You don’t like the Olympics? Too bad.

As cynical as I can be sometimes (most of the time), I find my interest in the Olympics is a lot higher than it used to be.  At least for the winter variety.  And now that the 2010 Vancouver games are less than a year away, my anticipation is growing bit by bit.  And I can’t be alone on that.

I’m all too familiar with the host of complaints that accompany the Olympic Games every time they’re held – they divert money that would be better spent on more worthwhile things, local citizens are at best inconvenienced and at worst harassed or violated in some way, the organizers and even some of the athletes are crooked, it’s an antiquated event that has no relevance for our modern, connected world, yadda yadda yadda.

Are a lot of these complaints are valid?  Sure.  I’m not blind to that reality.  Truth be told I don’t know how thrilled I’d be to have the Olympics in my backyard either.  But I honestly think that more than ever we need grand spectacles like the Olympics so that, if only for a few weeks, we can focus on human accomplishment rather than human misery.

Don’t worry, the rest of the world will still be living in poverty and needlessly killing each other when we’re done watching, and we can all go back to feeling guilty and depressed then.  But dammit, I wanna forget about that just for a bit and see some curling!

So despite all the negative press the upcoming Games are sure to receive, I’m on record as being a fan.  Except for that hideous London 2012 logo – holy crap is that an eyesore.