Underthinking the Winter Deaflympics

So today I was talking to my friend Jeff Mansfield. Jeff is deaf, and he is also a gold medal winning international athlete, he competes in the Deaflympics Team USA Ice Hockey team.

Jeff is apparently also a male model.

Jeff was the first deaf person I had interacted with, and taught me some basic sign language, I learnt the alphabet in like an evening, and then tried to pick up the odd word as I went along. Most of my conversations with Jeff though involved us spelling words to each other with sign, which I imagine was slightly annoying for Jeff, imagine this....

"H...E...L...L...O...F..R..E..D...H...O...W...A..R...E.....Y...O...U"

To be fair I could say the above sentence in actual sign language and not just spelling it. The odd thing that struck me was how NZ sign language (based on two handed alphabet) was different from American Sign language (based on one handed alphabet). I mean both countries the language that is spoken is English, so I am not sure why the sign languages were so different, according to Jeff they were only 33% the same.

I blame this difference on our anti-nuclear ships policy

 The reason Jeff was in NZ was to play ice hockey in the NZIHL, where he played for the Dunedin Thunder.
The teams record wasn't so flash that year but Jeff was a stand out performer, making the scorelines a lot closer than they  could have been.

Jeff's leg on the left, accompanied by future Jersey Shore cast member Richie Russo

But I digress, the main reason I am writing this post is right at this very moment Jeff is meant to be defending his title along with his team-mates at the 2011 Winter Deaflympics in Slovakia, the problem is they have been cancelled. And they literally got cancelled at the last minute some teams were already in Slovakia, not the USA team they were in the Medallist Bar at JFK airport about to fly out when they were told.

Pictured: Not the 2011 Slovakian Winter Deaflympics

This late cancellation has lead to lots of cost to the National sporting bodies, as well as the athletes themselves.  I guess if you are like me you might not even be aware this event existed . Well I did some digging and apparently the Deaflympics are longest running multisport event excluding the Olympics themselves, the Summer version started in 1924 in Paris, and the Winter version in 1949 and this is the first time in history they have been cancelled. So how did it happen, why was this event cancelled?

Well a lot of people are blaming this man - Jaromir Ruda.

 But let's start at the beginning, when the deaflympics were first awarded to the Slovakians in 2005, the Slovakian Government refused to back the bid, because of the lack of infrastructure, so the fact it was awarded to them seemed strange, but you know what they had 6 years, surely they could get something together.

Dunedin did this in 1 year, I am pretty sure I could get close to doing this myself in 6 years.

And for the most part they did, from what I understand Jaromir Ruda raised 1.6 billion dollars in sponsorship for the tournament and planned stadiums, and booked hotel rooms for the visiting teams. In late 2005 he was put in remand standing accused of embezzling a lot of the sponsorship he had raised, but was released two years later, through some dodgy politics from what I am told.

Jaromir Ruda's bed

When he was released he was immediately reinstated as the head of the Slovakian Deaflympics organising committee, this was meet with some opposition, but protesting your belief that the wrong man is in the job by quitting doesn't really solve the problem, just means you are no longer associated. Leaving the man accused of embezzling all your money in charge seems just plain bizarre.
Now claims are coming out that the reason the stadiums weren't built because the money was never paid, hotel reservations were cancelled, and people pulled their sponsorship because of an accused embezzler's invovlement.

And who could blame them, probably safer to give your money to Bernie

 Turns out in the last year or so, Jaromir closed down the office and let a lot of people go, because he decided he could run the tournament better himself, and the Slovakian organising committee brought this?

"Huh?"

Your raised eyebrows are warrented Duane "The Rock" Johnson. That sounds like the perfect excuse to embezzle more money. Doing the work by yourself means there is no one to check what you are doing with tournament money.

Dance (and steal money) like nobody is watching

Jaromir Ruda is now facing criminal charges from the ICSD (International Committee of Sports for the Deaf) which is all well and good. But that doesn't help the athletes like Jeff who have trained hard for 4 years, and now have no tournament to go too.
 Apparently the Russian and Ukrainians sporting bodies are putting their heads together to try and organise a tournament before the end of the year, because their athletes get paid by the Government to train and compete, the amount they are paid is based on their performance at the deaflympics. So here is hoping they succeed.

With this man in charge of their country, how could the Russians fail?

The Video store for the Overthinker, by the Overthinker.

