LIVE FROM THE OLYMPIC COLISEUM!

Dear Readers,

Once more, Edwin enjoys his Olympic kismet and, backpack in tow, ticketless as always, he has magically secured a ticket for the hottest show in town tonight, the Men's 500 meter finals and the Short-Track Relay!

He is pictured here hobnobbing with members of the Russian Olympic contingency who warmly invited him to Sochi to attend their Olympics four years from now. They gave him lots of Sochi stuff and he has friends in Russia  from when he taught Aikido and Kung Fu there way before he met Mom. Edwin is the one in the middle holding his bag of Olympic souvenirs for mom.

Tonight, in a small coffeeshop, he and the Iranian proprietor recognized one another as classmates from college in the Philippines... isn't it a small world! They both reminesced in fluent Tagalog, hugged, and cried  before Edwin again off to the Coliseum. Somewhere he obtained an "unobtainable" ticket, then ran into a member (or maybe the captain) of our team in Everett, WA, for whom Edwin had customed designed special gloves for use on those dangerous turns on the ice. (Edwin makes artificial limbs and his custom skating gloves were so popular he was encouraged to go into business selling him but he preferred skating.)

He then ran into the infamous Stephen Bradbury, Aussie short-track speedskater who won gold in the race (or, shall we say, CRASH!) that put Apolo Anton Ohno and short-track speedskating on the map back in Salt Lake City 8 years ago. Apolo and a Korean were battling it out for gold when, as the Korean approached the finish line, he made a BigAssB00-BOO, CREATING ONE OF THE MOST dramatic, bloodcurdling crashes in speedskating history! Mr. Bradbury was twiddling his thumbs way behind Ohno and the other Koreans because he could see that something he wanted no part of was about to happen!

He was right.

It did.

Thus, Mr.Bradbury, being the last (and maybe only) skater standing, glided smoothly across the finish line for gold, casually remarking in his lovely Aussie accent: "Sometimes the sun shines on a dog's ass." It must be an Aussie saying because we guinea pigs do not understand it.

What happened next kindled Korean death threats against Apolo because our hero, splattered in blood, summoned every ounce of his courage and strength to drag his torn-to-bits Lycra clad body across the finish line for Silver. A stunning photo of the crash appeared in a two-page spread in Sports Illustrated, the Korean was disqualified or something bad happened to him for "impeding" so instead of winning gold, our polite Korean displayed  good sportsmanship by taking his Korean flag and, instead of wrapping it around him in his presumptive victory lap, he threw the flag upon the ice and, enraged, began stomping on it with his skates like a 2-year-old throwing a temper tantrum.  Mom told us that was not good manners and not for any of us to ever behave like that.

In protest, the entire country of Korea issued so many death threat against Apolo that the Olympic computers actually crashed! And poor Apolo then had to remain sequestered in Olympic Village for the rest of the Games with bodyguards. He went on to win more races and, as a joke, a TV broadcaster from Apolo's native Seattle fabricated Ohno's signature "soul patch" out of black felt then wore it on his next TV broadcast.  Overnight, the soul-patch was a sensation and EVERYBODY started making and wearing soul patches; some guys even used mascara to make it look like they had grown one overnight. That's a real man, for ya. Nothing says "I've got Gold-medal courage" on a guy like mascara facial hair.  Humans baffle us.

Apolo's historic "courage-under-fire" effort and silver medal in the wake of that now infamous crash, Korea's rabid hatred of him, death threats that crashed Olympic computers, combined with Ohno's signature soul patch and headband put short-track speedskating ON THE MAP, people!  That is how the world learned about mom's favorite sport of thrills and spills on the ice and why not a ticket was to be found for tonight's finale (except by Edwin, somehow): BECAUSE tonight's races herald Apolo Anton Ohno's his last Olympic appearance!

And Edwin is reporting exclusively for our blog, LIVE FROM THE COLISEUM! TONIGHT!

But we're hungry and wants our carrots now.  Mom? MOM? HUNGRY.

WHEEEEEeeeeeeeKkkkkKKKK!

(Editor's Note: Translate above as "FEED US NOW, please.")

We wish Apolo and his team-mates Godspeed.  And we hope Edwin finds a nice place to spend the night.