Today marks the start of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, British Columbia. This will be Canada’s second Winter Olympics (Calgary hosted in 1988). David Atkins, the director of the opening and closing ceremonies at the 2000 Summer Games in Sydney, is the mastermind behind the ceremonies in Vancouver this year.

Although the details of the event are a closely guarded secret, here are a five factoids about this year’s opening ceremonies:

Five Factoids about tonight’s Opening Ceremonies in Vancouver

1. No expense spared.

   Canada spent $40 million for the February 12 opening ceremonies, making it the most expensive opening ceremonies in Winter Olympics history.

2. Indoors?!

   The 2010 Winter Olympics opening ceremonies will be the first ever to be held indoors. It’s a good thing, because rain is often in Vancouver’s forecast!

3. Greece takes the lead.

   Because it is the birthplace of the Olympic Games, Greece always leads the march of the athletes. After the Greek team, the countries will follow alphabetical order from Albania to Uzbekistan, with the host team, Canada, appearing last.

4. Go, Clara, go…

   The flag bearer for the Canadian team is Clara Hughes, a cyclist and speed skater and the first athlete to win multiple Olympic medals in both the Summer and Winter games. She won the gold medal in the 2006 Winter Olympics for the women’s 5000 meter speed skating by 1.01 seconds!

5. Doves on fire!

   One of the traditions of every Olympic opening ceremony is the release of doves, which symbolize peace. Originally the doves were released before the lighting of the Olympic cauldron. But in the 1988 Seoul Summer Games several doves perched on the cauldron and went up in flames, forcing the International Olympic Committee to change the traditional order. Yikes!

The opening ceremonies are guaranteed to be a spectacle. Tune into NBC at 7:30 p.m. EST or check your local TV listings to catch the Olympic spirit and cheer your country on!

With the snowpocalypse having blanketed a lot of homes and office places yesterday, you may still be stuck indoors with nowhere to go and nothing to do. Wait, what? Of course you have somewhere to go – outside. In the, you  know, snow. Where there is plenty to do…

Top 10 Fun Things To Do In the Snow

1. Sledding.

   Whether you are 5 or 55, this tradition is still thrilling as always! So go ahead and grab that sled you have been hiding in the attic and slide down those slippery little slopes. If for some reason you aren’t holding on to that precious little plastic disk from 20 years ago or don’t feel like breaking into your piggy bank, you can use the top of a trash can or a cardboard box with a trashbag around it.

   Does the position of the weight on the sled affect how far the sled goes?

2. Snow (wo)man.

   If you don’t think it’s fun, you obviously haven’t done it in awhile. Once you are done piling and packing all that snow, you are the one who gets to put your fashion expertise to work. Finally you have some use for those old maternity clothes…

   How do you build a snowman?

3. Snow angels.

   You might get a tad bit of snow on you, but that’s the point!

   Check out snow angel photos.

4. Snow ice cream.

   You scream, I scream, we all scream for SNOW ICE CREAM (except for Frosty…). All you need is 4-5 cups of clean fresh unpacked snow, 1 cup of milk, ½ cup of sugar, and ½ teaspoon of vailla. Stir all the ingredients together except the snow. Once the sugar is dissolved, slowly add in the snow, and wait til it thickens. Delicious and easy! Thanks Mother Nature!

   Recipe for snow ice cream.

5. Snow ball fight.

   Whether it is just you and your friend, or you gather up some teams, this is a great way to get a work out and have some ‘friendly’ competition in the snow. Warning: if people are sore losers, they might want to refrain from this game.

   Tips for surviving a snow ball fight.

6. Snow tubing.

   If you are lucking enough to come upon a place that has snow tubing – DO IT! I like to call this little thrill snoobing, and let me just say, it is a blast! If you find a place to do this, the tubes will be a bit sturdier and you will definitely go faster. But, this is easy enough to improvise on your own: Just grab a large intertube and snoob away! Warning: Careful not to pop your snoob tube.

   Read more about tubing.

7. Construction.

   If you are a dedicated worker, I have one word for you: Igloo. Enough said.

   How do you build an igloo?

8. Ice skating.

   Whether you are going on a first date, meeting up with a friend, or going with a whole group, ice skating can be a great experience in the snow. Take a break and have a cup of hot coco! Is there a better way to feel the essense of a winter wonderland?

   Watch some ice skating videos and get tips.

9. Snow refrigerator.

   Just nestle your drinks or bowl of jello into the snow and…voila! you have an instant cold treat.

   More on snow refrigerators.

10. Play a sport.

    Games such as soccer, football, or capture the flag are a blast in the snow! Not only does it provide a ‘new’ terrain to play on, but if you fall, you have a softer landing. Plus, your drinks will be kept cold due to your snow fridge.

    More snow games.

Have fun! Note: Whatever you do, do not eat the yellow snow.

The 2010 Winter Olympics are set to kick off in Vancouver this Friday, featuring 15 winter sports. While that sure is a bag of fun, are you aware of the weirdest Olympic sports of all time? Learn about it below. Oh, and be prepared – a bunch of them involve animals.

The 7 weirdest Olympic sports

1. Biathlon.

   Biathlon: Sounds like a contest to see how much biology you know. In general, it’s a sporting term for one event with two disciplines. In relation to the Olympics, it’s a winter sport combining-cross country skiing and… rifle shooting. Yeah… I’ll stay a safe distance away from that one.

2. Pigeon racing.

   Imagine a time when there was no Internet. No Super Bowl. Not even World Wars to look back on. That was the year 1900 – a year when pigeon racing was an Olympic sport.

