Like you I crap all over the Olympics and then I watch them wall to wall when they are on. I know. Sure there are tip pot dictators running the show but it's just sports, right? Seems like the next one is in Canada, well sort of, and is only months away. I say sort of because every other country worth its weight knows that the fringe is really another place and Vancouver is way out there. So out there that they are already anticipating ice problems:

Already, six months before the Olympics, they oversee a busy calendar of events and training sessions to test the limits of the refrigeration systems, and gauge the effects of spectators in the building and athletes on the ice. They experiment with water filtration and air circulation and train teams of workers in the art of resurfacing. About half of the Olympics will take place on carefully crafted ice between one and two inches thick. Varying by arena, it must be a specific temperature, texture, composition, even color (thank you, television), whether spread across a vast surface inside an arena or down the side of a mountain. It must hold its consistency for weeks despite the collaborative efforts of ice’s enemies, from the obvious (the sun, sharp objects and thundering 1,400-pound bobsleds) to the not-so-obvious (open arena doors, spectators and spinning 90-pound figure skaters).

Sun? They are worried about sun? Didn't anyone tell the totalitarians who run this thing that there is no winter on the southern coast of BC, just eternal April rains? Can't wait for the rain delayed bobsled. And Brian Williams.