I am sitting here in the basement, warm and cozy, with a dish of salsa, a bag of chips and the Olympic Games on tv. Granted, it's curling, but any five-ringed port in a storm, man.

Curling's interesting in a very abstract way. You can see that it's a game of milimeters, with very intense focus and very baggy black pants, and that and the quality color-commentating are making it fairly okay in a low-level Olympic excitement kind of way. Oh who am I kidding? It's the Olympics! I am spectacularly enamored even of the Winter Olympics! Even of an Olympics that appears to be receiving less media coverage than even Dick Cheney filling one of his own hunting party with buckshot! Even an Olympics where NBC is attempting to cash in on that hot new [airquotes] "reality show thing" by having Scott Hamilton attempt banter with the other announcer. No Scott, no! Just be yourself. Don't be the version of yourself that has been determined to attract the most 18-34 DINK eyeballs, but the version who knows all the really most obscure facts and may begin screaming them at random during the short program!

I love the Olympics so much that I am sitting here watching curling. And I'm sober.

At one point I after I turned on Da Curl, as the kids call it, I paused it and went upstairs for the aforementioned chips and salsa, and when I returned, I swear I watched it for nearly a minute before realizing that I needed to unpause it. What an odd sport. I can't imagine that the US is super-good at it simply because it's so low-key, and requires not jumping around and screaming about how the US fuckin' rules, man, at curling, although I am noticing that the US team is doing way more than their fair share of yelling during their turns. Hello, US curling team? Hush. Note how Finland is managing to push their rock at a much lower decibel level. And apparently with much more success.

Although if the US had to curl for freedom? Look out, Finland. Take your extra vowels and get out of the way of Project Free Perm!

Sidenote: if you're on the US curling team and you're in an American bar somewhere, are you able to use your status as a curly Olympian to reel in mad amounts of the appropriate sex? Does curling have groupies? Even when it's at the Olympic level? Are there folks out there trying to nail all *mumble* members of the curling team? Yeah I've been watching for like half an hour now, and I'm still not sure how many there are on each side. Four? Six? Three plus alternates?

But still. Olympics! Woo!