neuvo Chinese places that claims to be different. I order the pork and shrimp steamed dumplings, and their variation on Kung Pao chicken. I get my dumplings, and Ian screws up the SO's order and doesn't bring her the right combination of food, that's OK, the order was still in, and instead of getting her mushrooms with her calimari, she gets them later. I try the dumplings. They're good, but they're really no better than what I can find at the 35 buffet uptown in Chapel Hill. It tastes about the same. Most times when I've been to different Chinese places, they offer up their own version of a dumpling sauce, these guys didn't even do that. I just used plain old soy, which I think I prefer anyway. Don't get me wrong, the dumplings are tasty, but they're not knocking my socks off over here. The old entree arrives. I tuck into it, and what do I find? The chicken is good, but the broth or sauce they're using is really overwhelmingly hot and spicy, because that's all I can taste. There are a bunch of vegetables in there, but all I can taste is heat of the peppers they tossed in there. And it was runny as well, lots of broth or sauce, and nothing to sop it up with. I am thinking they should have tossed some rice in the bottom of the plate as well. I would have done that, and cut back on the peppers a touch to make it a little less spicy, and maybe bring out the taste of the other stuff that was in the dish. Still though, it wasn't "bad", it was just, regular. Delicious? Yeah, I'd say it was that, but I was expecting a little more I guess. I wasn't impressed, but I was sort of satisfied with what I got from them. I did hear the chef talking about how all of their food was locally raised or grown, so that's a good point. Organic food from local growers. Always a plus in my book.

What they need to do is to make the place a little more intimate, or at least get chairs that fit the counter in the back where we sat so that people can actually enjoy their dining more. Like I said, I found it hard to talk with and carry on a conversation with the SO while we were there because there is so much going on around you, and it's just loud. I guess I don't like loud places, and if I'm going out to eat, I want to be able to at least hear what my dining partner is saying to me, and not have to ask her to repeat things over and over again. Like I said though, I don't like loud places. If I wanted a loud dining establishment, I would have gone to Chuck E' Cheese's where there are screaming kids and parents and video games all over the place, not some wanna be high brow Chinese restaurant. Overall, Ian's service was good, after he noticed we were sitting there with nothing in front of us. The food, middle of the road average. The cost, here is the best part, the cost was more than reasonable in my opinion. 2 appetizers, 2 entrees for about $30, that's not too shabby for pricing. I'd say though that if you wanted about the same tasting food for less price, head off to your local Chinese buffet, you won't be disappointed. If you're feeling like experiencing a toned down version of PF Changs, head to this place. I'd say, it's like PF Changs except locally owned and operated. Would I go there again? I don't know, depends on who is buying. It aspires to be great, but ends up just being a little around average.