On the Disappearance of the NBC Sidebar

We have standards here. They are low. But they are there.

The real-time results were not much fun for those tape-delay watchers among us. The red trim totally clashed with the rest of our layout. But those were the less egregious of the trespasses. Lookie here:









OK, look closer.








Are you serious? There are some places even we won't go.

But: to see how low we will go, tune in to our live blog tonight.

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Opening Ceremonies Drinking Game

So, no doubt you are as completely over-saturated by excited for the Olympics as we are. What better way to celebrate their commencement, than to punish your liver with a drinking game? Find the rules, after the jump.

And remember, the beauty of the drinking game is that, no matter what, you will win -- and you won't have to dedicate your entire life to the pursuit of it. Though, at 270 minutes, watching this telecast will certainly feel that way.

A new country enters the stadium - take 1 drink
New batch of fireworks set-off - 1 drink
Exterior shot of the Birds Nest - 1 drink
Shot of the Great Wall - 1 drink
Bob Costas appears on-screen - 1 drink
Commercial pimping The Mummy 3: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor - 1 drink
Commercial pimping Season 2 of Heroes - 1 drink
Broadcaster mentions Michael Phelps - 1 drink, poke self in eye
Broadcaster mentions heat, humidity, or pollution/smog and potentially adverse effects on competition - vomit, take 1 drink after clean-up

Exterior shot of The Cube (Aquatics Center) - take 2 drinks
Close-up of athlete with camcorder - 2 drinks
Close-up of Chinese administrator and/or high ranking political figure - 2 drinks
Discussion of US' inability to adhere to the basic rules of basketball win International basketball medal - 2 drinks
Performers perform any sort of Cirque du Soleil-style acrobatics - 2 drinks
Inappropriate racial/cultural generaliztion crosses your mind - take 2 drinks, chuckle to self
Bob Costas says "Ni Hao" - 2 drinks
Feature/mention/close-up of breathing masks offered by foreign Olympic Committees to their athletes - 2 drinks
Broadcaster mentions Tibet - 2 drinks (self-immolation optional)

Close up on a "delegation" of a single athlete (think Seychelles) - take 3 drinks
Close up on Chinese celebrity that looks -- to you -- like any other Chinese person - 3 drinks
Feature on Tiananmen Square and/or past political unrest in China - 3 drinks
In-Studio "Interview"/Promo with cast-member of The Mummy 3 - 3 drinks
Bob Costas uses some form of the world "inspire" in setting up an athlete feature - 3 drinks
Broadcaster mentions Darfur and/or the Sudan - take 3 drinks, pour 1 for Lost Boys
Mention of Ryan Hall and his chances at a marathon medal - take 3 drinks -- of juice, or tea, or water.

Inevitable mention/close-up/update on Eric "the Eel" Moussambani - drink until he finishes his race.

In-studio segment with Bob Costas learning martial arts moves from Mummy 3 star, Jet Li - 5 drinks

Feature on Carl Lewis - Finish drink
Airing of the inspired Carl Lewis music video - Finish 2 drinks
Feature on 1996 Gymnastics Team Gold Medal - Finish drink
Airing of the related -- and utterly inspired -- SNL Weekend Update Bit - Finish six-pack
Animated on-screen promo for The Mummy 3 featuring a warrior yeti performing Olympic sports - Finish six-pack

Anything involving the Olympic rings and a shirtless Brendan Fraser - Kill self

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Gearing Up for the Olympics: You may have noticed...

There are these things called "widgets" now inhabiting the right column around these parts. To take a moment for a little shameless self-promotion, the one at top is chasingBOLT, a project I helped Matt Taylor with a little bit. It is at the top because a) Usain Bolt is sweet and b) you can actually look at content right there in the player -- photos, videos... the whole shebang.

The NBC thinger below it just wants to hijack you over to their site, which we don't like as much... but we're sure there's no way we'll be able to update LTOB as quickly as those bastards at NBC will be updating that feed. So it'll make sure you never miss breaking news about the Hamm Brothers while you're visiting our site. Also, we've been promised that it will be a Carol Lewis-free zone.

Ultimately, let us know if you like having them there, hate having them there, or just think we're stupid for selling out in an arrangement that managed to net us zero dollars.

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Here is...Something!

We got an email recently from what I can only assume was Bob Costas himself informing us of these things called "widgets" that NBC is using to promote their Olympic coverage online. Despite it being called a "widget," which sounds a lot like the tool Inspector Gadget used to save Penny from Dr. Claw that one time, it seems like quite a useful tool.

Quite frankly, it's on the verge of being "too corporate" for us, given that they show commercials before the videos and, since we don't get any money for those commercials, that's aaaalllllmost unacceptable. But, it looks like they will have high quality live video and highlight videos during the games, so it's worth checking out. Here it is: share it, embed it on your own site, or better yet, bookmark this page and come back over and over and over again (but not more than three times because this is a fringe site, we don't want TOO much traffic lest we lose our counter-culture cred).

Exclusive Summer Olympics news & widgets at NBC Olympics.com!

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