I think I'm essentially done with my Olympics viewing (not counting any future Amanda Beard events, that is). I should point out, howver, that this has nothing to do with my sitting through the U.S women's 2-0 soccer win over Brazil on Saturday, though I still couldn't tell you why I did it (I must've been morning nap sentry). The match was sparsely attended and intermittently interesting, which would appear to describe just about every event to this point.
Aside from that, track and field's a juiced-up joke, I'm not very hip on volleyball, basketball, or - uh - badminton, and watching gymnastics any more makes me feel like a creep.
And speaking as one who is not a fan of basketball, the U.S. men's loss to Puerto Rico was hilarious. Best comedy performance of the year. I may tune in a few more times to see if they can bring the laughs against Greece or Australia as well.
As for the opening ceremonies...between the creepy red centaur and the woman who was about to give birth to the thing in the trunk from Pulp Fiction, I found myself growing increasingly disturbed. This quickly gave way to a more general unease as the Parade of History began, though they did an admirable job blitzkrieging through 3000 years of Greek cultcha.
Of the many drawbacks to tape delay, allowing NBC to take half a dozen commercial breaks during the last 15 minutes leading up to the torch lighting was one of the more annoying. Biggest aggravation of the night, however, goes to Bob Costas and Katie Couric, who were able to put a muzzle on their inane jabbering for minutes at a time while a bunch of Greeks in tights were running in place but couldn't shut up for five consecutive seconds during Bjork's song. I was really quite interested in hearing it, believe it or not.
Ah well. Only a month untl football season.
The Olympics were killed by Cable TV. 57 channels means I don't have to watch them, and all the sport on TV means sports bugs can make choices, too.
Not that they hadn't already hit themselves in the head with a hammer by going to the summer/winter 2 year cycle. There's not enough time to build the hype.
The way NBC broadcasts the Olympics is tailor made for TiVo. Or is TiVo built for the Olympics?
Kill the commercials, zip through the back stories you don't care about, and watch the actual 3 minutes of competition/hr.
I'm longing for a TiVO now that I'm trying to watch the Olympics and not miss them at work and/or have them spoiled by logging on to espn.com.
I don't understand how golf isn't at the Olympics yet 'sports' like ping pong and badminton are. Huh? Even 18 holes in a cart is more of a workout and skill than ping pong, good grief!
You're right on about Costas and Couric talking over Bjork,that was annoying, and the local paper had a blurb about that as well.
Aw, man. I missed Bjork. Oh, well.
I guess it was a good thing if Bob and Katie were yammering over her.
I'm a big volleyball fan, so that's what I'm watching. I actually like watching ping-pong and badminton. My high school's badminton team, back in the 80's, was California State champs while I was there. That thing can go pretty fast.
As for the men's basketball, they're all a bunch of narcisisstic primadonnas only interested in the "bling-bling." Some of them are also criminals, and kids these days idolize them. As a Puerto Rican and an NBA hater, I was very, very happy last Sunday.
But Allen Iverson is too dense to take this as an object lesson.
I also miss Jim McKay. When are the Olympics going back to ABC?
Can you imagine what table tennis and badminton would be like if players spent several minutes selecting which raquet to use before a stroke?
Golf. Now there's a sport that would really benefit from revoking that no-tackling rule (am I showing my age by flashing a Peanuts strip?)
Was it Snoopy tackling Linus? I can't remember who.
Costas is lost. He's stuck at NBC where he gets the Olympics once in a while and some horseracing. How stimulating for the guy who used to own the NFL, MLB and NBA broadcasts on NBC. He's now so jaded that he actually told Jimmy Roberts (after one of JR's sappy magazine pieces on Ian Thorpe) that he was 'surprised' that Thorpe could walk around in NYC without anybody recognizing him. Bob has clearly lost his perspecitive, eh?