Dear Bode:

I'm sorry.

The other night after you won the Bronze Medal for Alpine Skiing Men's Super-G some reporter badgered you with questions about your brother who recently died. It was awful. She basically harassed you into crying and after you broke down the camera stayed on you. The whole nation watched you crouching on the ground balling your eyes out.

But it's not the reporter's fault. She was only doing what her boss asked her to do. It's not her boss' fault either. She's only doing what the Network asked her to do. See, a couple of months ago someone like me who watches on average 7-10 hours of Winter Olympic Coverage sat in a Focus Group and told someone that I'd increase the number of hours I watch to 10-15 if there were more stories about the people.

I guess seeing you compete on the highest world stage and push yourself to your physical limits wasn't amazing enough for me. I had to have a "human" element as well. I wanted to know whether or not your dead brother had anything to do with your spectacular run.

I realize now that was an asshole move of me. That I have brothers as well. And if someone would have stuck a camera inches from my face after probably my last time competing in the Olympics, and asked me if I did it for my brother who had passed less than a year ago, well... let's just say you handled it much better than I would.

So in closing, I just wanted to reiterate that I'm sorry that my sports viewing habits dictates the need to have a human element. In the future I'll try to be just impressed with your athletic achievements. (They are rather impressive by the way.)

Oh... and honestly I'm sincerely sorry about your brother. May he rest in peace.

Wal Ozello is the author of Assignment 1989: The Time Travel Wars and is the lead singer of the Columbus hairband Armada. He's a resident of Upper Arlington, Ohio and a frequent customer at Colin's Coffee.

A bunch of “Life” stuff happened this week, and seeing that I do a lot of the “Life” blogging here at Pencil Storm, I felt it was my duty to chime in.

America The Beautiful Coke Commercial – Coke created controversy this week when they aired a commercial having America The Beautiful sung in different languages. I thought this was phenomenal advertising. Genius move on Coke’s part to get people talking about them again and have them be relevant to the emerging markets here in the U.S. For those that are upset because the whole song wasn’t in English, I’d like to remind you that we’re all immigrants. In fact, we’d all be speaking French if we didn’t win the French and Indian War back in 1763. Click here to watch the spot.

Unplugged At The Super Bowl – The Red Hot Chili Peppers performed at the Super Bowl, pretending to play their instruments while a soundtrack played over the loudspeakers. Afterwards, when they were caught, they clearly admitted it. They did exactly what they planned: get national attention. For more on the Super Bowl Halftime performance checkout Ricki C's blog.

Philip Seymour Hoffman – I was floored at the outpouring of sympathy on my facebook feed for this actor who died via a heroin overdose. I see his death as selfish. The guy left behind three kids. With the bank this guy makes, can’t he find someone to help him face his demons? He has a responsibility to others. But no, since he’s won an Oscar and moved millions of people with his art, we’ll just sweep that under the carpet.

Biggest Loser Winner – Now here’s someone we can crucify for battling their demons, right? The winner of the Biggest Loser was crowned this week. She stepped up on the scale, rail thin, weighing 105 pounds at about 5’ 4”. She was blasted all over the Internet for being too thin, citing medical averages that she was underweight. Poor thing – she was slammed when she was fat and now she’s slammed for being thin. As if losing the weight magically erased her demons. My guess is the same demons that created her addicted to weight gain are getting her addicted to weight loss. Has she gone too far? I don't know. I'm not her.

Russian Olympics – The week ended with the Opening Ceremonies of the Winter Olympics in Russia. So much controversy around this: gay violence, killing stray dogs, pictures of Putin in hotel rooms. Here’s who I feel sorry for the most: the guy that was in charge of the fifth Olympic ring that didn’t expand during the opening ceremony. (Click here to see what I’m talking about). I’m hoping he’s somewhere trying to escape from Sochi right now, instead of on a one way trip to a prison camp in Siberia.

Blog