Holy crap, Eau Claire scored a reference on The Simpsons last night. The episode – titled “Buy Meets Curl” (or episode S21E12 for all you Simpsons geeks) – has Marge and Homer discovering a love of curling that leads them to competing for Team USA at the 2010 Vancouver Games. Also, Lisa develops an addiction to collecting Olympic pins. But whatever, Principle skinner mentions us. Check it out:

• Principal Skinner: "Astonishing news out of Eau Claire, Wisconsin. The Olympic committee has announced that mixed curling will be a demonstration event at the Winter Olympics." (Watch it on Hulu.)

So there you go. Between this and Steven Colbert calling us big huge fatties, Eau Claire is pretty much floating around in the national pop culture zeitgeist, like a big hot air balloon emblazoned with a Packers logo and stuffed full of beer, cheese, brats, and ... beer-cheese. (If anyone knows what that metaphor means, please email me and explain it.)

And on a side note, how popular is curling getting, huh? Seriously.