You're Not The Only One, Glenn

Well, I'm watching, and I'm not alone.

While I'm an NFL fan, I enjoy watching the Olympics. It's good to see people who've dedicated their lives to becoming the best at their particular field (sports or anything else). If more of us brought that kind of dedication to our jobs, just imagine what we could accomplish. Still, I guess some people would rather sneer at others than appreciate the dedication and striving for excellence that top athletes demonstrate daily. Besides, watching women's beach volleyball is fun. Life is more than engineering.

I'm not "sneering" at anyone (other than the moron who admired Fidel). I'm simply not interested. Not even in the women's beach volleyball. I could see it live many weekends when I lived in Manhattan Beach. I never bothered.

Life is more than engineering.

Of course life is more than engineering. You may have noticed that my interests span much more than engineering. That doesn't mean that it has to include the Olympics.

Whaaa? Nothing gets the blood pumping like Olympic level badminton.

Olympics? Are they on again?

Guess that's why there's a sports show on every night I try to watch my favorite local 11 pm newscast. I've been having to settle for second-best. :-(

Pfui.

I am not normally an Olympics watcher, but I have to admit I've been sucked in by some of the events this time around. Justin Spring on the high bar (I think that's what it is called) is simply amazing. Phelps is a phenomenal swimmer, obviously given his medal count. And seeing the mens relay team beat France after they ran their mouth was better than any Super Bowl I've ever seen. It was almost as good as seeing the USA hockey team beat the USSR in 1980, probably the last time I watched any Olympics.

The worst part is listening to the news anchors fall all over themselves with praise for the Chicoms.

Sort of by accident I'm enjoying listening to two odd (is writing that superfluous? ^_^) Norwegians broadcasting a daily radio show for an hour or two from a closet somewhere in the deepest depths of the Olympic media center in Beijing.

They focus on all the right stuff like the strange-sounding names of foreign athletes (bonus points if it's obscene in Norwegian), correct intonations of Ni Haa (hello in Chinese/Mandarin?), weird Olympic antics and/or athletes in past Olympiads, weird/cute/charming outbursts of Chinese joy over the Olympics (giant vases, shoes that are 2008 centimeters long, tall mascot sculptures made out of lentils & seeds etc.), and trying to prove to their incredulous listeners that yes they actually are in China ^_^

And of course they cover important events like canoeing, "irrelevant" heats in swimming, spectating 5000m rowing, the incomprehensibility of watching sailing on TV, and just how the South Korean female archery team trains their concentration (involves snakes put inside their clothes and trainers pretending to be ghosts, all during archery practice) ^_^

Beyond that there's plenty of reporting on the dark side of it all in other media over here, more than I had expected there to be.

The Olympics just haven't been interesting to me since the Cold War ended. "Beat the damn Russians!" was fun. Now not so much.

So maybe Putin is just trying to make the Olympics fun again...

Huh Rand? I was just noting President Bush was watching...

Anyway, Rachel Lucas finally admitted watching too.

I do watch the Olympics for mostly this reason: It's good to see people who've dedicated their lives to becoming the best at their particular field (sports or anything else). Its great to see our PC culture have a reminder that it is good to have winners and loser. Winners are great because they bested others. Winning is sweet, because at some point you lost. Really, the win in the 4x100m relay over France was awesome, not meerly because the Americans won, but because they have lost before. Same with the miracle on ice.

The reason the Olympics was good during the Cold War was the 4 year reminder that the principles of Capitalism (free competition) was always more enjoyable and successful than Communism. But yeah, the Olympics bring out the idealism and utopian spirit which is surreal.

I haven't been much interested in Olympics coverage either. There are events I would watch, but not many, and I can't seem to find any accurate scheduling info about exactly when they're being telecast. NBC seems to be using the local newscast playbook - tease a story in promos, but say nothing about exactly when it will air. Local news shows do this to encourge watching their entire evening newscasts so you won't miss the one or two minutes you're really interested in. All I find by way of Olympics schedule info are 4- and 6-hour blocks of broadcast time with the names of six or eight sports. I'm not about to watch four or five hours of stuff I don't care about just so I don't miss something that might be of at least modest interest.

That said, my daughter and I did watch a half-hour or so of Olympic something-or-other that I stumbled across while channel surfing last Saturday. Russian and South Korean women's teams were playing some kind of indoor sport on a soccer-ish, but smaller, court/field that involved putting a soccer-ish ball into a soccer-ish, but smaller goal net. There was a half-oval-ish region in front of each goal marked out in a different color (butterscotch) than the rest of the playing surface (blue). At first, I thought the game was some kind of miniature indoor soccer, but the players mostly ran about with the ball in their hands. Once in awhile a player would bounce/dribble the ball ala basketball, but this didn't appear to be continuously required as in b-ball. My daughter and I watched this odd spectacle for over a half-hour in the ultimately vain hope that the two NBC motormouths providing the running commentary might deign to vouchsafe the name of this obscure (at least to me) sport. No such luck.

