I'm a lucky dog. I've seen Sydney's skyline in person. Forget postcards and the coffee table books of Australia. This is one view too spectacular to capture two-dimensionally. The air is so clean and clear that street lamps pierce through the night like lasers. Skyscraper lights shimmer off the water. Even the ever-present fluorescent blue advertising gives the city a magnificent, otherworldly glow. If the IOC had any doubts about staging the Games here, I bet all the Sydney organizers had to do was take Juan Antonio and his buds out on a water taxi for a nighttime tour of the harbor. (Would've worked even if the rest of the city was Area 54.)

Overheard

"Third place? What's that? That's hiding with your hands over your head."

Bill Walton, on the merits of the bronze medal

Remind me of this if I start complaining again.

Wait, here I go:

1) You can't buy Big Red gum here. For some reason, Aussies find the smell of cinnamon offensive.

2) Toothpaste is called "dental cream" (yecch) and it has some ingredient in it that burns your tongue. And, most annoying of all,

3) It is painful having to choose which events to watch. I know, boo hoo. The venues are just far enough away from each other that you can't hop from final to final. (Not because of traffic, because amazingly, there hasn't been any.) The organizers knew this, so they put TVs on the press tables—one for every two people—simulcasting all the other Olympic events. Genius setup for junkies like me, who want to keep at least one eye on breaking archery news. The tricky thing is, sometimes it's more convenient for scoring or viewing purposes to have the TV tuned to the event you're already at, and I'm always catching myself watching the tube, not the actual people.

It's really all about not missing anything. I've already taken over 300 pictures, none of which include me. This morning, I gave American swimmer Aaron Peirsol a digital camera to record his antics for espnmag.com (the IOC put the kibosh on athletes doing stuff for publication during the Games, so look for his photo album here after October 2). I was all proud of myself, because I pored through the manual so I could show him all the neat tricks. Like zooming in tight on sections of a picture you've already taken (think Blade Runner). Turns out Pinesol (my favorite sports nickname ever) is an electronic gadget savant. He's already been hauling around a video camera so he won't forget anything either. I can't wait to see what he comes up with.

Anne Marie Cruz covers the Olympics for ESPN The Magazine. And in case you couldn't tell, she's a big fan of Big Red.