We’ve had a great time over the past couple of weeks. We’ve made jokes about which failed Russian athletes would suddenly disappear. We’ve declared that the loser of the USA-Canada women’s hockey game would have to take Justin Bieber. Then, when the United States lost, we collectively declared that it was actually the loser of the men’s game who would have to take Justin Bieber.

Frankly, I think we should just tell Canada that we are not, under any circumstances, taking Justin Bieber, and we’re willing to go to war over the issue. Granted, we lost the only war we fought against Canada, but the prize in that war was Canada. I think in a war over who’s stuck with Justin Bieber, we’d fight much more passionately.

These Olympics seem magical, perhaps more magical than the Vancouver Olympics by up to a factor of four.

Leading the way, I believe, is curling. Curling first became a medal sport in 1998, and it has risen from obscurity largely as the sport that everyone considers obscure.

I’m not the only one who finds curling captivating. Five million people watched curling on one day last week. You all should have been at work! Actually, I was in the newsroom the other day when the afternoon curling match came on. It’s hosted by Fred Roggin, and I can’t tell whether he’s actually enjoying his assignment or uses the sign-off “Sweep well” ironically. Either way, I find his analysis delightful.

It didn’t render me completely useless, but it was a distraction. Consider this hypothetical conversation I might have been having with Governor Perry at the time:

“Governor, you can’t ignore that Ted Nugent’s recent description of President Obama as a subhuman mongrel will turn off some potential Repub–oh, I can’t believe he just hit the guard! The Swedes are already laying two!”

Further, one of my co-workers and I were sidetracked by a discussion about whether we’d prefer to invite the ladies’ team from Russia or the ladies’ team from Canada out for drinks after the Olympics.

We decided on Canada, and I immediately sent a message to our reporter in Sochi to put in a good word for us, you know, in case they ever make it to Texas. He promised to do so. Stay tuned.

The allure of curling, of course, is that we can all sit there watching and know that, even though we’re 32 years old and only curled once at an open house during the Olympics four years ago, we could take up the sport now and still become Olympic athletes, every bit the equal of a skier or luge-er.

The drawback is curling isn’t particularly captivating when you show it live. I woke up unusually early one morning and caught the second half of the USA-Norway match. Let me tell you: there’s a lot of down time.

But there’s a lot of down time in baseball, too, so America innovated beer into the process. Now, it’s a blast! I’m sure we could work out something similar for curling. From what I understand, the average curler knows how to throw down a drink or two anyway.

We live in a rapidly changing society. For crying out loud, people in Washington and Colorado can legally get conked out on funkweed! Why can’t we make prime-time curling work?