U.S. viewers had to wait for spectacular show

One World, One Dream. One-Half Day Late.

That was the lament from countless Web sites and blog forums Friday as millions of people woke up, turned on NBC, America's Olympic Network — and saw Meredith Vieira doing a cooking segment.

Four billion people tuned in to the spectacular opening ceremony for Beijing's 2008 Olympics, but only Americans had to wait 12 or 15 hours to see the show, depending on time zones.

Many online surfers were likewise shut out; NBC didn't stream its feed, and other Web sites that did stream it into the U.S. mysteriously stopped doing so partway through, fueling speculation that the Peacock Legal Dept. was playing cybercop.

Bottom line: You Puget Sound people don't know how lucky you are. You're part of a tiny minority of Americans who got to watch the opening ceremony live, on regular — well, Canadian — TV, via the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.

Without Matt Lauer, no less.

Sure, the hour was early — a 4 a.m. preshow, and a 5 a.m. start. But we got up and tuned in, just so you wouldn't have to. Here are some highlights of our live online coverage, found in its glorious, sleep-deprived entirety at seattletimes.com /Olympics.

0500: Place: Home. Hour: Ungodly. The 60-second countdown has begun. Our automatic sprinkler system has just come on outside. First time we've ever heard it live. Somehow we knew this was going to be cool. Ron MacLean and Peter Mansbridge are commentating.

0505: Many, many, many fireworks.

0515: A film shows the process of Chinese papermaking. It's one of four great Chinese inventions to be highlighted in the ceremony. Gunpowder is another, and we've already seen a lot of that touched off. It must have been on sale at the Beijing Costco.

0520: A giant scroll painting on the stadium floor unrolls to depict another of the great Chinese inventions: movable type printing. We would note here that we are actually typing on Movable Type software. History comes full circle! Our most fervent hope for humanity: that the next great Chinese invention might be Movable Type with spell-check.

0525: Continuing with the "type" theme: What appears to be a giant computer keyboard appears on the stadium floor, each of its "keys" moving up and down to form patterns in the whole. They clearly missed a chance here to utilize more small children, who could have represented cookie crumbs stuck between the keys.

0545: Oops. Here comes a depiction of the fourth great Chinese invention: Lead paint. We kid the Chinese!

If you're keeping score at home, the four Chinese inventions: Paper, gunpowder, movable type and the compass.

A small girl is now flying through the air, something small girls have done at every one of these since the Sydney opening ceremony eight years ago. She's being pulled behind a kite, which is, yes, another Chinese invention.

We note a theme developing here, namely: The Chinese have pretty much invented everything.

0555ish: More little kids appear, seated on the stadium floor and wearing backpacks, as if in school, or perhaps on their way to the Nike factory.

0613: The Interminable Parade of Nations has begun. A flag-bearer for Nigeria is a star of table tennis — a clear homage to the host Chinese, who, as everyone knows, invented both the table and tennis.

0617: Now entering the Bird's Nest: Jamaica, whose delegation apparently does not include sprinter Usain Bolt, because he simply can't move that slowly.

0650: The CBC announcers are discussing Canada's medal hopes, and we're pretty sure they actually used the term, "... unheralded canoeing stars."

0701: Look at that: A canoeist is carrying the flag for Togo. It's now a trend. One World, Many Unheralded Canoeing Stars.

0707: Breaking news. CBC has just informed us that Whitehorse, Yukon, has two athletes in the Olympics, including one who swims with the Whitehorse Glacier Bears.

0717: Hearing a whir of hundreds of mini-digicams, we sense the pending arrival of the United States of America, only seven nations away.

0730: Drum roll: Here comes the U.S. of A. The Americans, wearing white pants and blue blazers, march in triumphantly to ... well, muted applause from the Chinese. In the phalanx of athletes, you can see ... Oh, the humanity: Commercial break!

0757: The Swiss have arrived. Roger Federer carries the official Army Knife flag. Honoring an old Swiss tradition, he refuses to dip the flag as he passes in front of Rafael Nadal.

0807: Billions of dozing spectators worldwide are awakened abruptly as China and its delegation of 1.25 billion athletes begins entering the Bird's Nest.

0918: The last member of the 1.25 billion-person Chinese delegation has entered the Bird's Nest. Over and out.

Friday's Thanks-For-Sharing Excellence in Broadcasting Award: "You don't get to say 'Boom boom' that often." — NBC's Lauer, after a completely irrelevant boxing reference to Ray "Boom Boom" Mancini during the Parade of Nations. Sigh. It's going to be a long month.

Today's TV highlight: Swimming splashes onto HD screens on NBC, as Michael Phelps, the Human Torso, swims the 400 individual medley at the Water Cube. If he fails to win, NBC might just pull the plug and go home. Watch in the 3 to 9 p.m. slot on CBUT or the 8 p.m. to midnight slot on NBC. (Actual 400 IM final start: 7 p.m. Seattle time today.)

Ron Judd: rjudd@seattletimes.com