The 2012 Summer Olympics finally kick off in London tonight with a massive opening ceremony, but the spectacle of the interpretive dancing and fireworks isn't the only part of this two-week sporting extravaganza that's worth watching. Even if you don't know Usain Bolt from Michael Phelps, here are plenty of reasons to tune in:

Tags: london olympics, olympics, olympics 2012, summer olympics

First, you can't say that I didn't warn you about the Olympics obsession. Second, I just found out that I might have new and different ways to watch the Olympics without making my TiVo explode. Awesome. Some geniuses as a company called Wavexpress (hi there, my new favorite people, can you make it friendly for Macs too?) came up with a way to make events available for download onto your laptop during the Olympics for free so that fans can watch them closer to when they actually happen instead of hours and hours later after all the news networks have already "spoiled" the winners because Bejing is 12 hours ahead of us here in the States. Apparently people who subscribe to this free service (which is too long and boring for me to explain so just read about it here.) can pick their favorite sports (um, how 'bout all of them) and get nice, nearly high-def content (which would look so nice on my beautiful macbook... hint, hint) in the middle of the night, so they can watch while commuting. If I can either convince my husband to let me use his laptop and upgrade to Vista, or if those nice Wavexpress people find a way to make it Mac friendly (they've got a whole month and a half), or I can convince my boss that I really need Vista at work to do my job, then this news will make me very happy indeed. I'm still holding a grudge against the girls in my old office who spoiled the Tara Lipinski gold medal figure skating win during the Nagano Olympics in 1998 before I had a chance to go home and watch it. Trust me. It was a very upsetting experience.

Tags: olympics, summer olympics