I don't remember being left comparably in the dark a half-century ago when, as a wee tad, I first saw curling broadcast on TV. That was a lot weirder-looking than this soccer-ish business in Beijing. But the commentators back in the day seemed inclined to stick the word "curling" into every other sentence, so even a grade-schooler like myself could quickly figure out, at least in general, what was going on. Of course that was on the late, great ABC Wide World of Sports.

I have tried to avoid even glimpsing any Olympics coverage since Saturday for fear I might stumble upon midgets in leiderhosen ridding on goats and chasing a docahedral ball with croquet mallets or something and be hooked into spending another fruitless half-hour or more waiting, probably in vain, for the NBC commentator-bots to slip up and say the name of the sport.

Georgia beats Russia at volleyball!

Now if you win you get this shiny medal made of gold
But if you lose Putin gets your soul...

(Okay, not the best parody of Charlie Daniels.)

Hi Rand Simberg ,
hope you are well, saw your
article in The Space Review and it was very
enjoyable to read,Are WE Driven To Explore ?
July 21/08.The exploring has been done,now it's
time for Colonization,Gerard O'Neill tells us
how to do it in The High Frontier.We've tripled
our population in the last 100 years, can we do
that again ? Doubtful.This would such a good
stategy for so many countries,start small and then
build larger Space Colonies, there's nothing to
stop us from building them as big as the largest
countries:Canada,U.S.China,Russia,Brazil,etcetera.
This would generate good jobs,nice homes,
dirt-cheap pollution free solar energy,no worries
from hurricanes,tornadoes,floods,tsunami-waves,
earthquakes.People will willingly leave the Earth
for a better standard of living, Please see
ssi.org. Take care,bye for now.John Hadden

Yeah, isn't it fun to watch yesterday's competition? Akin to watching the Superbowl on Monday.
Thanks to the internet, and Algore, I can follow the only Olympic story of interest, Michael Phelps!
Other than that, I'm reading Rand and listening to "Alligator Records 35x35"

My daughter and I watched this odd spectacle for over a half-hour in the ultimately vain hope that the two NBC motormouths providing the running commentary might deign to vouchsafe the name of this obscure (at least to me) sport. No such luck.

Team Handball

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Team_handball

And for the truth is stranger than fiction dept.:

Men's field handball was played at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin at the special request of Adolf Hitler. It was removed from the list of sports, to return as team handball in 1972 for the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich.

I don't care about the Olympics either, but I'm all in favor of never hosting them.

They're a giant boondoggle and waste of money.

Hell, didn't Montreal just finish paying off its Olympic Stadium from 1976? Only took 30 years!

We're not watching, for political and boredom reasons. We might watch if the U.S. were hosting, but we actually haven't watched in at least a decade. Now, hubby who is a weightlifter (Olympic style) did watch the Hungarian weightlifter turn his elbow inside out, but on YouTube, not TV.

Who needs TV when you have YouTube? And we're not young.

Rand,

If it's intellectual prowess you want, maybe this is more your speed:
http://www.2008wmsg.org/

A friend of mine is on the US Go team.

The Olympics?
Are they going on now?

TO: All
RE: I'm NEVER Interested....

....liars and cheaters. Especially when they compound their problems by destroy their own peoples' rights. And MOST especially when they suborn my own interests. You listing Google? Cisco?

Regards,

Chuck(le)

I was never really into sports that much to begin with so they don't really hold that much of an interest for me. Although, I did follow them a bit during the Cold War.

One reason I rarely watch is that I don't like to see people in agony... folks have trained all their lives for the Olympics only to then slip, trip, burp, etc. and have all their hopes dashed in an instant. Yeah, real life is often like that, but I really don't enjoy seeing folks in pain.

That is your loss Rand. The Olympics are not what they are sold to be. But they are a wonderful exhibition of sport. What I love about the Olympics is that it takes off brand sports and gives them to me in once every four years. Would I want to watch world class swimming or gymnastics 16 weeks a year like I do football? No way. But once every four years it is spectacular. Same is true of track and field and gymnastics. I have been watching sports my entire life and I have never seen a more exciting event than the 4X100 meter men's freestyle the other night and have never seen an athlete quite like Michael Phelps.

That is your loss Rand. The Olympics are not what they are sold to be. But they are a wonderful exhibition of sport. What I love about the Olympics is that it takes off brand sports and gives them to me in once every four years. Would I want to watch world class swimming or gymnastics 16 weeks a year like I do football? No way. But once every four years it is spectacular. Same is true of track and field and gymnastics. I have been watching sports my entire life and I have never seen a more exciting event than the 4X100 meter men's freestyle the other night and have never seen an athlete quite like Michael Phelps.

