Hollywoodland

Not a real wall, I hope. Though now that I think about it, I do feel like I’ve hit a wall with my book. Hmm.

On this date in history:

• Actor William Frawley was born in 1887. He’s best known for portraying Fred Mertz on I Love Lucy.

• Actor Dub Taylor was born in 1907. He worked primarily in westerns.

• Comedian Jackie Gleason was born in 1916.

• In 1917, The Original Dixieland Jass Band recorded the first jazz record, for the Victor Talking Machine Company in New York. (Yes, they used the term “jass” vs “jazz”, don’t ask me why.)

• Actor Tony Randall was born in 1920. He’s probably best known for his role as Felix Unger in The Odd Couple.

Tonight, we have yet more Olympics coverage. Women’s curling gold medal rounds, men’s 500m short track, women’s slalom, four-man bobsled, and other stuff, I think, but it’s hard to tell by the schedule.

Did some more tweaking last night. *g*

Reading: Finished up Reclaim My Life. Not sure what’s next. A bunch of new and new-to-me books arrived at my house today. Yay!!!

And now for the Olympics report!

The U.S. was completely shut out of the women’s giant slalom.

In another men’s Nordic combined event, the U.S. rocked! We may have waited 86 years to win any medals in this event, but we made up for that this year. Bill Demong won the gold and Johnny Spillane got himself another silver. So we medaled in every Nordic combined event in Vancouver.

In the women’s hockey gold medal game, Canada beat the U.S. 2 to 0. So we got the silver.

Then we had the men’s freestyle aerials. Alexei Grishin of Belarus won the gold. Speedy Peterson of the U.S. won the silver (with an amazing jump he calls the hurricane) and Liu Zhongqing of China won the bronze.

Then it was time for the women’s figure skating long program.

Rachael Flatt of the U.S. skated to Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini. I thought she did a fabulous job. Performance of a lifetime. But the judges were super-picky. They downgraded a couple of her jumps which lost her several points. She ended up finishing in 7th place.

Miki Ando of Japan skated to Cleopatra. Her jumps were impressive but I thought the rest left something to be desired. Like the announcers said, it was as if she was just going through the motions. She finished in 5th place.

Mirai Nagasu of the U.S. skated to a selection of music from Carmen. Absolutely fabulous! And she was the only one whose music I actually liked. She finished in 4th.

Joannie Rochette of Canada skated to Samson and Delilah. She had some bobbles on three of her jumps, but otherwise a beautiful performance! She finished up with a bronze medal for which I was very well pleased.

Mao Asada of Japan skated to Bells of Moscow. She made history by being the first woman to do two triple axels in competition. But the judges downgraded one of her triple flips which lost her a little bit, but it still wouldn’t have been enough to win the gold. She ended up with a silver medal.

And then there was Kim Yu-Na of Korea. She skated to Concerto in F by George Gershwin. She was, in a word, spectacular and fully deserved to win the gold medal. Her scores blew the other skaters out of the water. She finished 23 POINTS ahead of Mao Asada!!!

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