As the Olympic Winter Games come to a close, Bullet Sunday comes to the rescue!
• Gold. Congratulations Canada! The final hockey game was well-played on both sides, and I'm happy the local boys (and girls!) were able to keep the Olympic gold at home. Of course, since Canada is a part of North America, I guess that means the gold actually belongs to all of us here in America. America is awesome!
I suppose it's too much to hope that all the excitement from the fantastic hockey matches during the Olympics will make the sport more popular here in the USA. As a long-time hockey fan, it would be nice to get more enthusiasm for the sport outside The Great White North.
• Cubed. The design for the new USA Embassy in Britain was unveiled this week and I have just one question...
...when did Steve Jobs start designing our embassies?
Except I dare say that the Apple Store on New York City's Fifth Avenue is a heck of a lot better-looking than the "fuzzy" glass cube that they came up with for the new embassy. Blech.
• Lisa. It seems impossible that Lisa has been gone an entire year. It feels like only yesterday she was reminding us about what's important in life. You are very much missed.
• Coverage. I know I've said it before, but it bears repeating... NBC's coverage of the Olympic Games sucked ass. It was downright embarrassing to sit back and watch how they managed to screw up at every opportunity (The Olympics are about the SPORTS COMPETITION, dumbasses!). I simply don't understand why you would sign up to cover the Olympic Games and then NOT ACTUALLY COVER THE OLYMPIC GAMES! And don't get me started on the astoundingly fucking stupid idea of running coverage on tape-delay FOR THOSE OF US IN THE SAME TIME ZONE AS THE ACTUAL EVENTS! It would be nice if whomever wins the broadcast rights bid for the next Olympics is actually held to some semblance of competency and quality standards. Like telling your commentators to SHUT THE FUCK UP while the names at the awards ceremonies are read (Chris Drury fans didn't even get to hear his name because of the inane dumbfuck commentary). Or how about telling the commentators to SHUT THE FUCK UP period. 98% of the time, the banal chatter was more distracting then helpful, and made watching the Olympics almost unbearable. Here's a brilliant idea... why not put somebody in charge of broadcasting the Olympics who actually likes sports instead of letting suits in a boardroom dictate this reprehensible bullshit as coverage policy?
• Support. If you're looking for a way to support relief efforts in Chile, or the continuing efforts in Haiti, or help out wherever disaster may strike... my favorite charity, Doctors Without Borders, is doing remarkable work to provide aid "where angels fear to tread," and could use donations. If you've got some spare cash, why not check out their website and then toss a few bucks their way?
And that brings us to the end of another Bullet Sunday!
As I write this, I'm watching a series of disastrous runs in the Women's Downhill competition at the Olympic Games. The ladies are biting it hard on the mountain, sliding out of control for what seems like an eternity before they finally come to a stop... their Olympic dreams having come to a bitter end.
This time.
There's nothing to say that they won't shake it off and come back victorious in 2014.
Everybody has disasters, but very few of us have them broadcast around the globe with the entire world watching. Forget the pain of crashing into a mountain at 80 miles per hour, the psychological trauma would be enough to drive a person insane.
But that's part of the game. The victory is so much the sweeter because the defeat can be so brutal.
What's NOT part of the game is douchebag television commentators being complete and total assholes as they cut the athletes to shreds during their run. I already loathe sports commentary with a passion because it's so ridiculously banal and distracting... but listening to these turds tonight has elevated my hatred to an entirely new level.
My favorite commentary was when Anja Pärson from Sweden was starting her run and the male commentator was compelled to say she "was a big failure in last year's world championships." Well, screw you, asshole... she's earned her place as an Olympiad in the Twenty-First Winter Games. She deserves more respect than some idiot diminishing such an accomplishment by daring to saddle her as a "big failure" in a past competition. What the hell have you done lately?
Sadly, Anja wiped out later down the track, which makes such a disgusting comment even more hurtful.
I cannot for the life of me understand why sports fans don't insist that commentators take the "less is more" approach and SHUT THE HELL UP unless they have something meaningful and constructive to add to the event. Non-stop chatter is just stupid, unnecessary, and leads to dumbass commentators doing idiotic shit like branding an Olympic athlete "a big failure" to avoid a moment of blissful silence.
So... for the first time in a very long time, those of us living on the West Coast of these United States of America are in the SAME TIME ZONE as the Olympic Games in Vancouver, British Columbia in Canada. Finally, we get to watch events LIVE and see competition outcomes AS THEY HAPPEN. How cool that we won't have medal results spoiled on the internet hours... or even days... before we get to actually see them taking place! Sweet!
So tonight I sit down in front of the television at 7:30 when NBC is set to start their coverage, expecting that I'll be watching the opening ceremonies LIVE from Vancouver.
But no... it's downhill skiing.
This is odd. Why would they start the opening ceremonies later than 7:30?
And then I notice on Twitter that people are talking about the opening ceremonies as if they're watching them.
So I look for the official schedule online and see that the opening ceremonies started an hour-and-a-half ago at 6:00pm. So now I'm thinking that I got the time wrong, NBC actually started broadcasting at 6:00, and I've completely missed the opening ceremonies altogether.
And so I look at my television channel guide and see that I haven't missed anything. The opening ceremonies won't be televised until 9:00pm. For reasons I can't even begin to fathom, NBC is TAPE-DELAYING these PRIMETIME events that are happening IN THE SAME TIME ZONE
FUCK YOU, NBC! FUUUUUUUUUUCK YOU!
FUCK YOU UP YOUR STUPID ASSES, YOU DONKEY-RAPING SHIT-EATERS!
And, since I'm sure that the reasons for this ASTOUNDING DISPLAY OF ABSOLUTE FUCKING IDIOCY somehow comes down to money in one way or another... FUCK YOU SIDEWAYS YOU GREEDY PIECES OF FUCKING SHIT!
I am beyond speechless as to why NBC is Just This Stupid. What incentive do Pacific Time Zone people have to watch their Olympics "coverage"? Sure if the event is being held in Asia or Europe or some other place that's fifty time-zones away, there's no choice, and we have to accept a tape-delay because nobody wants to watch TV at 2:00am (or whatever). BUT WHEN THEY'RE HAPPENING IN THE SAME FUCKING TIME ZONE?!?
And here I thought that NBC couldn't get more brain-dead than the whole Conan/Leno late-night fiasco.
It turns out that was just a warm-up for TAPE-DELAYING A PRIMETIME EVENT IN THE SAME TIME ZONE AS THE VIEWERS!
You would think that NBC shareholders would TAKE CARE OF FUCKING BUSINESS and like... I dunno... EXECUTE THE GROSSLY INCOMPETENT FUCKERS RUNNING THE NETWORK for being INEXCUSABLY STUPID. But maybe these particular shareholders are so heinously wealthy that they just don't care when the DUMBFUCKS looking out for their interests make bad decisions.
Gee... and here I thought I wouldn't have anything to blog about tonight!
Thanks, NBC!
YOU STUPID FUCKERS!!