I also stopped watching years ago. But not because I have no interest in the competitions - I agree with comments about how it's great to see the dedication, etc. of the athletes. But I stopped watching because the coverage became this Oprah-ized tearfest of special interest features with just a few seconds of actual competition. I loved watching actual competition! But quickly lost interest when the coverage stopped showing much of it.

Cheers-

That is your loss Rand. The Olympics are not what they are sold to be. But they are a wonderful exhibition of sport. What I love about the Olympics is that it takes off brand sports and gives them to me in once every four years. Would I want to watch world class swimming or gymnastics 16 weeks a year like I do football? No way. But once every four years it is spectacular. Same is true of track and field and gymnastics. I have been watching sports my entire life and I have never seen a more exciting event than the 4X100 meter men's freestyle the other night and have never seen an athlete quite like Michael Phelps.

That is your loss Rand.

Ummmm...no, it's not. There are opportunity costs to watching something in which I have little interest, when I could instead be doing something I enjoy.

I'm not particularly interested in sports in general. I follow Lions and Wolverine football, and Tigers baseball, but that's not from an interest in sports so much as an irrational tribal affiliation.

I rarely watch the Olympics either. However, in my case, it's not the events but the coverage. I won't watch two hours of "Olympics" to get perhaps 30 minutes of actual competition. I hate the saccharine-infused human interest stories even more than the increased number of commercials.

Not watching it either. I'm painting the hallway, it's more fun and productive. I have no idea when they might schedule and show the things that might interest me, but I'm not going to watch breathlessly and wait around for them to tell me.
TV is all bait-and-switch attention mongering, Chinese Communists are all corruption as is the IOC - the old detritus of Old Europe meets the ancient evil of monolithic oppression and together they are happy.
I was a swimmer and waterpolo player, did fencing and soccer in college - Phelps is an interesting phenomenon but not of my generation, waterpolo IMO is not really a watchable sport, and fencing is so fast it has to be shot in super slow-mo to even see the hit.
I'm watching paint dry instead, and it's satisfying.

Three words: women's beach volleyball.

If that doesn't get your attention and make you want to watch, you're dead.

Couldn't care less (especially about women's beach volleyball). The last time I was interested was 1996, because I was living in a dorm with international students and their perspectives were interesting.

And no, I am not "missing out" by choosing to listen to baseball instead of watching girls half my age and a full 12 inches shorter than me get bashed for being too old and too tall. Good grief, that's just wrong.

I've tried watching the Olympics but NBC seems determined to keep me uninterested. They still seem to think that people on the west coast have no way to find out what the results of any of the competitions are until they show them to us three hours after the conclusion. The "reporters" slobbering over everything China is also a bit stomach turning. Every time I turn on the tv I see the women's beach volley ball team win but they don't appear to be any closer to a medal. Less talk more sports until then i'm stuck watching synchronized diving because my wife thinks it's pretty.

I might consider watching if those weenies would put the shooting competitions on TV. But they never have, so forget it.

It's good late night watching when you've got a newborn to attend to, because it's not an infomercial. Also, it's fun to watch the US do well in spite of the environs. You know the cards are stacked against them. It's like watching for Red Sox highlights on the YES Network.

TO: jblog
RE: Not Necessarily

"Three words: women's beach volleyball.

If that doesn't get your attention and make you want to watch, you're dead." -- jblog

And certainly NOT if you're married to a woman who reminds you of the female lead in Life Force.

Regards,

Chuck(le)
P.S. Eat your heart out.....buckie....

P.P.S. [OT] Methinks your 'relationship' with Movable Type should, shall I say...."move on".....

Also not interested.

I avoid the human interest stories by going to the NBC website and playing the video of the races.

I wasn't going to watch any events but then I discovered the Olympics add-in for Vista Media Center. The events I choose download for viewing at any time on my HDTV or PC. The best part is the lack of commercials and filler material, and the few that exist can easily be skipped. I'm only watching events with USA athletes and so far it's been great. I tuned out of cable and satellite years ago and the only way I could watch is via internet.

For tom swift - I've been watching all the shooting and archery events - you're missing out.

poor weightlifter

I caved on the fouth day and started watching. Its incredibly boring, but there is not a damn thing else on tv. I do not care about Phelps but I did notce that a japanese gymnist by the name kohei uchimura is a cutie pie so I rooted for his team instead of the US.

when did they start, last friday ? since then, besides work i have been paying a lot of attention of whats going on in Georgia, went running, played tennis a couple of times and had a great soccer match this evening.
why would i want to see OTHER people in sports, especially on TV ? ? i can find dozen other better uses for that time.

I got a big HDTV so I tuned in for the opening ceremony. It was spectacular... and frightening. I don't know if it is a Chinese thing or a ChiCom thing, but the massed groups of drummer and dancers was a bit intimidating and I think they meant it that way.

