Hockey

I tried to watch the USA vs Slovakia ice hockey semi-final today.  Perhaps the only occasion I've ever wanted a US team to win, mainly because I really want to see a showdown between Canada and the USA in the final (with every chance of lots of fights, lots of hard hitting and some serious political undertones).  However, the game today was unwatchable because the US and Slovakian jerseys were the same colo(u)rs.  I couldn't tell one team from the other - they both played in red, white and blue.  Including the same color helmets and pants (excuse the Americanism).  Utterly ridiculous.     

Winter Olympics

I've been watching a little bit of the Winter Olympics recently.  Not much, because the American coverage is nauseating.  But enough to know that I hope we beat the cheating Canadians in curling.  But let's be honest, curling is not worthy of being an Olympic sport.  It is ridiculous.  If curling is good enough for the Olympics, then all other kinds of "sport" should be.  My other observation is that this isn't really the Winter Olympics, more like the White Olympics.  Because the vast majority of sports seem to consist entirely of Caucasian athletes, with perhaps a few Asians thrown in for good measure.  Apart from the Jamaican bobsleigh team, are there even any black athletes competing?  Forgive the stereotyping, but you'd think there would be more black athletes in something like speed skating.  Instead speed skating is inexplicably dominated by the Netherlands.  Didn't we used to be quite good at it?  If we're going to win more medals, that's the kind of specialized and niche sport that we should be throwing more money at.  Like skeleton.  Fun fact was finding out my alma mater - the University of Bath - is where they train in skeleton.  I don't remember those facilities being there when I was a student there.

New Bond

I don't think this has been officially confirmed yet, but it appears that Jacob Elordi is going to be the next James Bond.  I'm not sure how I feel about this.  Admittedly I know very little of him as an actor.  But I know he is Australian - which is a serious red flag.  He wouldn't be the first Australian to portray Bond, but George Lazenby is arguably the worst Bond (or at least the worst actor to portray Bond, I actually think On Her Majesty's Secret Service is one of the best Bond films).  As I look up Jacob Elordi's filmography, I haven't seen anything he's been in.  I have recently seen him in some trailers for Wuthering Heights, but that doesn't tell me anything.  And he apparently appears in Euphoria - a show that I started to watch but stopped after a while as I just couldn't get into it.  But I guess he must have a good American accent, as he portrayed a high school American football player in that show and has also portrayed Elvis before.  Let's hope he also has a good British accent.  

Lunar New Year

Happy (Lunar/Chinese) New Year!  I didn't celebrate it.  I would barely acknowledge it if it wasn't for my Chinese colleagues.  Apparently I should have cleaned my house before today, in order to sweep out bad luck.  Perhaps I should have, as I didn't feel very well today.   

President's Day

Happy President's Day!  Another of those weird US bank holidays which are too early in the year to really capitalize on.  However, because I need a break after what has been a very intense period of work, I am also taking off Tuesday and Wednesday.  And with typically spectacular timing, this looks like it is going to coincide with the coldest days and some possible lowland snow for the first time this winter.  Great.  I was thinking about driving over to the Olympic peninsula to do some hiking over there on one of those days off, but that seems very unlikely now with the forecast.  I hope I can at least make it to the coast. 

Why do I still have cable TV?

Grrr, I hate my cable box.  I was watching some Winter Olympics coverage this evening - well I say watching, it was more like having it on in the background (naturally, no coverage here off any of the sports where GB actually won some medals).  When all of a sudden the sound cut out and the screen went black.  I rebooted the box, and was greeted by a Select Your Language screen as if this was the first time I had ever used this box.  What?!  And my remote didn't work, so I couldn't even select a language.  Went on the app to try to get some assistance, and the AI help was absolutely useless.  After rebooting several times with no change, checking all my cables were tight again, and generally despairing, I resorted to the internet.  Thank god I hadn't lost my internet connection.  And one of the things I discovered was how to pair the remote with the TV box.  Even though the remote was previously paired and working fine.  So I paired the remote again, and mercifully it seemed to work now.  So was able to select English as my language and go through all the introductory steps you normally would as if this was a new box and you were setting it up for the first time.  And ta-da I'm able to watch TV again.  Indeed, all my previous settings (such as favorite channels, etc) were there.  So I have absolutely no idea what happened.  And how worried should I be that it happens again.  Incredibly frustrating.  If this isn't yet another sign that I need to cut the cord, then I don't know what is.  

Valentine's Day

What was already one of my least favo(u)rite days of the year today was made worse by (a) not bidding on an eBay item that I really wanted.  I was outside cleaning my car upholstery, had totally forgotten about this item, and left my phone inside so didn't hear the phone alarm I had set up for the end of the auction.  (b) whilst doing some washing-up, noticed an ant walking across my kitchen surface.  No idea how it got there, it appeared to be by itself but now I'm paranoid that my kitchen is going to be invaded by a load of ants any time soon.  And (c), for no discernible reason I experienced a power cut early this morning.  The weather was absolutely fine, so I have no idea what caused it, how widespread it was, and no explanation was provided by the utility company.  I hate Valentine's Day.