Watching the Olympics online is a treat

Now this is sweet.

It's going on 9 a.m. Sunday in Southern California.

I've got KNBC on the television set, and, sure enough, it's another Olympic moment from Beijing. Meaning that Tom Brokaw and U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson are sitting in front of Beijing's Bird's Nest stadium as they discuss monetary and fiscal policy.

But one screen to the right on my crowded desk is a computer monitor that's tuned to NBCOlympics.com. And that screen is showing live video from the gymnasium where the U.S. men's basketball team is teaching Yao Ming and the Chinese team about hardwood diplomacy.

Suffice to say, Team Redeem has brought its game.

As for the quality of the nbcolympics.com picture? It is a network feed, so the camera angles are familiar, and the replays are just as informative as on television. There is no soundtrack — unless you leave KNBC on, but the commentary from Brokaw and Paulson is a bit out of sync with what's on the computer screen.

A guy could get used to this.

— Greg Johnson