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...

libbo likes to watch

libbo, being the nickname somebody gave to my libido (might have been me too) long ago with some influence from the marx brothers and the animaniacs (libbo is attracted to a sense of humour that finds them amusing, along with monty python and robin williams, at least), sometimes wakes up when glancing up al the tv and on lost girl i noticed emmanuelle vaugier and she was instantly was added to libboland (the online place where libbo keeps track of attractions... you'll just have to find a link to it elsewhere in my written gardens cuz this is background tv, after all... did i mention libbo likes to tease?)... anyway, i thought to myself, wow, how did i miss her over the years (she's been on tv for more than a decade in shows i've occasionally glanced at... now i want to rent some of her films, hysteria, for instance... nudity attracts libbo too when it's the right person)...

and then there's the olympics and that's probably going to be the predominent background tv for the next two weeks because jackson loves it and i enjoy it too... once upon a time i watched the entire olympics... i was very close to elvis that year, but that's another story... anyway, i was watching one of the commercials and have i mentioned just how adorably attractive sean johnson's face is?... as old people used to say about babies, i could eat her up... i wonder if those old people ever realized just how much double entendre is in that phrase... hopefully sean johnson doesn't mind that she's libbos favorite gymnast (and libbo loves gymnasts)...

you might think that the two looks and personalities mentioned here are far apart and perhaps they are in some ways, but for libbo, both possess the qualities for arousal... no wonder i have not found anybody nearby who moves libbo to want to share wild passionate sex or cuddling, even... even if porn was on tv, porn leaves much to be desired... there is a lot on tv that libbo likes to watch... in fact, most of my favorite shows have something or someone for libbo to enjoy, not just physical (faces, bodies, etc) but humor too (i mentioned that above in case you didn't notice... a bit of understated sarcasm does it for libbo too, by the way)... but libbo isn't always sure of what libbo likes, for instance libbo looks at the little chinese girl lifting more than twice her body weight and doesn't know what to think... anyway, one of these days maybe i'll tell you more about libbo, but for now, i'll keep glancing up at the tv for amusement, arousal, and assorted odd distractions...

how about you? :)

protect the children from the children

ridiculous as it is, watching a harry potter marathon on the abc family station (missed the first four though cuz i watched other stuff last night and slept today, but i know them well enough so it doesn't matter and in fact, it is better that way cuz...) is a clear reflection of the fears and delusions most humans accept as right and truth and reality... i refer mostly to the editing for television, not to the stories themselves... as if the movies that millions of children were brought to by their parents numerous times were not edited properly, the tv editors (are they just protecting their jobs as those layered in bureaucracy do or are they puritanical control freaks driven by their own perverse fears - or what?) randomly (though they would claim carefully selectively) chopped out lines and bits of scenes that ultimately change the entire experience so beloved in the movies...

because it is so much safer to stick our heads in the sand, after all...

still, it makes for good background tv as it reminds me of the characters and stories i enjoyed when they were a bit more whole... one more theatrical series of stories i wish someone who was into them would share with me...

oh no, not bones

one of the most rational shows out there, one of the few shows with an atheist main character, and in one of the most critical episodes they go right for the jugular mimicking the biblical birth of jesus story - how could they destroy the character development so much in one simple episode?...

the story line was as stupid as stupid can get what with bones walking through a prison accusing people of all sorts of things while present and in the climax, walking through a prison cafeteria riot shouting out an accusation that one of the prisoners murdered another while the prisoners held back booth (other main character) and then, not ridiculous enough, she goes into labor as she is stepping over prisoners who are laying on the ground because the guards pulled their guns to quell the riot and that is just the set up for the next ridiculous manipulative pandering...

on the way to the nearest hospital, ten miles before getting there (so less than 10 minutes away) they stop at an inn, yes, an inn (was that brennen's inn?) and the inn is full, yes, the inn is full, but the stable behind the inn is available and the baby is born without any assistance, no one from the inn calls the hospital less than 10 minutes away, and not even booth (who was arguing the whole show for medical care at birth while bones was insisting on having the baby without medical care at home) calls the hospital and wonder of wonder, miracle of miracles, all is well...

next scene they are home, bones carrying the baby as if she didn't just give birth in a stable, and there's a surprise party... somehow the baby was cleaned up, cord cut, afterbirth cleaned up, and so on... absolutely amazing how this episode betrayed the character and theme of the show with such a far fetch, illogical, and irrational series of decisions, reactions, and coincidences...

but i suppose that's the leap of faith mentality that overrides logic and good consistent creativity, storyline, character development, and professionalism... so disappointing... so sad...

another show takes a nose dive off my list of top shows...

sigh, are we laughing yet?...

ok, so don't just take my word for it... a quick search reflects audience reaction... initially the tv news wrongly reported higher ratings when the actual audience share went down for that show and has been dropping since the show to the lowest (about 20% the previous 6 year average)... the episode synopsis tries to paint the show in a positive light, but looking at the comments from actual fans (as opposed to professionals paid to support the telivision industry), the fan response was not good which actually reflects the actual lower audience share...

