Torino Olympics: A Couch Potato's Notebook

I love the winter Olympics. I know I'm probably in some tiny minority, but I love the winter games much more than the summer games. If the games were a circus, the winter games would be Cirque du Soleil to the summer games' Ringling Brothers. The limited number of events, stunning setting and the chance to see sports I see but once every four years makes it a special event.

Here's my couch potato's notebook after the first weekend.

I never saw the torch lighting because it was on too late. If NBC has more than 3 hours of TV then start the damn show earlier. Maybe those east coasters like to stay up late, but not us folks on the west coast.
The opening ceremonies before less than 40,000 people (what a contrast to the 100,000 who saw the LA Games opening) was gorgeous. I was struck after talking to a few people that as many thought the Ferrari doing circles was the highlight as thought it was the lowlight.
Anytime you have some personal experience with a sport, your appreciation for professionals' ability increases. The women's mogul event was great. Forget about those jumps, do you realize how hard it is to keep those knees together?!
What's up with the snowboarders adjusting their IPODs before they head into the half pipe and how come no reporter asked what they were listening to. I needed to know!
From a technology perspective I hate the helicopter cameras, but love the chase cameras. The long jump has a camera that tracks the jumper from the top all the way down and through the air, giving the viewer a sense for the magnitude of the feat.
I enjoy horse racing and can tolerate car racing, but they don't hold a candle to the number of lead changes and excitement of short track skating. Great sport, how do I place a bet?
What's with the Torino gold medals? They don't look like an Olympic gold medal; they look like a discarded DVD.
Did you see the cross country race where the defending gold medalist tripped out of the "gate" as others tumbled over him? He broke his ski. Tried to ski on until a coach brought a replacement. He was last out of the stadium and an hour 20 minutes later crossed the finish line in second place. That might get my vote for the best silver medal performance of the games.
The men's downhill is by far the premiere event in my mind (forget ice skating). I instructed my family on the finer points of keeping me in the dark throughout the entire day. I wanted to watch the faux live event as if it were only about 18 hours after it happened. I refused to talk about anything Olympic related the entire day, I moved the dial on my car radio from talk to music, and even changed my home page so I would see and hear no news. It was a bad day to go dark. I would have loved to see the Cheney shooting story develop. Kevin asked me if I heard about Michelle Kwan and I had a fit for fear that skating talk (which I didn't care about) might slip into other Olympic news. Thankfully I made it staying in the dark at which point I convince myself that the Americans probably didn't win otherwise I wouldn't have made it the entire day. I loved every minute of the downhill, despite not seeing the American medal. The third turn on the course was a jump that most of us would describe as a double diamond. They mounted a special camera (only used for replays) that really gave the viewer a sense for just how steep and scary that part of the hill is. A definite thrill that gave me more than a few Franz Klamer moments when racers lost control and the whole sub-plot of which skis to use added to the experience.

I'm exhausted after my TV weekend but am looking forward to tonight's coverage.