It's Sunday, and I'm running late. To where? Hell if I know

It's Sunday, and Meet the Press has devolved into David Gregory prompting his guests for talking points. From my Twitter feed:

dceiver: Pence referred to reconciliation as "abuse of the system." But you'd have to be some sort of expert political reporter to refute this.

I'll no doubt weigh into the current stage of our national mess over at the other blog soon, but for now can I just say that I'm stunned by the questions that people I used to respect have failed to ask. It's making Chris Matthews look better by the day.

NBC is slated to lose $200 million on its coverage of the 2010 Winter Olympics. That alone should suggest that they aren't doing their jobs very well, and I'd much rather see individual events made available by themselves instead of letting one company decide how we get to witness what was supposed to be an important venue cultural exchange in addition to being the premier international sporting event of the given year.

All that having been said, the decision to put Curling on the air at 3am was fucking brilliant.

In this country, we don't hear about the sport at all, with the exception of the ubiquitous puff piece every four where some cub sports reporter tells us all about that wacky game with the ice and the rocks and the brooms. Sports fans all over put on their best listening faces for two minutes while they're waiting to see how Team USA did in one of the real sports. Maybe some people get interested, but I haven't met them.

Here's the spot that they used to advertise Curling at the 2006 World Championships in Torino. I saw one that was identical, only repurposed for the Olympics

I was sitting in front of the TV with my friend Monique, who when "Curling Rocks" popped up on the screen exclaimed "Really!?"

To these reddened eyes, this is what targeted advertising looks like.

What failed to translate in all of the shitty reporting in the local news was that curling consists of people hurling Heavy Fucking Rocks down the ice at a bunch of other Heavy Fucking Rocks. And then their teammates, armed with brooms, flail excitedly in front of the moving rock, attempting to Carlton Fisk it into the right position. How the hell is this not taken off already in a country that gave a presidential candidate shit because he couldn't bowl?

In other words, if it's 3am Sunday morning and you're still buzzed from a party that started Saturday night? It's just about the perfect thing to put on TV. I'm not even kidding.

...

Cooper did Old School Friday yesterday, even though it was Saturday. Today is Sunday, and here I am. This is how precedent works.

The theme was If I Could Sing, I Would Want To Sound Like.

In all modesty, I can sing, but not as well as I wish I could. Whose voices do I wish I could come close to?

Ray Charles. The man could do freaking anything with his voice, and it was all fantastic. In addition to being the architect of soul and easily the greatest of all recorded jazz voices, is one of few musicians allowed to sing country in my (metaphorical) presence. (a runner-up in this category is Brandi Carlile)

The other two can be handled with one video.

Freak Power (Ballad).