"I lettered in shot-put." --danny zuko

Dudes, I hate the Olympics. I hate the nationalism, the capitalism cloaked in sportsmanlike conduct, the feats of strength, the heartwarming tales of overcoming adversity, the drug dogs at the airports (okay I guess that last one doesn't really affect me, but still). The fact that I have to be subjected to this garbage during the darkest of dark winter months makes me want to barf and then die. Hyperbole be damned: I hate them so much. I treat them as a personal affront. Any televised sporting event brings back repressed memories of not being able to do a somersault in gym class and of being asked to manage the field hockey team instead of actually playing (although that one was actually a blessing in disguise--time off school without physical exertion!). I can't handle this kind of emotional pain right now, folks. It's just too much for me.

With that in mind, here are a few things you should watch instead of watching people hit each other with sticks (that's a sport, right?). I've tried to think of the least sporty programming of all time. It wasn't hard.

1. Big Love. I am currently addicted to this show. The weirdness of polygamy and Utah/Mormon society hooked me, but the amazing character development has kept me watching. Also, not a sport in sight, since the FLDS crazies believe women's menses may be interrupted by physical activity. Furthermore, any reason to listen God Only Knows over and over again is fine with me.




2. Me and You and Everyone We Know. While Miranda July, the writer of this zany, hipster orgasm of a film, once penned a short story about secretly offering swimming lessons to the elderly in her living room using a bowl of water to simulate immersion in a pool (you must must MUST read it, and you can find it in her book No One Belongs Here More Than You), this movie is a sports-free zone. This is the story of an artist/cab driver and her alternately boring and ridiculous life, which spokes out like a bicycle wheel into the worlds of the people around her.



3. Casablanca. Much as I despise Valentine's Day, I always get a little bit sentimental around this time of year. I saw this movie for the first time in a highschool English class, but I don't think I really appreciated it till I saw it on the big screen for the first time a few years ago. I'm always surprised at how funny it is. Bogart is fucking dry, man. And who doesn't love a good unrequited love story? If you don't get a little weepy hearing As Time Goes By, you have no soul.




Now let's never speak of the Olympics again.