Hey there, folks. Crazy week in the Olympics, eh? EH? Apollo Ohno winning his record seventh medal in speed skating, Bode Miller completing his comeback on the slopes, Shaun White obliterating the competition in the snowboarding halfpipe. Such an inspiration, that Shaun White, giving hope to all the ski bums out there who can’t put down the peace pipe. I don’t mean to slander anyone — the guy passes his tests — but come on, have you seen him interviewed? Forget the spectacular snowboarding for a moment; he looks and sounds like that guy from your dorm freshman year who spent his afternoons hunkered down with a bong and bag of cheetos. But hey, that’s the Olympic spirit —just ask Michael Phelps! Go USA!

Speaking of the US, what a week it’s been in Vancouver for the land of Walmart and Wale. On top of the individual accomplishments, our hockey team pulled off a huge upset of Canada, defeating the heavy favorites, 5-3, and earning a bye into the quarterfinals. Canada does have a commanding lead in curling, but that’s okay — one, because no one cares, and two, because no one beats Canada at curling. NO ONE.

Anyway, apparently there’s other shit happening in the world. Here are a few notable goings-on from the weeks prior that caught my attention.

John Mayer Acts a Dumbass

Confession from a music snob, installment one: I have a soft spot in my heart for John Mayer, that glib, gallivanting, Fleetwood Mac-appropriating Lite FM crooner. I can’t explain it. I’ve tried to intellectualize it into submission, but to no avail. I guess some things just can’t be defeated by brain power alone.

Moving on. Mayer made news last week for some explosive things he said in an interview in this month’s Playboy. His comments ran the gamut from alarming (“there have probably been days when I saw 300 vaginas before I got out of bed”) to downright befuddling (“I am a very…I’m just very. V-E-R-Y. And if you can’t handle very, then I’m a douche bag. But I think the world needs a little very. That’s why black people love me.”) Ten bucks to the first person who can explain that line of reasoning.

And then, of course, there’s the grand finale: Mayer dropping the n-word while explaining his popularity in the black community. So all in all, not a great performance.

Mayer, who tweets with the obsessiveness and emotional discretion of a 13 year-old girl, was wise to the simmering controversy and used his favorite social networking site to offer 140-character bursts of contrition.

The apology seemed genuine, but still, he should leave the race commentary to Cornel West and get back to wooing middle-aged moms and their tweenage daughters and whomever else, cough, listens to that hushed-voice, cough, singer-songwriter crap.

Heidi Montag is a Fembot

This one you’ve also probably heard about, but that doesn’t make it any less strange or disturbing.

Heidi Montag, one of the leading ladies from MTV’s The Hills, decided her physical imperfections (chin, ears, breasts — everything, duh!) were holding her back, and underwent a spate of cosmetic operations — ten in ten hours, to be exact — to correct her image. Heidi explained that “when I watched myself on The Hills, my ears would be sticking out like Dumbo.” She also claimed her triple-D breasts were not big enough.

All this talk of plastic surgery and body image had me thinking, and I realized that Heidi is right: we are all really ugly! The only way we can hope to remove these blights from our image is to literally remove them through extensive corrective surgery that brings our appearances closer to conventional conceptions of beauty! I knew Heidi would agree.

"Well,” she told ABC’s Good Morning America, “my main message is that beauty is really within.”

Ah, okay. That’s cool. Nevermind, guys. Be yourselves.

Obama on the Town

Okay, so everyone knows politics is not exactly a hot gig right now. According to the most recent Rasmussen polls, approval of Congress is at an all-time low (34-percent of people are in favor of reelecting their representatives), and President Obama is staring at a lukewarm 47-percent approval rating. So yes, between the health care deadlock and partisan rancor permeating Washington, these guys are really sucking it up.

Which brings me to my beef. The other day I was perusing the Huffington Post, hoping to spot a good photo collage of cats doing stupid stuff or something similarly inane (real hard-hitting journalists over there at HuffPo ), when I found instead a photo of Obama, mic in hand, appearing onstage at some social function with R&B singer John Legend.

Here’s my question: why, when the country’s in the state it’s in, do we insist that our president play emcee of the D.C. social scene? Can’t we give the guy a moment’s rest? Let him decompress, watch his college hoops instead? I know it’s important our president adminster to culture and the arts — hell, I’d be the first to argue it — but is it really necessary that Obama attend “Fiesta Latina,” the White House’s celebration of Latin music? You know FDR never had to sit through a Gloria Estefan show.