At some point in history the Olympics were thought of as a pure: pure athleticism, pure sportsmanship (pardon the lack of gender neutrality), pure diplomatic harmony, pure naked Greek men wrestling with each other in Athens. Now it's not that the purity angle has diappeared, it's just that the qualifiers have been modified: pure marketing, pure cash grab, pure greed, pure exploitation, pure flag-waving, pure gentrification in whichever locale wins the multi-billion dollar bid. NBC has 1400 hours of television and 2200 hours of online coverage scheduled - that's 150 days of coverage at 24 hours a day. If you pump yourself up with enough eight balls to last you through to January 11 of next year, you can watch every minute of it. Perhaps the clearest example of this over-reaching grab for ad and sponsorship dollars comes from the fact the most popular track and field event (the Men's 100m) doesn't even take ten seconds to complete, yet you can be sure the tape delay will space out heats and fill in plenty of fancy CG screen overlays showing every statistic under the sun to make your watching of men and women doing something children do in playgrounds every day seem like the Daytona 500. Other than the opening ceremonies providing some "Honey! Get me an atlas" moments when Burkina Faso gets announced, the actual ceremony relates little to athletics and more to the Westminister Dog Show. I don't think we can expect a wardrobe malfunction. Everyone gets led around by gold, silver and bronze leashes preening for judges and audiences alike. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is holding a Breaking News conference when Canada's team announces its flag bearer. People are dying all around the world due to hunger, genocide and natural disasters and my country's public broadcaster is breaking to let me know who made 1st drum major on the varsity squad!?! Now don't get me wrong, I respect the training and dedication that people put into being the best they can be in any endeavour (not just athletics), so I'm not bashing the athletes, but isn't it ironic that some of the domineering succeed-at-all-costs parents we denounce on a daily basis are behind at least a few of these "success" stories. While I have no doubt that my television viewing will, at some point, glide past snippets of Olympic coverage, I have a few suggestions for making the events more interesting if a network wants me to watch its commercials: Archery - all archers (men and women) stand in a big circle facing each other, last standing wins the gold (no silver or bronze necessary) Baseball - any pitcher walking a batter gets thrown out of the game as does any hitter who strikes out. Game ends after nine innings or one defensive team cannot field a pitcher/catcher battery Basketball/Judo - all team players (including bench) on the floor at the same time, full contact - no fouls counted. Boxing - all fights until knockout Diving - from helicopters over shark-infested waters in the South China Sea, by dare and double-dare scoring system Equestrian - use brick walls and water jumps at least 25 feet deep Fencing - dressed as pirates, with non-blunted sabres, until significant blood is spilled Gymnastics - one large combined event that includes the pommel horse, rings, parallel bars, and all rhythmic gymnastic items with the addition of chainsaws, axes, bowling pins and torches... oh yeah, on ice Modern Pentathlon - change it back to archaic pentathlon... didn't it involve lions in a colisseum or something? All Martial Arts and Wrestling - to the death All Races (including Track, Cycling, Sailing, Horses, Swimming, Rowing) - one event, strictly endurance, last standing wins Shooting, Javelin, Hammer Throw, Shot Put, Discus (see Archery) Trampoline, Synchronized Swimming, Table Tennis, don't actually broadcast these events, but instead tell all the athletes they can just go home and tell everyone they won the gold. These would be Olympic events worth watching.
Episode One of a weekly audio podcast compiling some of the entries on lovehatethings... thanks Posterous!
Having lost more money, eaten more buffet food, cursed more expletives, taken every god's (and even a few goddesses) names in vain, my first comped Escalade limo rides to and from the airport (see below), walked up and down the Strip in heat that is only suitable for fallen angels, seen thousands of octogenarians "become one" with a slot machine (not often a pretty sight), wanted to hit a dozen twenty-something guys for standing on 12 when the dealer was showing a face card because their "expert" buddy told them they could bust if they take a card, aghast (yet often transfixed) on what passes as a "clubbing" dress for twenty-something women these days, felt pitied for my luck by several dealers and looked at with a "you stupid bastard - take the rest of your money and go to bed" look by others, been awoken by a fire alarm in my Strip hotel at 7:30am (after getting to bed at 5:00am) only to have it sporadically go off another dozen or so times over the next two hours, each time prompting me to scan the Nevada skyline for a mushroom cloud that may indicated re-instated atomic testing or expecting to hear "DIVE! DIVE! DIVE!" in U-boat fashion, and, finally, sat on a discount airline across from a screaming baby for 4.5 hours while trying to find 11 on my Nano's volume setting, I am still unsure about whether to love or hate Las Vegas.
