The Olympics

February 15, 2006 2:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

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So, the Olympics are here. It's nice to see that nothing too outrageous is going on at the moment, what the potential for terrorists, Olympic controversy and all sorts of other "fun" things.

Before I vent, I'd like to share a URL:
DFL

An interesting blog that looks at the other side of the coin: the folks who've worked for years to make the Olympics, only to come home with nothing but the satisfaction that they made it that far. There's some interesting commentary, and lots of info about the other people competing - because let's face it: just because you're the world record setter doesn't mean you're that interesting.

On to the big gripe: during the Blizzard of '06 (last weekend), there was plenty of time for the NBC folks to shower me with Olympic loving. They didn't. I found some of the lesser known/popular sports playing on some of the non-NBC branded channels (aka USA), but that was it during the non-primetime hours. I had to wait until 8:00 at night to start getting the good stuff, and even then, it's the usual "now that we've gotten you interested in what happened in men's snowboard half-pipe, let's switch to the couples ice dancing for a bit" bait and switch.

Not that I don't get it - they have to vary things, otherwise people will only watch the stuff they care about. But is there that much on during the day on a weekend that you can't pre-empt it for the one time every 2 years that the Olympics are on? I don't think so. You know that they get top dollar for the advertising during this time, so why don't they capitalize on it? And just because they showed it during the day doesn't mean that they can't replay the same footage - or even do highlights - later the same day. It's just plain crazy/stupid.

I also don't really see the need to repeat the footage from 1:00 am to 5:00 am - if I didn't watch it the first time, odds are good that I wouldn't watch it then either.

I did manage to watch some of the Curling that was on at 4:00 the other day, but that's because Ethan didn't want to go back to bed then. Of course, the Curling - which I still think COULD be an interesting sport - put both of us to sleep. I think it's time to get "Curling for Dummies" from the library and see if I'm right....