Careful, Buck: Big Brother is watching

Indianapolis Colts quarterback Peyton Manning says it’s tough watching younger brother Eli play on TV, says it’s nerve-racking, says it can be aggravating, especially when Joe Buck is calling the New York Giants’ game for Fox.

“Of course Joe Buck’s just ripping Eli, just because that’s what he seems to enjoy doing,” Peyton said during an interview with NBC’s Bob Costas. “So I’m yelling at Joe Buck, ‘Just call the play-by-play, Joe. Let [Troy] Aikman do the commentary!’ ”

Manning said he quickly composed himself. “I said to myself . . . ‘What are you doing? Why are you on top of the bed yelling at the TV?’ ”

Buck, Fox’s lead football play-by-play announcer, said the subject has become a running joke between them.

“I thought it was great,” Buck said of Manning bringing his name up on NBC. “I’ve never been that flattered in my life. It’s probably the greatest thing a player ever has said about me, that he’s aware of what I do. He and I have talked about it before in a joking manner . . .

“Any time they want to mention me on NBC, it’s fine.”

Trivia time

In his first NFL game in 1998, Peyton Manning passed for 302 yards and one touchdown. Who caught Manning’s first NFL touchdown pass?

Guacamole with that?

The Vancouver Olympic Committee last week unveiled the medals athletes will be striving to win at the 2010 Winter Olympics.

Unlike past medals, these are undulating, described as pieces of abstract art, with no two medals actually the same.

Media reaction to the new look was predictably mixed.

Damian Inwood of the Vancouver Province wrote that the medals “wouldn’t look out of place scooping up salsa or chutney.”

Chris Chase of Yahoo Sports wrote that the medals look like “microwaved Frisbees” and said the gold medal “looks like it belongs in a bowl of potato chips at King Midas’ house.”

Evidently, too much exposure to Winter Olympics medals makes a journalist hungry.

In 2006, the medals awarded in Turin were nicknamed “the Bagel.”

Far-fetched

Dan Brown, author of “The Da Vinci Code,” has a new book out titled “The Lost Symbol.”

The book opens with a security guard listening to a Washington Redskins playoff game on the radio.

Reader Paul Singleton writes: “Know how you can tell that Dan Brown’s new book is truly fiction? The Redskins are in the playoffs.”

Trivia answer

Marvin Harrison.

And finally

Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Cole Hamels to the Associated Press, on leaving Game 2 of the NL division series in the front seat of a squad car to head for the hospital and the birth of his first child: “Best cop ride I had ever been a part of when I wasn’t in the back.”

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mike.penner@latimes.com