Stars On Ice: Ilia

 

We had a wonderful time at Stars On Ice, and there was one performer (Jason Brown) who did an amazing "You Ain't Never Had A Friend Like Me" routine that involved many jump-splits, and my child really liked that move and wanted other performers to do it. Namely, he was calling out his request when Ilia Malinin, who's famously the only person to land a quad Axel and also one of the first to add backflips to his routines one that was allowed again, was doing his routine (which involved his famous moves, which are not jump splits). 

Text:
O: Do a jump split!!!
L: Ilia is known for several impressive moves, and that is not one of them.

Stars On Ice: Isabeau

 

I introduced my kids to famous ice skaters via books from the library before the Winter Olympics this year so they would enjoy watching the events with me. I mispronounced Isabeau's name (it's Isa-bo, not Isa-boo) and didn't realize this until hearing her name announced, so my child's question/heckle actually rhymed when she said it. 

My kids were super into watching the stars while they were on ice. I did look up the skaters and watch YouTube clips of their performances ahead of time, so they were prepared. Also, I like watching figure skating. It's pretty amazing what people can do. 

Side-note, I posted a thing about our trip to Stars on Ice at Hershey on my other blog: http://notsocomical.comicaltruestory.com/2026/05/stars-on-ice.html 

R: Isabeau, what jump will you do?!?!
L: I know you're just curious, but it's coming across as heckling. 

Winter Olympics Amp Up

 

I'm writing this while watching the Olympics Figure Skating Exhibition Gala so my attention is a bit split. The Italian pair started with the macarena and ended with cotton-eyed Joe. You just never know what the next act will be. Apparently it's Greatest Showman, which is fitting for this event. 

Explanation: The halfpipe is a slope built up on the sides to resemble the bottom half of a circular pipe. A whole-pipe would, in my mind, be like a Hot Wheels loop-de-loop track. 

Text:
A: How can we make the Winter Olympics more exciting? Snowboarding ideas?
B: Halfpipe is OUT! Wholepipe is IN!
A: Like a Hot Wheels track!!!

Singular Spaghetti

 

So at the Olympics Opening Ceremony, they mentioned paparazzi which is the plural form of Paparazzo who was a persistent news photographer in an Italian movie in the mid-1900's. And the commentators mentioned that spaghetti is plural but you never eat just one spaghetto, and the same for other pastas that end in "i" - it's the plural form of that noodle. The more you know...

Haha, I just had a thought that a couple could try to Lady & The Tramp this spaghetto but just keep inhaling noodle only to realize it's a full serving size noodle. 

Text:
A: I heard you made pasta this weekend - did you make spaghetti?
B: No, it's one long noodle - it's spaghetto. *holding plate with one massively long thin noodle on it*

Discus Dinner Plans

 

How are the Olympics nearly over? How do they fit so many competitions into the time a family can spends at Disney World? 

So this one time in college I competed in discus and shot put (my school had a one day event with all the classic Olympic athletics like running and jump things). I did not do well because those are in fact real sports and I did not have a clue as to how to toss them about. But I did get a quick refresher from some nice competitors who actually knew what they were doing. 

Explanation: To "discuss" is to converse about a thing. To "discus" is to do the sport of discus, which is where you throw basically a stone frisbee as far as you can.

Text:
A: Can you come to dinner on Tuesday?
B: I need to throw an oblate spheroid weight with my husband first.
A: ... what?
B: We will discus then get back to you.

Help from Apolo

And now to draw a speed skater:

True Story, if I were to be an Olympian I would like to be a speed skater. I just think that'd be fun, skating super fast. Due to this, Apolo Ohno is probably my favorite Olympian.

So for Thanksgiving I was making a Colossal Coconut Cream Pie which has a huge meringue on top and it was a little stressful to get that correct. It was a super good pie though, let me include a photo:

I'm not sure if that picture does it justice but it was tall and toasty (my spouse bought a kitchen torch for me and it was a little tricky to start but works great and I've made two meringues and a 6-pack of crème brûlée). As for calling on Apolo, I was stressing and started rhyming. And for some reason I was thinking about the Hershey Gold commercials from the last winter Olympics (Apolo starred in them and set me off on a quest to find the candy which is what commercials are supposed to do). 

Text:
Title: Separating eggs for a meringue

L: Oh no - oh no - calling on Apolo...
M: How is a speed skater going to help with this?
Bonus:
AO: You rang?

Totally Different Movies: Rocky and Mowinkel

This one has been sitting around for a while and might be past due but I was hoping to share it with the Olympics since it was inspired by the last Winter Olympics however the Summer ones didn't happen and now here it is. The movie should be Rocky and Bullwinkle but instead is Rocky and Mowinkel. I don't even know what this movie would be about. It would be nothing like the flying squirrel and moose cartoon, of that I am fairly certain. 

Text:
Title: Totally Different Movies Presents... Rocky and Mowinkel
*Rocky Balboa the fictional boxer stands next to Ragnhild Mowinkel the Olympic skier *

Let us Discus Shot Put

My college had Field Day once a year and it was all the classic Olympic track and field events like long jump and sprints and such. One year I signed up for it because while I'm not the most athletic (I really don't like running so my two P.E. classes were ice skating and broom hockey), I figured shot put and discus should be fine because what are the odds that any current college student would know how to do this? The odds were very high for non-American students apparently. But some Tongans were very friendly and showed me how to throw the surprisingly solid ball and disc and I totally failed but that is expected when trying something for the first time against people who know what they're doing. But it was fun! I would do it again and probably fail just as badly. 

My college did not have all the track and field events; I think there was a very good reason we did not do the hammer throw. That just seems like a bad plan to do with minimal training. 

The pun here is that to talk about something is to discuss it - if you wish to throw a disc in an Olympic event, that's a discus. 

Text:
A: What are we doing for fun this weekend?

B: We can discus tonight?

A: I'd prefer shot put. 

Lap Pool

Haha, dogs lap the water...
So in college I had an international roommate and I asked her if she wanted to go run laps with me and she was all confused when she looked up what 'lap' meant because she only had two definitions - 'the dog laps the water' and 'the baby sat on her lap'. I rephrased the question as 'do you want to run in circles outside' and she declined.

Discuss vs Discus

I was writing up an email and wrote "we need to discus this later" and then thought about how that would work. Maybe you just chuck whatever's on your mind as far as you can down the field?