Light The Cauldron

Vlogging is hard work! (We double the g, correct? It's a single-syllable, short-vowel, v-c ending, so we double the g?) I decided to put a vlog together that covered my experience going to Stars On Ice, a Scott Hamilton production featuring Olympians from the past two Winter Games.  In all honesty, it's because I wanted to type fewer words. I had a really busy weekend and am putting this up late already because of everything that happened. However, I can delete words when I realize that I typed something wrong. It's much harder to edit all the "ums" and "sos" out and remember all the correct names off the top of the hat!  For example, you'll notice that I mention Charlie Davis and Meryl White in the vlog. Newsflash: there are no such people in ice dancing. It's Charlie White and Meryl Davis.  I also kept forgetting that the couples featured in Stars On Ice were ice dancing couples - there were no pairs couples there! So

It is very easy nowadays to get sucked into a hole of YouTube videos. One video watched leads to YouTube suggesting more like it, which are also watched, then one moment of whimsy leads into the giant realm known as "Cat Videos," and suddenly it's been four hours. I may have finally gotten the hang of YouTube after finally realizing that my subscriptions have their own feed and I don't have to constantly be scrolling through highlights from The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon  or conspiracy theories about how Star Wars is ruined because of this one big flaw! Now I can just watch what I want to watch. One of those subscriptions was made to several Olympic YouTube channels - the Team USA channel and the Olympic Channel...channel. I subscribed to both of them during the Olympics, hoping for some nice highlights of past Olympics and athlete bios. The Team USA YouTube channel is pretty terrible. Immediately after the PyeongChang Olympics they posted 20 videos at

I was wrapping up my writing of last week's Olympic Blurb when something came across my Twitter feed from my favorite Olympic podcast, Olympic Fever: After I saw that, I knew what the subject of this week's Blurb would be!  On Monday I sat down to watch Part 1 ( and you should click here just to hear the fabulous opening credits score ) and finished on Part 2, and I was so excited to watch!  When I first began to watch, I was expecting to see a documentary narrated by David Ogden Stiers. That was okay; I'm used to Olympic documentaries. But then the opening credits began, and I excitedly realized this was a TV movie from the 1980s!  Those are my favorite kind of movies! Somehow the film style of the early 1980s combined with the historical costumes and design make for the perfect movie in my books. It's probably why I adore such movies as Hoosiers , Chariots of Fire  (which will need to make an appearance in my Olympic Film Festival soon), and The

Last week we started a review series that allows me to read and watch books and movies revolved around the Olympics. This was mostly done because I am interested in expanding my knowledge of the Olympic Games. But another reason to do this is because sometimes I just don't have a lot of time to watch sports! This week is Spring Break at my school, and I proceeded to leave home for the week and travel out east, primarily visiting Pittsburgh and Washington, D.C. Because I was gone - and my sports watching was at the mercy of my brother and sister - I didn't have a chance to watch too many events this week. However, since I drove all over the place, I had a chance to listen to a book on the Audible app. *Note: so many YouTube channels and podcasts are sponsored by Audible, and you bet I was using one of those free credits to support one of them - though I can't remember which off the top of my head. You should support your favorites, too!* The choice for my trip was T

In these long, long months that stretch between Olympic Games, people who are striving to keep the flame alive discover new ways to cover our favorite Olympic sports, athletes, and host countries. For the past few months I have thought that I needed to stretch my Olympic legs a little bit and get a little more history and knowledge under my belt. To do that, I am going to be taking a look at films, books, and other media that cover current and historical Olympic information. I'll pepper these in throughout the lean months and hopefully get you interested in these great pieces of media, as well! Our first piece is the 2017 documentary Icarus . This actually won an Academy Award this year for best documentary, and after watching it, I would have to agree. It was certainly never boring and provides a lot of eye-opening insight into the hottest topic in the Olympic world right now: Russian state-mandated doping. The nutshell, if you want to see this yourself: Bryan Fogel leads