.....

Epilogue:
ready for this?... i suppose it is a sign from jesus himself that the next show i found scanning the tv was angels and aliens, which combines not only accepting the bible as actual historical events and using it as evidence of alien visitation... robert klein sounds now as we collectively chant: 33rd parallel, 33rd parallel, 33rd parallel...

ok, taking the concept seriously for a moment... hey, if aliens were the source of the bible and they watched the reactions of the human beings they visited, i'd have given up on humanity for a while too... at least until the collective mental illnesses (paranoia, delusions, add, etc) and ignorant knee-jerk hostility subsided a bit...

human minds are amazing in their creativity to prove what they want to believe i find it sadly amusing (at least i am not offended, aye? :)

nasa tv

sometimes i love to just zone into nasa tv... it's kind of like sci-fi without a story line... i can just let my mind wander and write it's own story as i imagine intelligent beings living healthier and more peacefully than humans do on earth...

yeah, imagine :)

big screen or just nocturnal

or stress, of course... nocturnal definitely... big tv, working tv is more like it.... there's nothing on but reruns that i have seen before, but at least i like the characters... all my imaginary friends (not all my children) in the later night reruns of evening dramas... ncis... house.... bones... and recently, burn notice... the late night line-up (when family guy and futurama and craig ferguson isn't calling me away from the life-death dramas... a few other odds and ends, but there's just too much nocturn and not enough sleep-need to get me to stay in bed alone for a whole night...

the big screen hd is nice too...

the food network can make me fat

maybe even kill me... seriously, braised bacon wedge and deep-fried soft-boiled egg appetizer... wild boar bacon elk burger with carmelized red onions and a sunny-side duck egg on top? (and a few other things)... where is the lido deck?... i really should not watch bacon paradise... even when i am not hungry it makes me hungry... luckily (and sadly), the best food in the world is not found in Orlando, FL where I currently live, so i am not overly fat...

narf.

new tv

50 inches of smart tv now sits across from me in this living room and it brings the internet and lots more to the big screen, so much more than tv... a lot to learn about in this new toy and i hope to find time to learn... there are youtube music videos in high definition to watch on the big screen... there are games to be played... there are apps to be explored... there are all sorts of bells and whistles and techie stuff to play with... yes, this is the first big relatively expensive toy i've bought myself in a while (i guess i don't consider the bed or washer dryer or anything else a toy in this sense) and i am gonna enjoy playing with it... even the background tv will be more fun :)

who's got mail?

sleepless in seattle is even more a favorite and i melt at city of angels because meg ryan melts me because she has a mix of adorable and cute and wise and naive and vulnerable and strength and innocence and sensuality and visually, she melts me more than most people i see... so instead of falling asleep when i desperately ought to be sleeping i am watching adorableness and fairy tale romance (though in a fairy tale he would buy the little shop around the corner, restock it, and present it to her as a wedding gift after putting a sign up in his big book supermarket that the children's book store is the little shop around the corner... maybe that's how the sequel ends?

shhhhh, maybe they'll make it later :)

what's on broadway?

glancing up at the tv a few moments ago (kind alike as seen on tv ya know), i found the tony awards show and having just reawakened my love for the theatre in the last few days by going to two performances of la cage aux folles i am puzzling over whether this is the 2012 tonys or a rerun cuz i've seen most of these shows a long time ago (or else they were movies... i mean, i love some of these stories and lyrics and songs but is there anything original out there?)...

wait, we interrupt these musical numbers every few minutes with irritating emergency beeps and scrolling messages and maps to let us know, constantly, mind you, that it is raining outside (because nobody has windows anymore) and there are severe thunderstorm warnings somewhere in a two hundred mile radius of the many thousands of tvs trying to enjoy the songs and dance and...

whatever, it's tv... back to the subject at hand, creativity on broadway... or more, original creativity on broadway... but dontcha get me wrong now - it's not that i don't love some of what is playing, in fact, some are absolute favorites, but i seem to remember a time when revivals had their own award catregory so the new stories and words and music could be encouraged)... just look at what is re-playing on broadway right now (and i am leaving some out)...

anything goes... billy elliot... blithe spirit... bring it on... chicago... evita... follies... porgy & bess... ghost... godspell... the best man... hair... hairspray... harvey... the lion king... the little mermaid... jersey boys... jesus christ superstar... newsies... mamma mia!.. mary poppins... nice work if you can get it... on a clear day you can see forever... once... peter and the starcatcher... phantom of the opera... rebecca... rock of ages... sister act... south pacific... spiderman... a steetcar named desire... waiting for godot... west side story... wicked... master class... death of a salesman... venus in fur... wit... and more coming annie... picnic... a few good men... funny girl...

what?... every one of those above have been done before... not that i am against remakes, though a purist tendency in me does shudder at the thought sometimes, but the large majority of the shows on broadway are not original writing or songs or stories or... but it's broadway... and i would trade tv for a seat in the audience of any of these shows at the drop of a top hat... yeah :)