Best Part of the Games

It's finally here!!! The women's figure skating is on tonight, which is awesome. The ladies did their short programs on Tuesday night, and tonight's free skate is going to be even better. I've watched the recaps, slow-mo replays, analysis, Kristi Yamaguchi's predictions, and pretty much everything NBC has shoved down my throat since Tuesday. My thoughts?

1. The female commentator for the skating events irritates the crap nuggets out of me. The two guys (Scott Hamilton and the other one who's name I've forgotten) are awesome. They tell it like it is, but also root for people and act like normal humans. The female y>akker though is a WENCH! Everything she says is negative or pessimistic. Listen to her tonight - a skater can have the best performance of her life, no falls, no mistakes, and this chickee-poo will snootily remark, "well, the skating was good, but I'm just not sure her essence was up to par." Seriously?!?! Half the stuff she adds doesn't even make sense! Argh.

2. The South Korea girl (Kim Yu Na) is supposedly unbeatable, and while I would be happy if she won (cuz she seems fun in her interviews, and oh yeah, she's pretty good at the skating stuff), it would also be fun to see an underdog give her a run for her money. At least have everyone do really well so Kim has to actually pull an amazing performance and not just stay upright for four minutes.3. Joannie Rochette (Canada) is currently in third place, and is the sentimental favorite. Her mother passed away Saturday of a heart attack, and the 24 year old opted to go ahead with her performance because that's what her mother would have wanted. I saw an interview with Dan Janssen yesterday (who competed in the Olympics hours after learning his sister had died), and he was amazed at how well she performed. Rochette would have been a big story merely for being from the home country, but her courage, determination, and humanity make her even more exciting to watch (if you didn't tear up watching her finish her performance on Tuesday, when she finally allowed herself to break down, you should see a cardiologist to figure out how blood is pumping through your body without the benefit of A HEART!).4. Apparently, we are to focus on the edges of the skates and the amount of turning once a skater lands her jump. Kristi Yamaguchi brought her skates on the Today Show this morning and attempted to explain the nuances to Meredith Viera (who really keeps getting sassier and sassier, no?). Anyway, according to Kristi, watch to make sure the girls land on the outer edge of their skate; that's what all the jumps have in common. Also, they can't rotate more than 1/4 of a turn when they're landing, or they lose points. I think. Basically, I'll still be watching to see if they land upright, and then let Scotty Ham tell me what's really going on. (Thought - why can't Kristi do the commentating instead of cranky wench?)

5. Found this awesome 2010 Olympic Figure Skating Drinking Game. Might be the only way I can get NavyGuy to participate in my Olympic madness.

Seriously, I'm so excited. Because we live on the stupid West Coast though, the TV coverage of the skating doesn't start until 8pm. Which I don't understand. The events are happening literally two hours north of us (presumably in the same time zone). Yet my mom, in the Central Time zone, will get to start watching her evening Olympic coverage at 7pm. So are the events actually starting at 5pm my time? I don't get it. All I know is that I have to stay up until midnight to see the finish, so I'm preparing to nap this afternoon and hog the tv all night (I have no clue what NavyGuy plans to do but he's been warned that the tv will not be available... and that his snarky comments about skaters or random exclamations of "It's Johnny Weird!" will not be tolerated).

Are you as excited as I am? Or are you anxious to return to regularly scheduled programming? (Whoa - Jim and Pam have their baby on The Office next week!!!)