I <3 the Olympics

I've been a huge fan of the summer Olympics pretty much since the 1984 games in LA. While certainly NBC stands to make a shit load of money from the games, overall, it's still one of the purest forms of sport we have left. There are no advertisements in the venues of any kind, no giant salaries, and a certain humility on the part of the athletes that you just don't see elsewhere.

The opening ceremony sure was impressive. Eastern cultures fascinate me, and I can't help but wonder what China's future will look like. I can't imagine that communism will last forever in light of the intense capitalism that makes it such a huge player in the global economy. I guess we'll see.

Tomorrow morning starts with volleyball, and I'm anxious to see what the women look like. There's a certain irony that our coach is actually Chinese, and the players in interviews seem to be excited about the direction of the team.

Speaking of NBC, they really have elevated the story telling to a new level for sports, and they seem to get better at it every time. I think that's ultimately what draws me to it, even more that the competition. +1 to them also for dedicating the broadcast tonight to Jim McKay, who is most known for his work at ABC, but certainly defined sports television for decades.

NBCOlympics.com is up and running, and as promised, you can watch four video streams at a time. That's nuts. Knowing about the way they scale bandwidth and such with Silverlight and the media server, I'm not at all surprised it works pretty reliably so far (yay, I can watch live badminton!), but I am surprised that Microsoft didn't get Silverlight 2 out of beta in time.

I'm looking forward to lots of volleyball goodness for the next two weeks!