What that means about our culture I’ll leave up to you.
The Olympics are one of those rare moments when the Missus and I enjoy a sporting event together. She’ll watch baseball and football with me, but she certainly doesn’t enjoy it as much as I. The Olympics are different. She’s a sucker for the stories and I love the competition. The Winter games especially. Had I the chance to participate in any sporting event at any level, be it the Super Bowl or World Series or the Masters, I would always choose to ski an Olympic downhill.
So why didn’t I give a damn about these games? It should be obvious. During the Summer games in Athens I posted several times about the games themselves, or how much I enjoyed (or didn’t enjoy) watching them.
This year? Nothing…
I still watched every night. I made it through the bizarre world opening ceremonies, complete with flaming rollerbladers and dancing trees. I watched despite my loathing of NBC and it’s presentation. I don’t so much hate the tape-delay. I don’t like it, but NBC didn’t pay half a billion to televise these things during the early mornings. I do have serious problems with how they tape delay. Everything is so canned, so obviously faked. The nonsensical cuts between speed skating and skiing and figure skating and back to speed skating. It’s like they can’t decide if they’re faking an actual news event or not.
Still, I watch.
I watched several of the US team’s brightest act like total dinks. Bode is, as Slate’s Dana Stevens put it, a douche-bag. Chad Hedrick and Shani Davis were basically twelve-year-olds on stage, and Hedrick seemed to challenge Bode for overall douche-bagitude. Did the US men’s hockey team even show up? Did the Canadians?
Still, I watch.
And I enjoyed it too. The Missus and I plan on attending some events in Vancouver. Maybe getting away from Bob Costas will help. The VANoc really needs to work on this stuff though. The presentation at tonight’s closing was… well, it was lame.
I do wonder about a nation that has given us Leonard Cohen and Neil Young serving up Avril and what looked to be Yahoo Serious.
Posted by Frinklin at February 26, 2006 11:57 PM | TrackBack