I don't care much about the Summer Olympics. I like some of the track and field events (steeplechase is a particular bit of enjoyment), and there's always water polo, but I've always much preferred the winter version. Skiing, hockey and curling (oh, God yes, curling!) are really interesting to me.

So I've been glued to the tube the last week, right? Nope. Haven't watched a second.

Of course, I've only watched one hour of network TV this entire year--the last part of some dreadfully unfunny Saturday Night Live back in January where Barbara and I were too hammered to switch the channel. And anyway, Neil Young was playing, so that was cool.

Barbara tells me there are lots of good reasons why I'm not watching the Olympics this year, beginning with the fact that I have charge of two young kids and still haven't finished unpacking at our new house. There's also the ten feet of cardboard playhouse (constructed from moving boxes) set up between the rest of our house and the TV set, necessitating an ab-intensive commando-style assault just to turn the thing on. Hard to do with beer and blue cheese--at least in one trip, that is.

But you know, even without the legit distractions, I don't care. I don't care who wins, I'm not one of those "U-S-A" chanting freakazoids and, you know, I would've skied hammered if I had been old enough back in my skiing days--given my level of skill, a couple of beer could've done me good.

I just don't care about the Olympics. I can watch skiing, hockey, ice skating (well, I can, even if I never would) and even curling now and again. There's nothing inherently special about the Olympics any more. You want a real hockey tournament? Try the World Cup. Same goes for soccer (duh) or, as of this spring, baseball. And if you want real competition of the finest, you want club sports. Or what we in the U-S-A call Major League Baseball, the National Football League, the National Basketball Association or the National Hockey League. I'd venture that the victor of any given Champions League season in soccer would likely make mincemeat of the top-ranked national team (Brazil or whoever) in a straight-up match--a match that will never happen because there would be at least one or two players who would be members of each team.

Speaking as a person who watches mostly sports on TV, I can tell you that without a doubt that an excess of TV sports is the ruination of the Olympics in America. We've all got our teams, and they don't necessarily conform to regional or even national boundaries. And that's cool. I've always rooted against the American men's basketball "Dream Team" (oh, like you haven't), and past the "Miracle on Ice" (which I finally saw in it's entirety four years ago, and let me tell you, the Yanks got really lucky that night) I haven't even paid much attention to Olympic hockey over the years.

I just moved up from North Carolina. There are crazy people in Raleigh and Durham and Chapel Hill who think that area is ready to host the Pan-American Games soon and then, a few years hence, the Olympics. Can you imagine the Raleigh Olympics? I can imagine the Raleigh property taxes if such a thing were to come to pass. Yikes.

I don't know why so many cities want to host the Olympics, and I don't know why TV networks pay so much for them. Hell, I don't know why the increasingly declining audience still watches at all. Don't they know Bolton is playing West Ham in an F.A. Cup replay next week? Geez.

Jon Worley would like to point out that the other problem with the TV set is that it is in an essentially unheated enclosed porch. Last night, the low was 15 degrees. A bit chilly, even for the Winter Olympics.