Tonight well renting a movie, I witnessed the customer in front of me inquire to the employee, whether they had Pan's Labyrinth on blue ray. Said employee tapped away at his computer and then asked his co-worker if Pan's Labyrinth is the same as The Labyrinth. What?!!!
Why are you working at a DVD store? Pan's Labyrinth is a brillant 2006 fanasty Spanish language movie by Guillermo del Toro, a man who untill recently was going to make the Hobbit, that gave many people nightmares from its creepy visuals and dark themes.

BOO! That's right try going to sleep now

 The Labyrinth is an equally brillant 1986 fanasty film by Jim Henson (yes the Muppets guy) which also gave people nightmares, but mainly due to David Bowie's ridiculously tight pants and the fact his character is called Jareth.

"Yeah, I think the lady at the store said these are called "Jeggings"?"

So both nightmare inducing fanasty films with Labyrinth in the title, but seperated by 2 decades and a language barrier.This shows poor movie knowledge by this said employee. I hate to think what will happen if a parent looking to entertain a party of children comes in and asks this employee for Monsters Inc.

Disney's Pixar has done it again with the delightful Monsters, Inc.--so sit back, bring the whole family and have a wonderful time.

This little incident reminded me of a little DVD store I frequented while spending time in Buenos Aires Argentina. This store required a lot of thinking to navigate, for example I took it for granted in a DVD store the would be split into categories such as horror, comedy, drama etc. Not in this store no siree bob. This store was split into lead actor/actress sections, this could lead to some very imbalanced sections. For example John Wayne was the leading man in 142 movies, Mark Hamil was the leading man in 3. This raises the question was it just easier to make Westerns than Sci-Fi films?

Even before his career Mark Hamil knew he should have made cowboy films

I mean I am all for changing things up, but didn't this filing lead to all sorts of confusion when the movie has two or more leading roles, I bet the Oceans 11 series caused them all sorts of dramas when they tired to shelve it. Should it go in the Brad Pitt section, or the George Clooney section, or the Matt Damon section, or the Julia Roberts section or the Bernie Mac section etc, it would take some pretty clever possibly, bending the laws of physics, placement to put it in all sections at once. I guess you could just put a copy in each actors section, but this causes a lot of redunacy.

Don Juan is still currently working on where to put Oceans 11 in his store.

This filing system is all well and good when the film you want to find has a famous person as the lead actor, you say why don't you just ask out the counter for films with lesser-known actors. We tried.
Turns out their computer system only let you search for films by last name of the lead actor?
I mean simple right, Indiana Jones - Ford, MiB - Smith, okay smart guy Neverending story - ?????                ( incidentally this was the movie, me and a similarly aged scottish and irish man wished to watch, to relive our childhood okay?)
We stood there for an eternity and could not come up with the kids name. This was kind of ironic, because if you haven't seen Neverending story the crux is that main kid, has to give the Empress a name otherwise the Nothing would consume them all, and he struggles for to do this for ages, but he eventually comes up with a name, although whether it was a good one or not is another question.

"Seriously?! Moonchild, you are calling me Moonchild, why not Rebecca, or Jane, or Emily?

"

Barrett Oliver by the way, I know that now because I just googled neverending story, something seemingly impossible in this video store. We didn't come up with that name, which is almost as bad as Moonchild.

"HAHAH can you believe he called her Moonchild? hahah"

We eventually found it, by just wandering around the DVD Store for long enough. Which incidentally is my favourite way to go to a DVD store, I normally allow a good 30 mins to an hour for a trip to the DVD store by myself so that I am not rushed and can wander the aisles of the weekly rentals, and let the DVD's choose me. Sometimes you get dud's but most of the time you can find some really good movies you have never heard of, I recommend it to all of you try it at least once. I try to get 4-5 out at a time as insurance against dud's.

Apparently two of my favourite things Bon Jovi and Ice Hockey combined doesn't necessarily mean success

I find if you go to the DVD store with more than 1 other person you tend to be at the Video store for an hour anyway, while you debate the merits of Drama Vs Action (typically a female/male fight) and weed through all the movies that one person or another in the group has already seen. It normally ends when everyone just gives up, and grabs the new release (which by the time you have made the decision is already a weekly rental) that 1/2 the people have already seen, but you don't care you just want to get out of there.

"We have already been over this Judy, we are not getting Jaws out, Brett, Michael, Kelly and Tina have already seen it."

So there you have it a the video store a place often frequented by underthinkers, but a place where the overthinker can prosper.