Olympics 2008

[innerSpaceman]

I'm gonna watch less of them than ever. I'm a sucka for the opening and closing ceremonies. And I enjoy the winter sports far more than the summer ones anyway. So I'll thing I'll China boycott the rest.

[Strangler Lewis]

The swimming events are borderline in terms of pure athleticism or war skills. I agree it probably would be better if the swimming events were more like Survivor events where everyone had to find a treasure or spear a fish underwater in the process. Much like biathlon.

Gymnastics is, indeed, a degenerate endeavor, but it still qualifies for inclusion despite its debasement.

[scaeagles]

Alex pretty much stated my whole feelings on the issue.

[Cadaverous Pallor]

Originally Posted by Alex

I do like the secondary sports such as team handball, badminton, table tennis, fencing, archery, etc. But these are rarely on TV, though I am hoping that the modern internet age will finally bring me the ability to watch them without having to stay up until the dead-air coverage at 3am.

Don't forget TiVo, which will allow us to record freaking everything, fastforward through BS, and watch the 3am stuff. Shoot, gotta start setting that up...

[Alex]

I'm not about to go through all the listings for Olympics stuff and manually set up recordings. I haven't yet even taken the minimal steps necessary to stop my DVR from recording all 27 reruns of The Soup every week.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Originally Posted by Alex

I'm not about to go through all the listings for Olympics stuff and manually set up recordings. I haven't yet even taken the minimal steps necessary to stop my DVR from recording all 27 reruns of The Soup every week.

No, but you can pick the few sports you might actually care about and set up a keyword-driven season pass.

[innerSpaceman]

I'm the complete opposite of Alex. I want to see the theater of the ceremonies, and I ONLY want to see the subjective performances that are performances rather than sports, per se.

I don't give a fig about sports. And I don't much care to who wins the subjective contests in gymnastics and diving. I just like watching the routines and dives. They are artistic athleticism.

I don't care at all about races. Who's the 'fastest' doesn't interest me one bit ... even if the difference were in hours, much less the completely meaningless tenths of seconds that are not on a human time scale.



But much like the American government after 9/11, the Chinese government seems hell bent to squander the public relations earthquake sympathy they had going into these games with their blunderbus and misguided crackdowns of basic freedoms and human rights. So I think I'll give even the gymnastics and diving a pass this year, and not support this Olympics with my advertising eyeballs.

[Not Afraid]

I have a feeling Swimming is the next Tour de France as far as doping issue go.

[BarTopDancer]

On one hand I want to boycott because it's being held in China.

On the other hand, Olympics are supposed to bring the world together.

Regardless, I'll probably watch snippets here and there, and grumble that there's nothing but the stupid Olympics on NBC for the next 3 years. Or weeks.

Advertisers could have refused to advertise in protest, but it wouldn't have stopped the Olympics. I am curious to see if anything happens in protest that makes it out over the airwaves. While they can try and squelch protests within their country, its doubtful the international media isn't going to be so quick to succumb to their demands.

[Alex]

Originally Posted by Ghoulish Delight

No, but you can pick the few sports you might actually care about and set up a keyword-driven season pass.

I don't have Tivo, but the Comcast DVR. If it has any kind of "keyword-driven season pass" option I'm unaware of it.