Cue the music

I'm writing about the Olympics here so I have the fanfare of the Olympic march ringing inside my head. I've never been quite sure if that's actually the Olympic march or just some TV theme music, but it's never mattered enough for me to actually find out. As opposed to, for example, the Bongo Cam music at Citizens Bank Park, about which I will not rest until I learn its secret source.

The Olympics have been both constant entertainment and a complete distraction from anything and everything I've wanted/been supposed to do. Good thing I was productive at the beginning of the summer, because I am finding that you simply cannot get much done if you spend 10 hours a day watching TV, no matter how gripping the spectacle.

My impression of the Olympics so far has been very positive. I know there is a fair amount of grumbling about the NBC streaming, to which I can only respond with a raspberry. Anybody want to pay for this stuff out of pocket? If not, then shut up already. Yeah, NBC was overly ambitious and the most popular events freeze up in some places at some times. Is this a surprise? Anyone ever try anything this extensive with this size audience before? The answer is simply no. There was no way this was going off without a hitch.

And I'm fine with them having all the major events on in prime time. It would seem like the only tweak that's needed is the policy of streaming everything live but then not making the prime time stuff available until after it's aired. That's tough to pull off if the streaming is not 100% reliable.

Anyway, I've been limiting my viewing pretty much to what's on TV. With the exception of the women's gymnastics all-round, I've avoided hearing who won virtually anything (NBC's research says that people are more likely, not less, to watch something whose result they know). I've stopped looking at news sites throughout the day, which is so refreshing that I might keep it up. So it's worked pretty well. I like Bob Costas, who early on looked at the camera and said, "We're back, but I guess that's obvious."

As for the events themselves, I guess I have to group them into categories. There are sports that I'm always interested in watching, like basketball and soccer (women especially) and gymnastics, those that I would watch if they were there in front of me, like cycling or swimming or track, and those that I care not a whit about but watch because it's the Olympics, like, well, everything else. Water polo, diving, table tennis, equestrian, fencing, crew, archery (team archery?), etc. Of those, by the way, the table tennis for me is the most fun. Those men and especially women who play are incredibly quick and agile.

And by the way, what the hell is that handball game? It's like someone looked at all the goal sports, like soccer, lacrosse and the hockeys, and said, yeah, but we need a version for people who aren't coordinated enough to use their feet or sticks. Let's let them run around and try to throw the ball into a net. It reminds me of when they were working up to teaching us volleyball in elementary school. First we play catch ball, where you throw it over the net and then catch it. Then you hit the ball over the net and then catch it, and only then do you attempt something volleyballlike. This is the Catch Ball of goal sports. So we dropped baseball and softball and kept this?

Okay, so I'll get on to the individual stuff in another posts. Time to watch some asynchronous diving. If you want some professional writing about which is the more awesome Olympic sport, swimming or gymnastics, I suggest you look here.