I've gone back to HD. The audio seems OK now.

More Bode Miller, including an interview with Jimmy Roberts, who concludes that Miller is "a different kind of cat." Nice to know that the Beat Generation lives. At least Roberts looks comfortable in the studio. Lampley is too stiff and formal.

And now … a promo for a Shaun White piece. Didn't we already see him on "Olympic Zone"?

Graphic says that coverage of the opening ceremonies is just 9 minutes away. Of course, the event is long since over.

Footage of White on his board as part of a larger piece on snowboarding. I confess to being impressed. But I had a hard time staying on a skateboard — one of those skinny wooden ones with roller-skate wheels, no less.

Lampley is hyping the HD telecast of the Olympics. I'm here!

We're into the poetic zone, where the narration refers to "capacious piazzas" and the music swells behind a reference to "a vivaciuous brand of excellence" — and behind everything else. Athletes most viewers have never heard of, and some of fame, are wrapped in splendid images and grand teases of tales of drama and heroism. Oh, sorry. I momentarily fell into the narrative rhythm. But the HD transmission is unbelievably gorgeous.

Jim Lampley speaks. The spell is broken.

Bode Miller, Shaun White (the kid from "Olympic Zone") and Michelle Kwan get the early showcase, with Kwan in a recorded interview with Mary Carillo. The sound is glitching out here and there, for a sylllable or so. If this keeps up, I may have to go to the analog feed to see if it's better. Carillo's got a Tina Fey look; for some reason, her interviewing style is making me think of Frank Deford on HBO.

All right, I've gone analog. Sound is much better. But I miss the snazzy widescreen picture.

Back to Lampley, who frames the argument for Kwan being on the team and her "decade of contributions" to U.S. figure skating. In other words, people know her and will watch how she does.

Actual sport! Skiing, training run, and a chance to show off Bode Miller.

Now we're at the important stuff: A spot promoting "Conviction," an NBC series premiering after the Olympics. Get ready for lots of such spots, as struggling NBC hopes the Olympics crowd will come back for things like "Conviction" in March.

More training runs. NBC wants us to care because spots on the Olympics team are on the line. Also because they have four hours to fill, and you can only do so many shots of the torch on its way,

The USA special is over, so there's a little break here. I am so far fighting the urge to read the online reports about the opening ceremonies, so that I can watch it fresh. I thought about watching more of Saturday's "Saturday Night Live," but my wife is not a fan and what I have seen so far hasn't been that good. (Exceptions: The opening bit, with Steve Martin trying to kill Alec Baldwin, and Maya Rudolph's Oprah — dead-on impression without pushing too far into caricature. Good to have Maya back.) So we're watching a little bit of the Cavs game on FSN until 7:30 when "Olympic Zone" comes on.

Back to the Channel 3, "your Olympic station," for "Olympic Zone." Jim Donovan sits in a set of wintry blues and mountain images. Could be worse. Think of those segments where the hosts have to sit by fireplaces. Donovan is telling me that the hottest sport at the games is snowboarding, leading into a canned report — "Chevrolet Presents the NBC Primetime Olympic Spotlight." Already I'm tired of the sponsor placement. The snowboarder they're profiling is long-haired and scruffy — a thought that reminds me once again that I have become my father.

Sequence of athletes talking about how great it is to be in the Olympics. Donovan agrees. Now we're on to Key Bank's presentation of "the keys to NBC's prime-time coverage." That's a schedule. Now many more days do we have to listen to this?

Donovan introduces more NBC material, this time on the Thailand team, all one of him. I am a sucker for such guys — the gutsy underdogs who will never be more than gutsy underdogs, who are closer to us viewers than the well-heeled, well-trained stars of the marquee sports. But let's face it, we watch for the magic to be made by those stars, with occasional breaks to celebrate the gutsy underdogs.

Back from a commercial break (not counting the product promotion during the show itself). We're getting a tour of the Olympic village from Julie Foudy, They've got foosball.

After another commercial break, we're getting a couple of segments showcasing athletes with Ohio connections. The sound goes bad during one. More commercials. Donovan introduces a national piece about great moments in the opening ceremonies. There's Ali! Still chokes me up.

Hey, a segment where Donovan actually seems to talk to someone! Or at least leads into a clip.

Here's how this thing is going to work: I am at home, with a laptop in front of the big TV, and I will be posting from time to time during the Olympics. The posts will be listed in reverse chronological order, with my earliest post at the bottom of the list — much the way it worked with the Super Bowl.

Although the coverage of the opening ceremonies does not begin for about 80 minutes, I already have my game face on, and my TV talking Olympics. This is the "Olympic Ice" special on USA Network. It is, in one way, an exercise in nostalgia, because Dick Button is on the air.

The first Olympics I wrote about  were the '80 games in Lake Placid, with Button on the scene and — if memory serves — complaining about Soviet bloc judges. Those were the days when the Soviets were the grand villains of the games — making the Miracle on Ice all the more significant and exciting. And for TV purposes, it was good to have villains because it gave the audience a clear story to follow. One commentator spoke later of the need for "black hats" at the Olympics; you can figure out which country wore the white hats in his opinion.

Anyway, the coverage is going along and I've already heard one OK line — a reference to a figure-skating pair as "meat and potatoes but no parsley." Even more surprising to me, I am getting psyched for the games to begin. I want to see some top-shelf competition.

I also want curling, the greatest sport of the Winter Olympics. An acquired taste, perhaps, by my taste nonetheless. To me, "Men With Brooms" is up there with "Rocky" and the original "Bad News Bears."

OK, I overstate a little there. "Men WIth Brooms" is probably closer to "Bad News Bears in Breaking Training" and "Rocky IV." Still, my excitement is building. And I know I am not alone in my hunger for the games — and other things. The line was longer than usual at the pizza place tonight,