Coming up Friday: Soto, Marlowe on the Beijing Experience

Friday's weekly media column included waking up before the crack of dawn -- was up anyway watching the U.S. softball gold-medal game, followed by the U.S. women's basketball game against Russia, followed by the U.S.-Brazil gold-medal women's soccer contest -- putting in a phone call to NBC reporter Lindsay Soto and NBC beach volleyball play-by-play man Chris Marlowe to catch their take on how the Beijing Games have shaped up for them the last two weeks.

Soto admits: "I'm a sucker for the Olympics. I don't now how you can be a sports fan and not be one. If you understand what goes into the four-year factor -- it's not like you'll go get 'em tomorrow. I can talk to an NBA or a baseball player, and ask them about a loss as being a big deal and they look at you like you're crazy. In the Olympics, it's one moment, sometimes only 10 seconds long, for four years of preparation. You keep that in mind and understand all that's beneath the surface. Every story is compelling. It's really a journalist's dream. Particularily one who's a sports fan."

The FSN West and FSN Prime Ticket reporter/anchor had just come back from the water polo venue, where she was dispatched to interview U.S. players after their (spoiler alert) loss in the women's gold medal game against the Netherlands. Hours before that, she was at the indoor volleyball to talk to the U.S. women after their (spoiler alert) victory over Cuba in the semifinals.

As for those pieces of artwork we came across in our web surfing: A company called SomeCards.com (linked here) -- "ecards for when you care enough to hit send" -- has a slew of Olympic-related postcards you can overload someone's email account with.
More after the jump: