-When I turned on the TV Friday night, literally almost the first thing I saw was the actual footage of Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili dying during his practice run on the sledding course earlier that day. That was shocking to me. I have a lot of issues with NBC's coverage of the games thus far (the blatant advertorials for the "How to Train Your Dragon," anyone?), but that to me was totally crossing the line. You could make the argument that the footage is newsworthy - an Olympian dying during the games is obviously a rarity - but to show the footage with only the briefest of warning (something along the lines of "This footage may be alarming to some people") was irresponsible to Nodar's family, the families of people watching at home, and ultimately unnecessary. You want to prove that the track was dangerous? You did that by showing the footage of the several other lugers who wiped out on the same track (one of them a woman who was knocked unconscious!) just moments later. But showing what is technically a snuff film with almost zero warning? When kids are almost certainly watching? Absolutely unconscionable. And NBC must know it, since they have since promised not to re-air the footage.

-The opening ceremonies were a mixed bag. Canada was kind of screwed, because it would have been impossible to live up to China's legendary show in 2008. But there were parts of this year's ceremony that were truly impressive, and parts that were beyond lame. What I liked: the projection work, especially the part with the ice floes that made way for the orca whales; the central structure that transformed into trees, mountains, a city; the fact that the athletes got to actually watch the ceremony instead of standing in a parking lot. What I didn't like: the unending Canadian Riverdance sequence; slam poetry; BRYAN ADAMS. All this said to me was that Canada is still living in 1995. The embarrassing gaff with the lighting of the cauldron (only three of the four legs emerged from the ground) was unfortunate, until Bob Costas pointed out later that these elaborate cauldron set-ups have a history of backfiring. The Sydney and Atlanta cauldrons also experienced technical difficulties. Why can't people just throw the flame into a dish and be done with it?

-I found the short-track speed skating on Saturday night to be absolutely riveting. I've always enjoyed the sport, but this time I was particularly impressed by the amount of strategy that goes into it. The gold-medal match was a real stunner, with a Korean medal sweep ruined at the last minute when the second- and third-place racers - both from Korea - got in each others' way and crashed, flying right off the track. That allowed two Americans - Apolo Ohno and J.R. Celski - to swoop in and snatch up silver and bronze. It was an amazing moment, for sure.

-Re: pairs skating short program Sunday night, I desperately need for someone to explain to me how that judging worked. There were multiple couples who skated their routines cleanly and ended up toward the bottom of the heap, while several couples with major errors somehow received super-high scores. Even commentators Scott Hamilton and Sandra Bezic seemed totally baffled as to how certain teams - specifically Russians Mukhortova and Trankov, who both blew their side-by-side jump and their synch spins, and Canadians Dube and Davison, who had one botched jump (Dube) and absolutely no energy during their performance - were still in serious medal contention by the end of the night. The degrees of difficulty didn't seem that disparate from the other couples out there, and the rate of execution was CERTAINLY worse than some of the others. When the announcers seem convinced that the couples just crashed and burned on the ice, but the judges somehow put them at the front of pack, something fishy is going on. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if we find out there was some hinky goings-on with the judges in the next couple days.

What are you all thinking of the Olympics so far?