I will try to refine my opinion after my visit in December.
* please don't think that a comped room and limo indicates that I'm a high roller of any sort. They seem to get more of my money every time and I believe my official status in their eyes has moved from "low-roller" to "not-so-low-roller".
Desk sweep (right to left): DVD boxset of every Star Trek film, Hewlett Packard printer manual, stack of old invoices and utility statements, unused disconnected inkjet printer, 200 CD/DVD binder (full), right-channel speaker, three stacks of compact discs, one stack of cassette tapes, three VHS tapes, scattered burned CDs and DVDs (some on spindles, some not), ball-point pen / AM/FM radio, CD/DVD labelling device, PC tower case (dual core, 500GB, 2GB RAM, DVD, DVDR), 7 port USB hub, external 800GB HD, wireless FM audio transmitter, All-in-one printer/scanner/copier (see aforementioned manual), USB cords (digital camera, 2GB I-pod shuffle, 8GB I-pod nano (3rd gen.), Motorola KRZR cellphone), 17” flatscreen monitor, cheap plastic hologram refraction simulator, property tax bill, digital camera mount, old but enduring stereo amplifier, cable modem, 3 CD spindle tops upturned and filled with assorted crap, cordless phone, box of business cards, two more stacks of CDs, left stereo speaker, spindle of REALLY old software CDs, a final stack of files, books, magazines and assorted papers topped with the Season One DVD boxset of The West Wing, and a box of Kleenex cleverly disguised by a plastic cover that resembles a stone head statue from Easter Island.
Okay, I like Digg... I guess you could say I dig Digg, mostly because I can often find stuff that's kind of interesting while only wading through 90% crap instead of 99.9%, but there's a certain point where one just has to give up on thinking that any type of aggregator, whether user-driven or automated by some crazy algorithm, is responsible for some sort of journalistic integrity. I really couldn't care less whether I ever get an article on the front page of Digg or not. Sure, I've sent in a couple of things in fits of boredom, but linking people to an article with an accompanying blurb isn't reporting or publishing or being creative. In fact, me getting my ya-yas out rambling and ranting about things I love and hate barely meets that threshold (but it helps keep the cobwebs out). If submitting a link to Digg becomes anything more than a hobby and studying back issues of the New York Post to come up with the perfectly crafted, yet scandalous headline becomes a second job - take a critical look at yourself in the mirror, then go lie down and listen to Timewind by Klaus Schulze.
People are sending open letters to Kevin Rose about how Digg's algorithm is somehow part of some vast conspiracy to shut certain people out. Guess what? If I send a letter to the New York Times, they don't have to publish it. In the same way, Digg doesn't have to "front page" anything it doesn't want to. The Dark Tipper came up with a great idea to make money on the web, and he's doing just that. Digg is not an autonomous collective where anyone and everyone gets a say about everything. Sure, you'll get to vote on things, but face it folks, Digg is a business. If they can generate a front page that will drive more banner ad pops, that's what they're going to do. More power to them. If you don't like it, code your own social news aggregator.
I know this isn't a new phenomenon. Our ancestors were bickering about media gatekeepers back to when fights broke out over who got the biggest piece of charred driftwood to draw on the best-lit section of the cave wall. Why should Digg be any different than any radio or television station that you don't like? If you think the Digg algorithm is conspiratorial, delete your bookmark and spend your time in a more noble pursuit: finding any mass medium that is unbiased. When it comes to obsession over expected integrity of Digg or mass media in general...
HATE
A casual flirtation with the wireless mouse incites
drop-down menus and radial buttons and pop-up advertisements about male
enhancements while I ponder an inexhaustible list of options upon choices upon
combinations made even more exasperating by the 56"-inch television that's
insisting upon a choice between a sappy police drama or the PIP baseball game
that's going to the seventh-inning stretch when I finally punch the send button
and am devastated twenty minutes later when my large pizza has bacon instead of
Italian sausage.