The Shared Delusion

I am so disappointed in what's his face

So I'm in the gym the other day, and I'm flipping through the channels, trying to find something, anything, to distract me from the pain and no want that is treadmill miles before the runner's high kicks in. The iPod just ain't doing enough; I need something more.

And in the absolute lieu of everything else, after minutes of local news that isn't really local and isn't really news, and the yammerfest that is ESPN and the yammerfest x2 that is "news" channels...

I finally give in and watch some Olympics. Specifically, 2-man men's beach volleyball.

And the US men are playing some team with little in the way of beaches, or people, and hence, surprising to see anyone is playing volleyball, but oh well, whatever. It is what it is; a weird niche sport that you can safely ignore for years and years and years without knowing a single player (assuming that this activity doesn't activate a kink for you, and if it goes, congratulations and have at it)... but since it's the Olympics, and the two guys on the screen wearing my flag on their shirt had parents who rutted on the same basic soil as me, I have to root for them now. Right? Isn't that how it's supposed to work?

Well, um, what. Ev. Error. Because what I was watching was four guys playing a game that I didn't grow up with, don't know the particulars, don't have any idea of whether or not the guys that I'm watching are even all that great at the sport...

Oh, and I'm watching it hours and hours after it happened.

So, the other day when I was at the gym, the US team won. The other night, when I was at a casino waiting for a table, they lost. Again, on some sort of tape delay. They won't get a medal.

In both cases, if you had offered me 1 crisp American dollar instead of a US victory, I'd have taken the buck.

Heck, maybe a quarter. Quarters are useful.

These Olympics are turning into quite the winner for NBC, who doesn't care that everyone pules about the coverage so long as they just keep watching. All to watch obscure little sports that are only interesting if you put flags on them.

Seriously, people are actually watching this? When there's so much paint drying in this great land of ours?