Olympics

After my hiatus grew & grew & extended & extended Commander-In-Chief style over the last few weeks, my 4 loyal readers wondered if I'd ever return.

I'm back.

It's olympics, and that means one thing. Curling. If this isn't your favorite sport yet, you're wasting your time watching the Olympics. And if you don't have a TiVo, you're also wasting your time, because odds are you're missing all the curling.

Most matches are shown on USA at either 3am, 7am or 5pm. That's right during sleep/sleep/work hours, so it's inconvenient to watch. That's where TiVo comes into play. Combine this tidbit of info with the glorious fast forward thru commercials & slow parts of the match feature, and a 2.5 hour curling match just got condensed to 40 minutes.

Yesterday the American's beat the defending Gold Medalist Norwegian team 11-5 (actually made the Norwegians concede in the 8th end*), only to then lose to the Fins 4-3 in their second game of the day. Beating the Norwegians is a great showing, but you can't follow that up with a loss to the Finnish and their 15-letter-last-named captain. (He's nicknamed U-15, because most people, himself included, can't pronounce his last name, which begins with two U's. I'm not even going to attempt to spell it). 1-1 after 1 day, poor showing.

Today they have New Zealand. The match has already been played, but I haven't watched it yet (God Bless TiVo), and will do so at some point tonight. Here's hoping for a win.

*What is Curling? I don't know.

Here's thesharkey's quick overview to Olympic Curling & everything you need to know.

*There are 10 ends to a game. An end is like an inning, except there are 10, not 9.
*In each end, each team has 8 stones to throw. They slide them across 93 feet of ice, trying to get as close to the center of a 10 foot target as possible.
*4 members make up a curling team, and each member throws 2 stones per end.
*Scoring is done like Bocce Ball. At the end of each end, the team closest to the center gets a point. For every stone you have closest to the center inside the other teams closest stone, you get a point. ie, if the four closest stones are American-American-American-New Zealand, the boys of the red, white & blue get three points.
*At the end of 10 ends, the team with the most points win.
*There are 10 teams in the Olympic Curling Tournament. The teams will play a round-robin tournament, and then the four teams with the best records will face off in a 4-team playoff for the Gold Medal.

God Bless Curling.

Tomorrow, more on Curling, plus a breakdown of the men's ice hockey tournament, which begins tomorrow.