While sitting around at my friend's place last night, he wielded the remote like the ADD suffering, attention span of chihuahua goof that he is. We were able to watch highlights of the NBA, two different Olympic channels, and American Idol all in the matter of a few minutes. Not being in command of the remote is an emasculating experience; that's why I never let anyone play with my television. In much the way that riding shotgun can make you queasy from all the unexpected movement that you're not controlling, watching someone flick through channels made me want to stop the tv and get off.

Unfortunately, there was no curling on. To call this a sport is insulting to actual sports; you may as well call darts and bowling a sport...or golf. I think a good sign that your "sport" may not qualify for that title is when you can still compete at an olympic level while 5 months pregnant. Still, it's an exciting, engrossing event that, like a car accident, I can't stop watching. Because there's lots of time to plan out their rock sliding moves and sweeper strategies, people have time to psych themselves out. In fact, the man who was mainly responsible for the success of the U.S. team last Olympics, John Shuster, managed to self destruct even worse than Nick Anderson at the free throw line.

We did get to see several different events that I didn't even know existed. I can't blame the Winter Olympics from doing so, what with all the lame events that they're known for, i.e. aforementioned curling, biathalon, nordic combined, etc. The biathalon, which involves cross country skiing and shooting, of all things, is so strange that even Seinfeld once did a whole bit on how bizarre it is. Frankly, the Winter Olympics is the retard little brother of the Summer Olympics, and even that is bankrupting countries that host it. I can't imagine countries will want to foot the outrageous costs of these national pride fests when the world economy goes into the toilet in the next year or so. I doubt they will disappear; just be on a smaller scale. Of course, to really make the Olympics relevant again, Russia needs to turn into the evil Soviet Union again so we have someone to root against. Frankly, China just isn't cutting it.