   And, well, the only year that it was an Olympic sport.

3. Skeleton.

   Dare to believe in a whole new take on sledding. No, this is not the Rosebud from your childhood, folks. This is skeleton, a one-man face-down sled race on an ice track. I shudder to think why it’s called skeleton.

4. Skijoring.

   How much do you really trust your pet? Would you let Rover take the lead while attached to him with a rope… on skis? That’s skijoring, and it’s ski-aring the bejesus out of me. In the 1928 Winter Olympics it was a demonstration sport, using horses.

5. Curling.

   

   Curling, to me, sounds like it should mean something completely different – like some kind of salon Olympics. It’s anything but: the game involved two four-person teams sliding heavy stones towards a circle drawn at either end of an ice court. It originated in Scotland; somehow that makes sense.

6. Handball.

   You may be familiar with handball as a school recess favorite, but an older version of the game known as field handball did play a role as a sport in the 1936 Summer Olympics. It even had six teams contesting.

7. Korfball.

   Korfball is a version of netball played in outer space… Kidding! It is, however, a mixed-gender version of netball played in 57 countries. It was a demonstration sport in the 1920 and 1928 Olympic games. Each team consists of four men and four women… but no mixed duels! Keep it clean, kids.

Today I’m happy to present a deeper look into one of the brilliant minds behind the WikiAnswers team. Gil is a WikiAnswers tester, who, when not working on making sure the site is constantly perfect, apparently has other things to think about… who knew?

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Yesterday was a big day for me.

Four of my favorite sports teams were playing simultaneously in three different sports, and luck would have it, they all won!

It’s hard to describe how good it feels for a devoted fan when your favorite team wins a game, I think the closest I can come is it’s like having the best ice-cream headache of your life combined with the rush of eating way too much chocolate (before that nasty stomachache kicks in). So if you’ll take that feeling and multiply it by four you’ll know how I feel today…

…kind of sick.

You see, apart from being a part-time Wikiholic, I am also a sportsoholic.

I follow baseball, football, basketball and soccer; in each I have a different favorite team.

Actually, it’s even more complicated than that.

I root for one baseball team, one football team, two basketball teams (one in located in Israel and one from the NBA), and three different soccer teams (one in Israel, one in England and one in Spain).

Wait, I think I can complicate this even further.

One of the basketball teams and two of the soccer teams play in two different leagues each. That’s like trying to Supervise ten different categories…

Oh, and did I mention that almost half of those games are played between midnight to 6 am, my local time?

So, to recap, every year I follow seven teams in ten different leagues, playing more than 365 games. No wonder days like yesterday happen…

Gil

P.S. And I didn’t even talk about my favorite tennis and golf players!

Do you want to be interviewed for the Contributor corner? Just leave a comment below and we’ll get to work.

Did you know? WikiAnswers currently has 2,471 community-grown Q&A collections; in short, there are a whole buncha topics covered on the site, and the number is constantly getting bigger.

Since March began, we’ve been finding WikiAnswers listed as a source for lots of blog posts spanning several topics. Let’s take a look:

• Animals: Don’t you love how a group of animals always has to have a special name? Laughter Thoughts introduces us to the troop – her own and an actual troop of monkeys.

• Human anatomy: Over at The Mutated World of Eclectic Disarray, we get to find out how much of the human body is made up of water. That’s an easy one, you say? Well, what about the human brain, then? This statistic makes you think twice (be careful of the puddles).

• Christianity: Learn how to say the Rosary of Liberation with This Burning Fire.

• Politics: Finally, someone is sharing what a Super Delegate is with the rest of us (and that someone is Clear Fog Blog).

• Junk food: Fracas is celebrating the birth of the Oreo cookie! I wonder what kind of cake an Oreo cookie eats on its own birthday?

• Sea food: If we eat oysters, what do oysters eat? Small oysters? Small people? Before I get a head of myself, Live Love Life has it all worked out.

• Sports: A teacher gets philosophical about sports, starting with the basics: Why are they important?

• Personal development: Interesting blog – Agile Personal Development – discussing the difference between skills and knowledge.

• Language: In case you couldn’t figure it out, and are ready for the truth, dvmp sorts it out from his latest blog entry: Where did the phrase “beat you like a redheaded stepchild” come from?

• Seasons: It feels like it’s spring already, but Scott reminds us that the first day of spring has not yet sprung.

• Lawyers: Brand new shark lawyer with a brand new blawg wants to remind the rest of us how many lawyers there are in the United States. Thanks, man. Now I will jump off the roof.

You know what I love finding on a Sunday afternoon? Cyber journalists and bloggers referring to Answers.com when they are looking for information for their articles. Doesn’t matter what the subject – sports, celebrities, politics – I love it all.

Here are some of the latest – in fact, they cover sports, celebrities and politics!

• At SeattlePi.com, Jim Moore learns a new word – internecine – from Answers.com. While he now gets the meaning, he has yet to figure out how to pronounce it (hint: use the pronunciation tool at the top of the page!)
• The Gaston Gazette celebrates the works of John T. Biggers with an article about the world-renown artist; credit for facts about his life go to you-know-who.
• OpedNews researches the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act as part of their article on government snooping.

The biggest game of the year is quickly approaching… And plenty of Patriotic people are already starting to ask questions about this Giant event. Like this blogger, who asks:

What happens if the football team of the host city of the Super Bowl makes it to the Super Bowl?

Glad to read he got his answer… Looking for Super Bowl answers yourself? Stay tuned…