Friday, January 26, 2007
It's winter, so that means time for my own personal terrible tradition. That's right. The Winter X Games.
For some reason, I have watched these things every year since coming to college. I could not begin to tell you why. I think at first they happened to be on at times that I wasn't in class, and then I just kept on watching them out of morbid fascination and a distinct lack of baseball or whatever.
It's at the point where I recognize the names now, despite the fact that I know next to nothing about any of these sports. For instance, I think Tanner Hall's new beard looks stupid. I wonder why they got rid of the Moto-X events? And I was concerned enough about the absence of Mike Metzger (before I realized that no Moto-X events were happening) to look him up and make sure he's OK (in short, he is not... he broke his back trying to do a jump from one barge to another [gosh, I wonder what might go wrong with THAT], although it looks like he won't be paralyzed). I appreciate the female snowboarders who get good amplitude out of the pipe, because I realize that they don't usually get near as high as the guys do (and none of them as high as the skiiers).
I get a dorky kick out of Sal Masakela and that reporter with the terrible Boston accent.
I HAVE A WINTER X GAMES PROBLEM OK.
The damn things are only 11 years old, and every year there's new stuff. All these sports are actively evolving. One year, people are doing single flips, the year after someone throws down a double, and the year after that everyone has to be doing doubles just to make it to the finals. If I'm remembering correctly, nobody was throwing 1080s when this stuff started, but you see them now (and, shit, Simon Dumont just rolled a 1260 in the ski pipe). It's not like baseball or football, where there's innovation and new superstars come up, but nothing similar to this current year-to-year growth. It's like watching Darwin's finches. Only, you know, colder, and with more bad music.
The analysts use the word "gnarly" in a relatively earnest way.
At least half the people competing are younger than me, which is simultaneously awesome and extremely depressing.
Mostly, it's just fun. It's fast and bright and loud and requires exactly no thinking power to watch and enjoy. I guess you might call it the perfect ESPN-sponsored event.Labels: obsession, Winter X Games, X Games
10:34 PM
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