On Curling

I admit it: I've been watching the Olympics. That's not the shameful part, though-- I've been watching curling.

For those unfamiliar with the 'sport', it basically involves playing shuffleboard on ice. When it comes time to make a shot, the skip tells the rink how to make a draw by placing a stone in the house with aid of the lead, second, and third. Catch all that?

In English: There are ten thingies in a doodad, and you have 8 chances to roll your slidey pieces onto the targetish area per thingie. The other players that didn't throw the slidey piece use brooms to sweep away crap in front of them and control their speed. As you can see, I've picked up a lot. There are 70 minutes on the clock, and much like a game of ice-chess, you are given that set amout of time in which to plan and execute all your moves in a doodad. The score is calculated by adding up the number of the team's closest-to-the-center stones closer to the center than the opponent's closest stone. Yeeeah.

There are men's and women's teams, though I'm not entirely sure why. The US men's team usually executes all their moves with about 60 minutes remaining on the clock. Their captain/skip assesses the situation, makes and decision, and conveys his wishes to the guy throwing the stone. It's simple, fast, and apparently effective since they're now the favorite/

The women's team, on the other hand, has a couple issues. There's the ever-nagging "but what if?" chick, whose job consists of second-guessing the skip, offering useless opinions about hypotheticals, and crying. Then there's the cheerleader, who adds nothing but empty cranial real estate and a perky attitude. She's usually the one who says something like, "Good effort!", which is the last thing you ever want to hear because it basically means, "You suck and that's sad". She is, however, hot. This is important in the grand scheme of things.

The Japanese women's team is, uh, interesting. I think they were trying to kill eachother during their match against the British (don't get me started on them), but it was hard to tell. Instead of yelling "Woah!" or "Go!" to signal the sweepers to sweep or not, they yell "Neee!". That's it. Just Neee! I'm not sure if it's an inflection thing or something of the sort, but they seem to know what it means when it needs to be interpreted to mean different things. Neee! can mean "sweep harder", "stop sweeping", or "come give me an inappropriately-executed hug". All in how you say it, I guess.

Swedish women's team? Semi-awesome. Two bikini team transplants and two, well, curling team girls. Balance is key. That's all I can say about them. Oh, and they're good... I think.

I have absolutely nothing more to say on this subject, to be honest. Why I posted this, I'll never know. I just to get it out there in the open. Enjoy.