Watching the Olympics on CNBC and MSNBC and, uh, ¡Telemundo!, I'm growing more and more annoyed with anti-soccer Americans. I'm not talking about people who just feel that soccer isn't to their personal taste; I mean people who'll go out of their way to voice insipid complaints about the low scores or frequent tied games. People who hate on soccer the same way that I hate on NASCAR.

I caught Iraq vs. Australia and Mali vs. Italy, and, to be honest, I can't really see what there is to complain about. Soccer is one of the most exciting events at the Olympics, even thought that's not really saying much, given that most of the sports at the Games are nothing more than people running around a track. Soccer, at least, is like an action movie — you've got ninety minutes or so of people running around, trying to get their goals. Every now and then, there's a catharsis when the ball rolls out of bounds, or there's a tense moment when you lean forward in your seat a little. And sometimes there's a massive arena-wide fight scene at the end.

That's why I never understood American sports. Baseball's slow as shit — continuing with the movie analogy, baseball would be some nineteenth-century period piece chick flick based on an Edith Wharton novel. "Look at me, I ran around the bases once! I've gotta sit down. There any chewing tobacco anywhere in the dugout? No? How about any steroids?" Basketabll — do they have to take a nine-minute time out every eight minutes? Even when there's just four seconds left in the game?

Football? Just plain gay. Seriously.

And the absolute worst is also, apparently, our retarded nation's most popular: that gas-guzzling redneck abomination, auto racing. Now, I know that you NASCAR fans are all from the South and/or Midwest, and only the most radioactive mutations of cosmopolitan America — Hilary Duff, professional wrestling, George Dubya's "integrity" and "family values" — reach you in the boondocks, but, people, it's just freaking driving!!! If auto racing is going to be a sport, why don't we make sports out of all our mundane daily activities? There could be, for example, a grocery shopping event at the Olympics, where the athletes would have to clip coupons, run through the store finding the best bargains, then wait on the checkout line behind an old lady having trouble with her checkbook. (Oh, wait, we already have that... it's called Supermarket Sweep, and was entertaining before the show devolved into people waiting for the coffee grinder to finish so they could collect a $200 bonus.) Or how about a "brushing your teeth" competition — cleanest chompers win the gold.

How long till Ken Jennings comes back on Jeopardy?