My use of sports slang may be a bump in the road, or the ski hill, so I don’t sound like a country bumpkin when describing the successes of athletes from across the river.
— Based on my experience at the sports bar, I need to climb the hill as far as my use of trendy Winter Olympic terms. I remember when a mogul was a music executive, not a bump on the hill like that star skier from Afton would land on. And I was told the other night while viewing at the bar, that the right skating term is a “triple axle,” not a “triple lutz.” (Maybe that last characterization describes me). And worst of all to me, a “Latvian speed machine” sounds more like a drug than a luge. To which I must refer to a friend I encountered at Buffalo Wild Wings, who is like a walking encyclopedia of such terminology, having invoked the phrase “150 hours” to describe his watching of the chilly games, or playing like-minded action games, I wasn’t quite sure which. The friend that he was with, Grace, said that she is the antithesis of this, and both of us agreed in any case that we suck at video games, losing at even something as basic as the Old School version of Pong! And if it was up to us to save the universe via Space Invaders, the universe would be toast.
— It’s been all over the news about Afton’s Jessie Diggins essentially digging for gold and carrying the flag at the closing ceremony of the Winter Games. But this in itself is not Game Over. A member of US womens’ hockey team that also won gold is from Andover. But as I jokingly told my bartender friend Matt, the squad actually continued winning medals, surprisingly, led by the Andover player, Over And Over And Over. Matt responded that I should consider doing stand-up comedy. Or provoking collective groans.
— Also concerning the Olympics, word around the sports bar was that the only woman Donald Trump wouldn’t screw, especially if they are an immigrant or celebrity, would be a Russian weightlifter. Just kidding.
— On the other end of things, my old friend Bree was prominent a few years back with Caryn Models out of, you betcha, Minneapolis, which just had a super online offer to make: “The Super Bowl will be here in 11 days! If you need any influencers, models, actors, or hosts be sure to contact us!” In a separate ad, they said they need actual security guards to pose in photos as, essentially, themselves. Along those lines, Time magazine just did a survey, of both men and women, of what is the perfect female body, listing parts of it that belong to various actresses. Of the two groups categorized by gender, the women, not the men, picked a composite who looked just like Bree, because of the thinness of “her” lower body. Its surprising that this was the womens’ pick, as you would expect such a focus on thinness to come from the guys.
— A frosty-looking couple came in from the cold quite late to Dick’s during a recent snowstorm. I asked, “it looks like you’ve been out in this extreme weather?” For about five minutes, the man replied, making me wonder just exactly where they were coming from. The woman also had sparkles that were much like snowflakes on her forehead. Just what that was about also made me wonder. The “bitter” conditions also evoked another response: A number of us had a spirited and in some cases slightly angry debate about what, concerning the idea that the city had posted notice of a snow emergency for parking on its streets, constituted a legal notice of that situation. Is social media enough to meet the posting standard? That didn’t deter the last call numbers, which more than quadrupaled the number of people in the bar.
— A Dick’s regular is spreading her love of trivia around, in large part hitting what might be the next big thing, (and this could be a trivia question itself), through her experiences with DJTrivia at two different venues, Dick’s on Monday nights and also at Bo’s ‘N Mine in River Falls, where she has also trekked with staff members of the aforementioned bar to play. Plus, there is a third local venue, The Village Inn in North Hudson, that is offering DJTrivia, making it a gaming trifecta. There are twenty weeks of what might be thought of as a regular season, with the games going on once a week, followed by an end of year tournament worth $1,000. As the say, you don’t have to be a genius to play but it might help. What won’t help are computers and cell phones and social media devices of all types, as you are not allowed to have them during play. That would kind of be like receiving radio messages inside a quarterback’s football helmet, (oh, yeah, that’s now allowed).
— I was asked, do you know this guy? The woman posing the question said she had met met him at the truck stop and he paid her $100 to be his date for the night, just hang out and listen to music. They appeared to have hit it off and both were wearing Harley Davidson shirts. They waited a bit to get started on their date, however, as they didn’t make it out on the town until well after midnight. Right at last call, however, you could see the two counting out bills to finalize their transaction.
— A journalism student Molly, splitting her time between writing for regional magazines and bartending, in of all places Utah, was home for a funeral. Gee, her work sounds a lot like my kind of schedule.