Seemed to me, once upon a time, in days of old when we had three channels (four if you count that Lawrence Welk thing that still haunts my dreams), the Olympics dominated the airwaves, with the other channels basically giving up (i.e. four hour marathons of BJ and the Bear). Miracle on Ice, Jamaican bobsled, girls with weird haircuts doing a triple slowcow.we lived for the Games.

But nothing went right for NBC this year. First off, the face of the American contingent was a skier who grew up a hippie and ended up a drunk. Bode Miller was the toast of the Salt Lake Games back in 2002, but he was yesterday's news, and no one stepped up. Michelle Kwan? Eh. Nice girl, but not much of a story: not nice enough to go to Disneyland, not mean enough to go after kneecaps. Sasha Cohen? Sounds like a minor character in Dr. Zhivago. Shaun White--the missing sibling of the White Stripes?

Actually, Shaun White doing his snowboard thing pretty cool. The Flying Tomato is a cool moniker-perhaps he can capitalize on popularity and get booked on the VeggieTales on Ice tour. Mr. Tomato won the halfpipe, but seemed a bit dejected, since I'm sure he'd rather have a full pipe like the rest of the snowboarding clan.

Speaking of snowboarders, Lindsey Jacobellis was way ahead on whatever that snowboard race downhill is called, but on the next to last jump, she did a little hotdogging and ended up with mustard all over her face by falling on her estremità. A bunch of folks came to her defense, saying that snowboarding is all about flair, which will come in handy when Lindsey cashes in her silver medal with a starring role at TGI Friday's.

NBC tried to stir it up a little by highlighting the big rift between Chad Hedrick and Shani Davis, two of America's premier speedskaters. Ooooh, two speedskaters going at each other. Maybe next Olympics two curlers will tussle!

Ok, jokes about curling are shooting fish in a barrel (which, also, may be a 2010 Olympic sport). Curling, for those who weren't up a 2 a.m. like me watching, is basically shuffleboard on ice with brooms. It appears that it takes a delicate touch to knock the big rocks around just right. Me personally, I would chuck the pucks so hard down the ice, it would end up with a gratifying, NASCAR-like crash. Don't think they'll let me on the team anytime soon.

Of course, there's only so many sports you can dream up with just snow and ice, so they added guns to skis and called it "Cheney on Ice", er, "biathlon". Basically, people ski around for a while, then stop and shoot a few targets. I think it would be far more interesting if they could use the guns if they're way behind. "Helmut has an almost insurmountable ¼ mile lead.he's approaching the finish line, and.BANG!...oh, my, that's going to leave a mark."

I guess there were other sports as well. I watched hockey for awhile, but Canada put up more donuts than Krispy Kreme, and the Americans kept getting beat by every former Soviet Republic that you can think of (which, actually, I can't think of any offhand. Slovchekesvia, maybe? Gotta get a new atlas.) I followed skiing for a bit.another sport they just keep making up variations. Downhill, Slalom, Super G.hell, let's go SuperMonster Rad Quadruple Black, which would involve helicopters and sherpas. That'd be cool.

But, of course, the Olympics is all about pageantry, so after all the athletes have skied, skated, curled, biathloned (bang!), and fell down about every three minutes, they all gather and watch the Olympic torch flicker out. And then everyone rushes home to catch the last five minutes of American Idol. At least we know an American will win that!