The Stevens & Stevenson club

We can be grateful to the internet for a great many things: email, QuickTime movie trailers, sarcastic pajama clad bloggers with bigger audiences than the New York Times, the thrilling explosion of Flash-animated fun known only as peanut-butter jelly time.

But of all the wonderful programs and content the net has blessed us with, I think what I enjoy the most are the Slate roundtables. This year kicked off with a typically lively Movie Club, followed up with a revealing discussion of the politics of abortion messaging, and now gives us the utter delight of ad critic Seth Stevenson and TV diarist Dana Stevens cracking wise on the Olympics.

Honestly, where else do you find a publication as recognizable as Slate that will publish lines like:

I do like Hackl's "speeding white sausage" moniker. I also like Shaun White's nickname "the flying tomato" (earned by dint of his flowing red mane). The 2006 Games are all about propulsive foods. From here out, Dana, you may refer to me as "the ballistic starfruit."

I'm far more likely to take shallow breaths while watching Apolo Anton Ohno, the brooding, goateed speed skater. Last night in the 1,500-meter semifinal, fatally attempting to recapture his 2002 glory as a controversial gold medalist and teen dreamboat, Apolo overreached and slipped in a pointless attempt to overtake the skater in first place, when the second-place spot he had (and lost) would already have qualified him for the finals. Maybe it's just his impossibly sexy name, [which] suggest[s] a mixed-race sun god who broke up the Beatles.

Dana and Apolo, sittin' in a tree, s-h-o-r-t-t-r-a-c-k-s-p-e-e-d-s-k-a-t-i-n-g ...

Remind me to outline my complex theory about facial hair and the keys to Olympic stardom.

I don't even watch the Olympics and I like this stuff. Someone give these people a job. Oh wait...