Of ice and men!

Everyone must have heard the phrase “curiosity killed the cat”. I have too. And I have wondered many times about the origins of the story. I mean, there has got to be a story behind it right? Cuz, why a cat? Why not some other animal? Why not a dinosaur? That would have fit quite nicely.
“There are no dinosaurs anymore man. I wonder what happened”
“They were too damn curious for their own good and that got them killed. Stupid things. It’s sad that curiosity killed the dinosaur.”
“Yo dude...that’s some deep shit man. Write that down. We have to pass such wisdom to our kids and stuff”

That’s a likely ancient conversation that would have made things easier…don’t you think? But no! It’s the cat that got in for no reason!
Why not even the hero of all proverbs Jack...who happened to be so popular at the time the oldies were making the proverbs/poems. He is almost everywhere. So why isn’t it “curiosity killed Jack”? Maybe he was losing his touch with the ladies of the proverb committee by then. Maybe Jill was getting all possessive!!!!

Ok...I digress.

But you have to admit that it is quite ironic I am not curious enough to find out about the origins of an expression about curiosity. Any way what I really wanted to talk about are the winter Olympics. That’s a nasty jump from one train of thought to another. Yes...doesn't get any better! :D

A couple of weeks back one out of every 3 articles in any newspaper (I’m talking about online editions!) was about 'Torino 2006'. Being the totally-cut-off-from-the-rest-of-the-world-I’m-happy-in-my-little-cubicle dude that I am I didn’t bother to find out what was all the hype about. But soon the ‘Torino’ fever was everywhere and I couldn’t ignore it. I was worried that it was a new strain of avian flu that would compromise my daily diet of chicken nuggets. I formed the resolve to educate myself about this possible danger. My curiosity was quipped. I shouted out loud and asked my friend if it sounded like a ‘meow’. His startled NO was good enough to confirm I was no cat and there was no risk of dying. And then by the power of Greyskull and Google I entered the world of winter Olympics...

...that happened to be quite fascinating...

...except, I was wondering if I am the only guy who thinks some of the games are downright hilarious, boring and/or quite silly! Grab your warm winter clothing and follow me into a not-so-detailed and completely biased and stupid look at some of the winter games that demand close attention.

1) First the Biathlon. I had heard of this before I actually looked it up and at that time somehow the first thing that came to my mind was a game involving long-distance skiing (u know...it’s a winter sport and it’s a something-thon) and maybe snow-boarding OR simply running in the snow (which is like a 1000 times harder than lot of other sports) OR something like that. I was half right...the first part is long-distance skiing but after that you shoot rifles! How arbitrary is that! Skiing and marksmanship...it feels so weird to have them both as one sport. The official winter Olympics site talks about this as an evolution of how people in olden days used to ski and hunt as a method of survival. At first that made a little sense to me but then I figured that more people used to run and hunt? Why isn’t that in the summer Olympics (or is it?). A little desperate for winter sports, aren’t we? ;)
I’m sure in the book of biathlon rules there is a little line somewhere that goes......you cannot win the event by shooting your competitors and eliminating them...

2) Here’s Bobsleigh: This sport seems reasonably exciting. Although I really see this as a more professional way of sliding down a water slide in a rubber tube. But that’s not all...take a look at the picture and imagine a nice big white ambassador car in the place of the sleigh and 4 Indian men in place of the sportsmen pushing it. Don’t u think if only we had snow in India we would totally kick ass in this competition. Our men would be quick and strong in getting it moving and would reach 0-topspeeds in a jiffy and also be very comfortable in the cramped up seating arrangement of the sleigh. We would have kicked so much ass it’s not even funny!

3) Pardon me if I am being uncouth and ignorant but Curling is by far the silliest of all Olympic sports. Not to mention boring. Although I must admit I’ve never seen a game myself ever. I am just speculating that it will be boring. Cuz how much excitement can you really expect in a sport where u throw a disc in a really funny/graceful way (almost as if to say...I know this sucks but at least u guys get to see how flexible and smooth I am on ice) and his team-mates run ahead of it sweeping the ice! When did man lose the imagination to come up with new sports that he had to incorporate 'skillful sweeping' as an essential ingredient? Sweeping for Gods sake!
What next? Another biathlon with rock-climbers having to scale buildings upto a certain floor and quickly wash all the windows there and come down! Silly stuff :D

Hmmm...actually that’s all!
If anyone knows about how the curious cat died please let me know.
Until then...keep it cool!
Yeah...that was abrupt. I know...I so suck at handling trains of thoughts!