SORTing through...

-I've always thought bottled water was a ridiculous idea, and now this: My hotel room offers free Starbucks coffee, but charges $6 for a bottle of water. That makes my head hurt.

Can't complain about the accomodations. I'm at a nice Sheraton. In Turin, I was in a ``dorm room" that I believe was about to become a ``prison." In Beijing, they built media condos that were actually very nice.

-A lynx ran across the Alpine courses and a bear threatened the bobsled run already this week. I wish I had a joke, but I'd be plagiarizing Stephen Colbert, the God Of The Winter Olympics and Bear Attacks.

-Russo, my tour guide for Vancouver, introduced me to a new beer last night. Kokanee. Local brew. Made from glacier water. Very good, very clean-tasting. They have a tiny Sasquatch on the label, but he's not easy to find and they move him around, so it's a beer that doubles as a drunk-driving test.

I didn't see the Sasquatch at first. After a few Kokanees, I saw eight.

-I just attended the U.S. snowboarding team's press conference. It was wonderful to hear all these serious journalists trying to ask deep questions of Hannah Teter about her sport's place in the pantheon. One interviewer used the word ``genuine" in his question. Teter said, ``Genuine? I don't know what that means. I didn't go to school much."

I did not hear a snowboarder use the word ``Dude." I did hear Shaun White say he's pretty much done with the ``Flying Tomato" nickname and has moved on to ``Animal" - like the Muppets' drummer - or, as one of his teammates suggested, ``Red Zeppelin."

-The Canadians at the press center keep apologizing for the rain. No need. This is a beautiful city. Reminds me of San Francisco and Seattle, and with Victoria Island looming, it's like Sausalito is swimming distance away.

-My view of Lindsey Vonn's injuries? Yes, she's hurt. Yes, it will hurt to ski. But for her to suggest that she would miss any races was, to me, overly dramatic, and a sign that she wants to dampen some of the expectations surrounding her, after she spent the last four years heightening those expectations.

To me, that's not a promising sign.