In our effort to bring the biggest stories to our readers' computers, the St. Louis Sports Online staff utilizes all of the latest technologies.

Video tape, for example.

Our time is spent in other hi-tech ways as well--like counting visitors to the Donovan Osborne-for-President home page (www.i'm_your_number_one_guy.com).

So it should not come as any surprise that, in our spare time, we've been reviewing video tapes from the recently-completed Summer Olympics.

What an eye-opener!

Naturally, we focused our viewing attention on the Americans.

Sure, the sumo wrestling was great. Our guy beats the Russian every time.

Even on video tape...the US gymnasts did NOT fail to disappoint (literally). Which, by the time we viewed their work, was of course a video tape made from a video tape.

And yes, gold medal-winning US relay racers chose a rather novel way to honor the Stars and Stripes.

A really careful examination of our hi-definition S-VHS tapes revealed (possibly?!) two rather controversial items: (a) the tell-tale needle track marks up and down the arms of the Eastern European weightlifters; and (b) the bodily functions of US female swimmers (HINT: think #1!).

But our most newsworthy finding involved St. Louis' own Bob Costas, who capably served as NBC's version of Jim McKay (i.e. host) during these Games.

We'd like to digitize, compress, and post direct evidence of our findings on these very pages, but the General Electric Company, the parent company of NBC, didn't get to be a bigger economic force than all but seven countries on our planet by being nice to those that borrow their intellectual property...

So here's the deal, using words, with background first.

More experienced StLSO readers recall the sad case of Jeremiah Denton, an American flyer whose plane was shot down over North Vietnam during our country's efforts in southeast Asia.

Denton, during his seven year imprisonment in a North Vietnamese prison camp, was asked by his captors to make a statement condemning the United States war effort.

Denton's statement was videotaped...as it was his captors' intent to demonstrate to the world that their prisoners were being treated in a humane fashion.

Denton stared at the ceiling during much of his session, but before he answered his interrogators' questions, began to blink his eyes in an uncontrollable fashion.

In a word, the guy looked nuts.

But in Morse Code, Denton's seemingly random blinks made perfect sense.

The ups-and-downs of his eyelids spelled the word "TORTURE"...and his efforts made it clear to the world that the North Vietnamese were up to no good.

Which brings us to NBC's coverage of the Sydney games...

It seems that Bob Costas knows Morse Code, too.

Careful analysis of Mr. Costas' pattern of eye blinks, on day 13 of NBC's coverage, during his description of the heroic training efforts of the Chinese water polo team during the dry season...spelled out the following message:

"I AM A SPORTS FAN...AND I WOULD NOT BLAME YOU A BIT IF YOU CHANGED THE CHANNEL".