Just got off a couple of days of overnight shifts to help out with the Olympics. Thankfully, it wasn't as bad as I thought it might be. It helps when there's live shot put really early in the morning from the ancient Olympic stadium (which looked like the parks Music Midtown just after the festival) or softball or another close call for the so-called Dream Team. I do appreciate the commercial-free coverage of stuff like USA hoops and soccer, although you'd wish there'd be more of it for other sports.

It is odd to watch live beach volleyball at 2 a.m. on MSNBC, if only because there are fans who decided to get out there at 9 a.m. to watch a match. I suppose it's the most eye-pleasing sport (it is often tough to separate the women's players and the dance team), but I'm surprised they don't go for more live coverage of stuff of the "fringe" sports at that hour; however, I think they have had live handball, which was really cool. Even on the cable networks, NBC does plenty of time shifting, which is even stranger for me when I've had to make sure stuff like shooting, badminton and rowing is working and then seeing it about an hour or so later (instead of 3 a.m., it's on at 4:30 a.m., for instance). But at least much of that other stuff is getting shown in the wee hours, and not just jump cuts when Pat O'Brien hosts Access Athens.

As for gymnastics, a couple of questions about the competition:
-- Svetlana Khorkina really wants to be an actress, right? I think she'll do just fine as Mena Suvari's double (or at least take the parts Mena turns down -- there is an American Pie 4 in the works.)
-- It's very easy to do the Mary Lou-Carly comparison. They were both cute 16-year-olds who won the women's all-around. But is it just me, but did Mary Lou at 16 look a lot older than Carly right now at 16?
-- Is it something with the U.S. team that some of the girls looked like linebackers compared to the competition?