I was going to say, shit was odd. Though smashing the Russian girls in the face with the camera as they had a melt down was friggin sweet.
I sometimes wonder if I should be ashamed that I take joy as these girls are bawling...but no, America woo woo!
I thought it was a particularly nice touch for the US team to take what was effectively their victory lap by doing two of their floor routines to Russian music.
You're actually a writer for the Big Bang theory and this is a draft for a conversation with Sheldon in a future episode isn't it? Nobody is actually this devoid of understanding that winning by abusing children isn't the same as being a winner.
To the impoverished Chinese parents who gladly allow their children to be a part of this program, it's "opportunity". To you, it's "child abuse" and now, "mass torture of children". I have already agreed with the former, but keep exaggerating, and pretty soon it will be "mass genocide of children". Again, there is a huge difference between how things are perceived in the West versus the East. Honestly, I don't know what you want me to say, since you keep bringing it up. (There's a reason I responded in a rep, not a post) It's a simultaneously ruthless, completely deplorable, and utterly admirable way of producing athletes. Just like so many other aspects of sports and government. Taking drugs to perform better at sports (we can call it "mass torture of children", too) is utterly deplorable, and yet, all of our favorite athletes do it. Are we all devoid of basic human instinct to glorify them, too? Spying on its own citizens and carrying out clandestine assassination missions is "deplorable", and yet, every government, even democratic ones, do it, and it's massively beneficial to national security. In a lot of instances, there is no "nice", squeaky clean, liberally acceptable way to succeed. That's life. I don't quite share your level of moral outrage about this one, though; brutal training or not, these Chinese kids still have it better than they would otherwise.
I loved the montage of all of Michael Phelps's medals that aired tonight. The background music for the montage? Phish. Someone at NBC has a keen sense of humor.
Kimmy, what I was implying is that you admire results, order and success because you are a small minded little fascist. I din't need you to explain the contradiction. I also thought you said you would quit posting back in that thread where you tried and failed to call out a member for being unfunny. But don't bother explaining that one, just have some integrity and follow through on it. In other news, I'm stuck with German Olympic coverage here. And God help me, every time a German starts speaking excitedly about anything, you know exactly what it sounds like.
Anyone else feel like NBC's US coverage is the worst Olympic coverage ever? It's ridiculously chopped up, and in some of the sports, the only coverage of non-American teams is a little abbreviated clip where the announcer, in advance, says something like, "this was their worst score of the night" or "it's too bad she falls halfway through." Instead of covering, you know, Olympic events, we get ten minutes of the aforementioned salt-rubbing, or that dolt of a woman asking banal questions of the swimmers, the same way she asks banal questions of NFL players during the football season. She really needs to get hit by one of those double-decker buses.
The only thing remotely tolerable about their coverage is the ability to stream events on their website, and replay them if you missed them. I was able to watch the entire USA-Germany men's indoor volleyball yesterday that way. It was awesome. Things I hate about their coverage: Ryan Seacrest. Tape delay. The results are ALL OVER the internet. I had a friend yesterday who had signed up just for text message alerts when certain sports are on. She was dying to watch the women's gymnastics final without knowing the result, so she stayed off the internet all day yesterday. NBC sent her a text message alert stating: "Women's gymnastics final showing at (whatever time), WATCH THE US WOMEN WIN GOLD!" She was furious. The choppy, all over the place shit. They will show every fucking second of a two hour bike race, but then they bounce all over like a kid with ADHD on events that don't last long. At one point on Saturday, they were showing Roger Federer's tennis match on two of their channels, then showed the same soccer match on two channels.
Yes, the tape delay is awful. I'm not sure why more generally-visited sites (e.g. CNN) don't have some way to censor the Olympic coverage. It's a problem every year - if the athletes aren't performing in your time zone, you basically can't read any news for the entire duration of the events, without spoiling the outcome.
SGT Vince Hancock won Men's Skeet shooting (consecutive gold after winning at Beijing) and set an Olympic record with 148/150, so Americans swept Skeet and both him and Kim Rhodes set the Olympic bar even higher with record scores. Skeet skeet skeet motherfucker!
I thought that was hilarious. Two questions about the music: - when the dudes were doing the floor routine, one of them went overtime and got a deduction. I don't think there was any background music playing. Is this rule or a competitive difference in the men v women? Or, is this a choice by the guys? "okay, I'll do a floor routine, but I'm not dancing to any f-ing music." - I think I know why the music for the girls sounds so crappy live: the speakers need to be right there next to the floor, rather than use the in-house system because of potential acoustic delay, and because there are usually multiple events going on around the arena; i.e. the balance beam girls don't need to hear music blasting in their ears distracting their concentration. But, it seems like I remember watching the events in the '80s /'90s when you could actually clearly hear the music. Can NBC not run a freaking patch cord to a camera or something to get better sound for the TV audience? Or, is there some sort of music rights issue involved? Maybe that's part of NBC's crappy coverage goal or something.
You realize that this is an international feed, right? NBC can't run a patch cord anymore than it can zoom and pan as it chooses.
Oh, and maybe someone who actually knows gymnastics can tell me, were in the fuck were the deductions on Maroney's vault last night? I don't know shit about 'dem flippy sports, but that shit was amazing!
NBC bumbled that coverage too. For stretching a 1-2 gymnastics competition into a 5 hour telecast, you could at least expect them to show the Russian floor routines. One was awesome until she bit it, which made it even more dramatic. But why do I expect anything less from NBC but edited garbage. Men don't do music to the floor routines, just how it is, its not a choice, its a rule. Probably because women are supposed to have more flair and artistry while men its about strength and successful tumbling. Going overtime is just sloppy. You just are supposed to have a feel and an internal timer for that, just like how they know how to touch the corners without stepping out. Related, how badass were the US gymnastics jackets...
This is me beating a dead horse: http://sports.yahoo.com/news/olympi...m-chinese-diver-until-she-won-gold-medal.html But hey, as long as she won a medal, right?
Maybe I'm crazy, I agree with the parents on this one. Instead of ruining the girls day with the news of the death BEFORE the competition she had been [forced to] train for for her entire life, what's wrong with waiting til after?
Did you read one paragraph of that article? The people had been dead for over a year, it's not like they died the day of the competition.
If it was a sudden or recent death, I'd agree. But over a year? Fuck no. "Congratulations on the gold medal sweetie. Oh by the way, grandma and grandpa are dead. No, you can't go to their funeral, that was a long time ago. Now smile big for the camera."