(Not) live from Beijing

You may not have heard, but the hardy folks on the West Coast now have another natural disaster to cope with.

Judging by the comments on the World Wide Web, it is worse than mudslides, earthquakes and the election of a governor whose qualifications primarily consist of him being one tough dude.

The problem is -- brace yourselves -- NBC's decision not to air its primetime coverage of the Beijing Olympics live. Instead, nightly broadcasts will be on a three-hour tape delay for folks along the Pacific rim.

(That is also the scenario in the Mountain Time Zone, but because no one actually lives there, it is not considered a big deal.)

So a lot of people in La-La Land have their shorts in a bunch because they can't see Michael Phelps swim real fast in real time. Never mind that they can watch it live on NBC's Web site and, in any case, one Michael Phelps race pretty much looks like every other one.

No, these people are absolutely outraged about NBC's decision to deny them their inalienable right to watch the U.S. lose in sports they've never heard of (team handball, anyone?) as it happens.

But if they want live TV from NBC, they'll just have to chill till the weekend. Oh wait, "Saturday Night Live" is in reruns till Aug. 30. So much for that idea ...