With the games of the thirtieth Olympiad now underway, and over 60 hours of coverage on several different NBC properties available each day, I've decided that my Olympic fever has to be limited this year. I'm pretty much going to try to watch the prime time and late night shows, and whatever they show during the day, I'll just have to miss. Also, I have re-activated my TiVo, so I can tape the tape delay (and fast-forward through the commercials). All that being said, here are some random observations about the first weekend...

Opening Ceremony: I know to many, the Parade of Nations is the boring part, but I am a sucker for it. Lots of commercials, but that's what the fast-forward is for. With the arrival of each nation, you get a little lesson on culture and geography (I always thought Myanmar and Thailand were the same place, but they both have Olympic teams). Matt Lauer, Meredith Viera, and Bob Costas had the commentary, but it always seemed like Viera would point out the obvious...

One small quibble with the Opening Ceremony. I think the final torch pass to kids representing “youth and the future” was kind of a cop out. There is always great speculation on who the final torch bearer will be. My pick would have been Roger Bannister (the first to break the four-minute mile), but any great British athlete would have been more proper...

So now every time before the cauldron is lit, the Olympic flag has to pass by Mohammed Ali first? That was weird...

Producer Danny Boyle made sure that the Opening Ceremony reflected just about everything British. Brits are still asking themselves how he got Queen Elizabeth to do the scene where she appears to jump out of a plane with James Bond. You heard lots of British music, and of course the live performance by Paul McCartney. There was David Beckham on a speedboat, and even Mary Poppins. The only thing I can think of that they left out was any kind of Monty Python reference. Some bobbies running around nonsensically to the Benny Hill theme would have been awesome too...

Swimming: It is soooo hard for an athlete to quit while he or she is on top, but in retrospect, at least so far, it seems that's what Michael Phelps should have done. I saw an interview where he said once he quit swimming competitively, he would never get in a pool again, even if it was just to splash around and goof off. After a fourth place finish in his first event, and a silver medal in the relay, he just seemed like his heart wasn't in it anymore...

It's fun to watch swimming on television, but how come it's only fun one week out of every four years? Same with track and field...

Gymnastics: I don't know anything about gymnastics, and certainly not enough to know if the rule limiting two competitors per country to the all-around final is a stupid one or not. It is a shame, though, that Jordyn Wieber won't advance. But if it wasn't her, it would have been one of the other American girls...

I think you have to be a little nuts to be a gymnast anyway, but the craziest events are the balance beam for women, and still rings for men (the men's pommel horse doesn't seem like much fun either). The coolest events are the women's vault, and the men's high bar...

I know they are used to it, but how do you keep your concentration on a four-inch wide balance beam when there are several other events going on at the same time, including music and crowd applause from the floor exercise? Golfers and tennis players need to shut up abut extraneous noise...

And this: I caught just a quick glimpse of some daytime coverage on Sunday, and rowing was on. The sound was down, and you saw these rowers competing in the river Thames. For some reason, all I could picture was the Winklevoss twins...

I'm just now realizing that if I'm going to get into these Olympics, that means no ESPN for two-and-a-half weeks (because they'll have the results on the bottom of the screen before NBC airs the events). Sounds more like a punishment for not taking out the garbage, but I'll survive.