I don't know why I'm surprised.

I can't remember the specific Olympic games, but am recalling this morning that NBC really botched their coverage in recent years... wait, it was the 1996 summer games in Atlanta -- there were all kinds of shenanigans going on with true competition timelines and lack of coverage for many events. And so I don't know why I'm surprised that NBC completely screwed up last night's opening ceremonies for half of the United States, but they sure did.

First of all, it wasn't being aired live in the Mountain and Pacific time zones. How do you NOT air it live?? I turned on Olympics coverage at 6:30pm MST, and for two hours, they messed around, interviewing athletes, showing other stuff, nothing terribly interesting, and didn't being the coverage of the actual ceremony until nearly 8:30. At that point, the ceremony had already been going on for an hour and a half in real life, and everyone I know in the Central and Eastern time zones had been enjoying it for that long. A full hour and a half before I got to see the cauldron being lit, everyone I know in those time zones had already seen it, tweeted about it, and gone to bed. Instead of the inane messing about, NBC could have just aired their live feed here too, and messed about after.

Second of all, Bob Costas. I keep thinking that at some point he's going to get his shit together and not make an ass of himself as he commentates on yet another Olympics Opening Ceremony. But oops! He's done it again. There was a huge lack of explanation for what was going on and why; Matt Lauer would ask thought-provoking questions and Bob would just ignore them; no explanation was given of who half the people participating in the ceremony were and why they were there... it was ridiculous. And yet I know the information was out there, because I got it from the Vancouver 2010 website... which I had to do because Bob Costas is a moron. I mean, this is the SAME dude who brought us the "Beef: It's what's for dinner" comment during the SLC 2002 opening ceremony, while Aaron Copeland's Fanfare for the Common Man played, so I don't know why I'm surprised, yet here I sit... surprised. At how bad it was.

And of course NBC cut actual parts of the performance out, and aired way too many commercials. Wayyyyyy too many. Which made the performance make less sense to anyone watching at home.

I bet the opening ceremony was totally awesome. I wouldn't know for sure -- I only saw part of it.

Is this what I can expect for the next two weeks -- an hour and a half delay in everything I'm watching from the evening's Olympics coverage? Fantastic.

Thanks for nothing, NBC.