The Occasional Blog of Jonah Weiland

Since I returned from Chicago a little over two weeks ago I’ve been a mess. My sinuses were killing me even before I went, but the flight to and from Chicago kicked the lil’ sinus infection into a big mamma jamma. The first week back from Chicago I was tired all the time, very low energy. A week ago yesterday it finally manifested as a cold. By Friday I had enough and finally went to the doctor. He gave me the good drugs and as of this morning it seems the anti-biotics are finally doing the trick. For close to a month now I’ve easily been working at half power. Real low energy and it’s been hard to concentrate and focus with all that sinus pressure behind my eyes. Waking up every morning for two weeks with a sinus headache is no fun.

I asked the doctor if there was anything I should be doing on a daily basis to stave off the sinus infections and he suggested I take Claritin the first moment I notice any congestion. He also suggested regular doses of Vitamin A, C and I think E. I asked him if he thought any of the homeopathtic options were good. I asked him about the disgusting Neti Pot, which is like a tea kettle you fill up with water and stuff up your nose to “clear” your sinuses. Two friends suggested that. He said you could try it, but it’s super messy and disgusting. His lack of encouragement killed the slightest bit of interest I had.

Anyone out there suffer from chronic sinus infections? Any suggestions? I’m open to anything other that stuffing a tea kettle up my smeller just to let snot drip all over my face.

Now that the Olympics are officially over, I figure I better finally share my reasons why I feel the Winter Olympics are more “manly” than the Summer Olympics.

To recap, a couple of weeks back I’m talking to a friend who said that my love of the Winter Olympics over the Summer Games made me a pussy. What? First off, that was just a weird, lame ass response, but I’m all for idiotic conversation, so I encouraged the road we were traveling. His justification was that the Winter Games are home to figure skating, which makes it inherently “gay.” Well, okay, sure, figure skating has some feminine qualities, but it also requires great strength, athleticiscm and grace.

Then he said that speed skating was gay. At this point I asked him to begin using a different word other than gay. Not because it offended me personally, but being someone who has a grasp of the English language, I was offended he could find no other adjectives to use. So, he said “speed skating is for pussies.” Cracked my ass up. I pointed out how could a sport where men and women fly along the top of ice with razor sharp skates at high speed be for pussies? That made no sense. There’s speed, strength and when someone wipes out, you fucking wipe out! WHAM, right into the boards! And if you’re on the inside of the track and have an opponent on the outside and you wipe, WHAM WHAM, you take out your opponent and body parts and strewn everywhere. And come on, there’s something about blood on the ice that makes it one of the most fucked up things you can see. Seems like you gotta be pretty gutsy to be a speed skater.

I then proceeded to point out sports like the Skiing Long Jump, where men with only two toothpick looking ski’s fly hundred’s of feet in the air and land only by sheer fucking luck. I mean, these athletes really fucking fly and flying, ladies and gentlefucks, is a pretty cool damn thing. That’s a winter sport. How about Skeleton? It’s like luge, but you’re flying down that course head first. Unbelievably high opportunity for head trauma. That’s “manly.” Let’s not forget the Winter Olympic Games are also home to Ice Hockey, the most manliest and toughest of the sports what the world has ever seen. Period. Exclamation point, bitch.

What have you got in the Summer Games? Ohhh, track and field, where we watch people run fast. I can see that in South Central after a carefully placed call to 911. Swimming is pretty incredible, I admit, but need I mention synchronized swimming? Oh, and like the Equestrian events are so tough. “Look at me, I ride a horse and kick it in the stomach to do jump over things that look like other things!” What about Ping Pong and Badmittion? First off, the Asian countries have those two events tied up, no doubt, and they’re not exactly tough man sports. In fact, I’ve always had this fantasy of running down from the stands at a ping pong event and just smacking the athletes wild with their paddle.

Really, when it comes right down to it, both the Winter and Summer Olympics have their great sports and those that are, well, mostly embarrassing (Platform dive anyone?). For me, the Winter Olympics are where it be. I love the various skiing events, dig on Skeleton, love the Hockey and always find a slew of other events to get in to.

Congrats to May & Walsh on winning the gold for the US of A in Womens Beach Volleyall. Just finished watching the game (I recorded the early broadcast to catch more of the action) and they did wonderfully. Just awesome.

Of course the celebratory hugging while rolling around in the sand together didn’t hurt at all.

