As much as I admire the competitors’ athletic ability, I can think of a lot of non-race activities that are purer and more viscerally exciting than watching people walk really fast for 4 hours.

I’m curious about a lot of sports. For instance, although I’ve watched a little team handball in the past, I never knew how fouls worked until watching some of a women’s team handball match just now—there’s a power-play, which continues even if the PP team scores, which makes sense given how much scoring there is in team handball compared to hockey.

Also, I was surprised that they use what’s evidently called “rally scoring” in Olympic volleyball (you can score a point even when you’re receiving serve). Is that the way all volleyball is scored now? If so, why?

But I always wonder where they find folks to do color for the really obscure sports. Do you think a producer just wanders through the stands before the telecast begins saying, “Do you speak English? Yes? You wanna be on tv?”

I’m always curious about how different countries are defined in different competitions. In the Olympics, Great Britain fields a team, presumably including athletes from England, Scotland, Wales, and even Northern Ireland. In the Football/Soccer World Cup, England, Scotland, N. Ireland and (I assume) Wales field their own teams (I’m guessing about Wales, since they never seem to qualify for the World Cup). In contrast, Puerto Rico fields its own Olympic team, despite the fact that Puerto Ricans are American citizens. And in international cricket, the countries in the British West Indies field a single team, rather than having a Jamaican team and a Barbadian team or whatever, which is how it works in the Olympics. Who decides this stuff? And is this all a matter of history and tradition and habit, or is there some logic to it?

(1) My answer on the main question (ie, watching the Olympics) really is no.

(2) I don’t have any problem with “I could care less”. It’s not like it’s the only idiom that is routinely used to mean its exact opposite.