olympics 2012

the title of this blog was almost #NBCFail and it was challenging not to title it that... had i posted background tv entries here since the last entry, at least one would have been title NBCFail... #NBCFail has become the standard bearer internet hashtag on twitter and other places representing critical and public opinion on the atrocious production of the 2012 olympic games that nbc presented... it is so sad on so many levels...

saddest of all might be the arrogant ignorance... disrespect of nations, of races, of sports, and of athletes permeated the broadcast right from the opening ceremony to this point, less than 48 hours before the closing ceremony... the five hour time delay was a challenge to overcome, but nbc pretended it was not there at first, presenting the replay on prime time as if the events were live... nbc was obviously oblivious to the real-time world we live in now that twitter, facebook, and thousands of other websites that report on world events as they happen...

the editing out of specific moments, the jingoistic and even borderline bigoted commentary, the arrogant bias of commentators was not only unprofessional, it was insulting... luckily we've come a long was as a species for some of the comments might have been international incidents a half century or century ago... those of you who think i am overstating the offenses, i suggest you study history and look closer at the major faux-pas that nbc presented in from of more than a billion people around the world...

expert commentators did not seem to know what was going on and they were not fed interesting facts or information, they were permitted to babble and too often made mis-statements that were ridiculous and embarrassing, the women's vault comes to mind... the commercials, more than 33% of each hour, were ridiculously placed, edited into the tape delay so often they dominated the viewing experience which was not only frustrating, but insulting at times (the grinning monkey on gymnastic rings following the grinning african american gymnast comes to mind and the commentary leading up to the commercial could not have been scripted to be more racially provocative)... it was obvious that the people responsible for putting the overly edited excerpts of the days events were way over their heads and not paying attention to the presentation they were producing...

the droning ignorance got so bad i kept the olympics on without sound for most of the second week... yeah, ratings were high, but customer satisfaction and memories of insults and frustration and annoyance will last a lot longer than the days ratings...

this production may be a sign of how out of touch corporate america is...

there are thousands of links i could add here to the detailed and valid critique others have posted as they dissected the nbc coverage... but i am not going to put the time in to do that tonight... i just wanted to record that the background tv for the last two weeks, mostly, has been the worst olympic tv coverage i've ever seen and this goes back decades (1976 may still be one of the best, partly because of nadia, but the sad truth is abc did an infinitely better job of producing the olympics every time they did it without the current technology, technology that was too obviously absent from the 2012 #NBCFail broadcast...

hopefully i will not feel the need to vent any more than i already have... tv, even tv just kept on in the background for listening and sporadic viewing, should be enjoyable, not irritating... the sponsors and nbc will be remembered with frustration and avoidance for a while... sponsors are lucky we have such short memories... nbc sports, you're done for me, even on background tv...

softball

yup, i play it and i watch it, especially the ncaa women's world series and that's been the background tv for the past week or two (with a bit of nba basketball tossed in)... watching arizona state (who i picked from the start, not that it is that big a surprise) get runs in every inning against florida (and this game almost all the runs with two outs) doing to florida what florida did to alabama yesterday and tomorrow is another day...

and what have you been watching lately? :)

the game sucked, mostly because the chicago coach doesn't seem to understand basketball is a eam sport and just because a player wins mvp does not mean he can do it all... and if the coach does understand that, well, he can't control his mvp or team, so they lose again because they are predictable... crunch time it is derek rose one on one and the rest of the team goes to sleep... way to lose...

meanwhile,

Saturday, March 12, 2011

it's on a lot, actually

as it usually is when i have a roommate, so i ought to be using this blog to record what's on the tube in the background cuz that is what this blog is for... coming home from softball and shopping and eating, i found star trek: first contact on and watched the second half of it while i ate and now i'm choosing (or switching) between ncis, which is a staple in the background tv diet around here these days, and total recall a favorite film for the familiarity and memory and other reasons, and several ncaa basketball tournament final games on several other channels... if i get bored there are hundreds of other channels to explore, but typically i choose only a handful for the background tv at any given moment...

i was not surprised by idol this week, except maybe that i actually found time to watch some of it... last night i wasn't home, so i don't know what was on the tv if it was on... and so, there's the btv report for today, whenever today may be...

sunday night crisis

none at the moment, thought sunday night football and the simpsons and other fox toon shows are on, i am often drifting away from tv on sunday nights... s'pose it's a good night for catching up on reruns and on-demand stuff...

yeah, i know, boring without all the conflicts and crisises... i'll try to make it more exciting in the future, m'ok? :)

craig is not my only friend

i missed last night's debut of craig's new robot sidekick and tonight hung out with my friend jackson to share a pizza for my birthday while watching idol and the womens ncaa championship game and then i found time for craig... we really do have a similar thread running through our brains...

tv has been way in the background lately, how about you?

movies and the superbowl

a few entries could have been written here as movies and other tv has passed through the background and amused or distracted me in the past week, along with the usual tv that can hold my attention (i could have sworn i made a list somewhere... ah, yes, on the right side of this blog, silly me, i forget so easily... come to think of it, i may have missed a 24 and definitely haven't been catching caprica since i do not have the sci-fi channel and i don't catch every craig ferguson cuz i do try to get to sleep before 1am at least once a week, but anyway, i occasionally catch some of the ones on the list just below that and whatever, like anybody's talking tv shows with me these days, right?... like anybody even knows i'm alive out here on the web, right?... like anybody would join my little self-pity party, right?... what?... you didn't get your invitation? :P :}

ok, so the superbowl caught some of my attention as it played in the nackground as i was packing and cleaning cuz i am moving tomorrow, which is just a matter of hours from now, today, actually, but after the sun rises... pretty good game, though i didn't watch it closely enough to be too critical... the gample the defensive back took on the interception that pretty much iced the game was well done as they were blitzing, but if payton had kept his head and floated the ball... always the what ifs... the gamble worked, as it did against farve (though farve might have been less of a gamble), and that defensive back should get some accolades for doing his job so well...

surprised to see bush get so little playing time, but when the coach finally gave drew brees the ball to do his thing, he did it well... and now, back to packing and cleaning...