I gave up on the olympics when they started acting like twirling ribbons while prancing on a padded floor was a "sport".

I'm "watching" the Olympics in Japan. The opening ceremony was OK. I agree the mass coordination of the masses was intimidating (and probably intentionally so). Since actual sports began the following day, I've only watched replays of Japanese who've won awards. When a Japanese wins something, there's always a little text news flash accompanied by some beeping on the TV, which makes me look to see what's going on (I'm assuming it's "Georgia's now officially Russia, again," but so far it hasn't been).

The Olympics are popular in Japan. I think it's partially because Japan is a homogeneous island nation with minimal immigration. The Olympics is a special time when Japan can feel "We are the World" and rub shoulders with photogenic foreigners before getting back to the long-term happier reality of not, of being happy being surrounded by other Japanese only, all doing their thing in their own Japanese way.

My college students always ask who I root for: Japan or the US. I tell them I rarely watch the Olympics (well, the luge is an exception, only because I want to do it) but root for Japan, unless it's US vs. Japan, in which case I root for the US. They're hep to that.

Perhaps if you just are ignoring the Olympics you are missing their intent.
Cities and states compete to host the Olympics, but I see that as the only political element in the olympics in general.

We have just returned from Beijing after watching gymnastics, judo, greco-roman wrestling, fencing, and weightlifting. I want all my daughters to be exposed to this incredible level of competition because it is a beautiful illustration of mental accuity, not just the physical. You win because of the way you think, and more so when you are exhausted and you think you can do no more. Winners are those who bring their greatest efforts up from deep inside and win sometimes heroic victories. The Olympics is where you see those who will never give up and know their failures are only their own and no one else's.

I was talking with my daughter about this when we watched the Hungarian wrestler momentarily lose his mental composure and his oppontent took him to the matt and pinned him. I told my daughter the Hungarian knows about his mistake and lost his probable gold medal because of that one singular mistake he can never take back.

The games were full of competitors that came through with the greatest performances of their lives - culminating lifetimes diligent preparations in pursuit of their dreams. They like all others are measured in the Olympic venues against all others whose efforts have brought them this far, by the way they think, for almost anyone can get in great physical condition. Thinking makes the ordinary man a world class athlete. 95% or more is mental. These, not the politicals, the liars, the demagogues, the men who would be king, are the heroes of our day.

Here's a smallish example or the importance of mental preparation. In college I decided (not "hoped" or "tried") that I would earn the coveted varsity athletics lettermen's sweater. I was not good enough for wrestling, my high school sport, nor tall enough for light weight crew. I settled on boxing knowing I was responsible for my own performance and would win or lose by my own hand.
For a year I lived boxing and made certain I was in shape. Once physically able, my battle was mental, and I won. Today it is still one of my greatest accomplishments, and I use the lessons I learned then for the things I do now. Had I not set that goal for myself then I would not be in my present position.
So, poo-pooing the Olympics or athletis in general as just a battle of titans, is to do so from ignorance of its great benefits to mankind.

Finally, a note on the Beijing Olympics. The Chinese Olympic Committee is doing a masterful job of putting on this spectacular event. They took care of everything in such a wonderful friendly, professional way. They have 100,000 volunteers at every corner, every attraction, every subway stop, many of the bus stops, and booths all oever the place for other information; and a transportation system that is easy and simple to navigate, first class venues and an astounding array of other ittle things they have taken care of that we would overlook.
Security is first class polite and not overbearing and I would expect the same measures to be in place if the Olympics were in the USA, so I take issue with the zillions of nay-sayers spouting about the extraordinary Chinese security which they said would percipitate a "no-fun" Olympics.
The critics are only critics. The Beijing Olympics memorable and professional, and FUN. We had a GREAT time. Tonight, its to the Equestrian events in Hong Kong. We can't Wait.....

"I'm not paying any attention to the Olympics, either. ... It's not political--I'm just thoroughly uninterested."

Hear hear!

"The worst part is listening to the news anchors fall all over themselves with praise for the Chicoms."

As I quickly scanned the posts, I first thought that last word in the corner of my eye was "Clintons."

In the interests of marital harmony I have been watching most nights. Fortunately the overproduced, saccharine bios that took up 90% of the last olympics coverage has been toned down significantly. It's still there but not quite as bad. But yeah, I couldn't understand tonight why there was almost exclusive coverage of the women's marathon. Nothing wrong with it but they practically covered the whole race from start to finish. Surely there were other activities they could cut over to.

Glad to find that I'm not alone in ignoring the Olympics, furthermore that a reputable rocket scientist and professional mensch is on my side .. maybe we all should have performed a networked Evoloterra ceremony on the Opening night - which would have been more meaningful and substantial. All the best to you. Daniel L