Remember, lesbian’s are like crack for men. Even if they’re not lesbians, a roll around in the sand together with lesbian overtones is worth at least a bowl full.

This is just one of the many reasons why the Olympics are amazing.

I’m a bit behind on my viewing so I’m watching Monday’s late night program today. Towards the end of the broadcast they televised the Men’s High Bar routine. Russian Aleksei Nemov gave an unbelievable performance. He looped and flipped over the bar with incredible ease and flair. It would have been the definition of near perfection if not for a small step taken right at the very end. Overall, a very inspired performance.

The audience and the commentators are all probably thinking it’s a 9.825 or higher, which would put him in first place. Nope, a 9.725, which would place him in third with five more competitors to go. He wouldn’t medal.

And the audience didn’t like that number one bit.

For the next five minutes the Greek audience booed, hissed, cursed, hooted and “thumbed down� the judges score. American all-around Gymnastics Gold Winner Paul Hamm took the stage immediately after Nemov’s scores were announced, but was forced to sit down by the distracting cat calls.

For five minutes. For five minutes the mostly Greek audience told the world what they felt about the judges score. And the judges listened. After three minutes of the audience’s shared much frustration, the judges from Malaysia and Canada reviewed their scores nd changed them, upping his score to a paltry 9.762, still keeping him in third with five athletes yet to go.

It was an unbelievable scene. With the low score, the routine was sure to be a forgotten memory someday soon since it wouldn’t earn a medal. But the audience assured that no one would forget this routine, not even an Olympics only Gymnastics viewer like myself.

Aleksei showed a great deal of humility throughout the protest. He would occasionally wave to the crowd and the audience would respond with one crazy Greecian hissy fit. It was a beautiful moment.

The drama continued following that, but I’ll make you go to the news sites for the rest.

Oh, so who won? An Italian named Igor Cassina, who gave a medal worthy performance. Lots of incredible releases. American Paul Hamm came in second and scored the Silver. But his performance was half that of Aleksei’s.

A lot has been made about the half empty stadiums in Greece. It’s a shame. Had I known it would have been that easy to score tickets maybe I would have planned a trip to Greece. But those who did travel to the Games and those local Athenians absolutely know how to enjoy a good sporting event. And they’re only at half power.

I’m sitting here, overly tired, cracking myself up making up completely nonsensical southern-style sayings. You know, like, “Well jump on a horse and feed me hotlinks, what the hell are you talking about?” The format simply has to have an animal in the first half while the second can be whatever action you like. Now, more idiocy off the top of my head:

“Well jump on your pig and smack your hiney, I think you just might be right!:
“Well bite your monkey and call it Sally, …”

You know, this was funny when I started. Suddenly, not so much.

Yesterday I felt like the poo. It was bad.

This morning was bad, too, but then it started to turn around. Enough for me to hook up with Jacob and get him to fix my Airport Base Station (Wireless). The first generation of Airport’s had some bad capacitors that after two or three years of usage just die, leaving you with a base station that either never works or constantly reboots. With $2.50 in new capacitors and Jacob’s know how, it’s been fixed. Ahhh, love having back my wireless network. It actually sucked being sick without wireless.

Now I’m enjoying a quiet night at home, with te Olympics playing on the box and a laptop in my hands, with access to the world. Instead of exploring too far, I just went to Apple’s movie trailer site and just watched some trailers. The movie that looks most interesting to me has to be Silver City,” John Sayles’ latest film. “Lonestar” is a pheonomenal movie by Sayles from a few years back. It’s the first film staring Matthew McConaughey that was actually any good. Oh, and Kris Kristoferson plays the baddest small town Sherrif you’ve ever seen. Based on how good that film is, I’d say that “Silver City” at least had a good chance.

Watching NBC’s late night coverage of the Olympics on my TiVo right now. It’s Men’s Team Volleyball with Russia facing off against the U.S.A. … some good volleyball, but mostly by the Russians so far.

When there’s a substitute or time-out or end of a match, they punch the horn noise over the PA as is the case for most sporting events. What’s cracking me up, though, is that it sounds like an old American Chevy car horn. I just imagine there’s this guy sitting behind the wheel of a 69 Camaro situated at one end of the Volleyball venue, one hand holding a bottle of Jack and the other hand squarely on the horn, ready and waiting to be of service. On, and he’s wearing a wife beater.

There’s that horn again!