Here we go again.

Yes, once more it's the Rockwood Olympic Watch. One man's insane attempt to watch the entirety of NBC's primetime Olympic coverage while simultaneously breaking apart that programming into three categories:

1. Events.

2. Advertising.

3. Meaningless fluff.

What's that, you say? It's your first time here? Well, then... first a little history.

First of all, I love the Olympics. I always have, I always will. Yes, I know it's too commercial. Yes, I know that Athlete X dopes/cheats/speaks ill of his grandmother. Yes, I know that both Jacques Rogge and the IOC are as corrupt as the day is long. I don't care. In spite of all of that, during the course of any Olympic Games, there are multiple stories that grab at you like no other sporting event does. And the fact that they happen only once every four years... well, now once every two... makes them special.

But way back at the turn of the millennium (by that I mean 2000... I'm not going to have the 2000-2001-which-is-the-end-of-the-millennium argument with you), I was getting frustrated with the television coverage of the Olympics. While I was still thrilling with victory and agonizing with defeat, I was getting sick of all of the "Up Close And Personal" segments that NBC was putting on the air instead of showing the actual events. So I decided to do something about it.

For the Sydney games, I started the 2000 Rockwood Olympic Watch, which was dedicated to measuring just how much time NBC was devoting to what I called "fluff." My hope was that by publicly exposing said fluff, I could shame NBC into not broadcasting so much of it.

Did it work? Who knows? But I had so much fun doing it that year that I've done it for every Olympics since. The only real exception was in 2002, when I actually went to the Games in Salt Lake. I had hopes of doing something similar to that this year, since I'm on the same continent as Vancouver, but alas, work and life interfered, so once again I'll be stuck with the rest of you, watching it on TV.

But oh, the things we will see! Join me, won't you, and we'll run this Olympic-sized TV marathon together. Swifter! Higher! Stronger! And away we go!