Another problem with the Olympics

Aside from the arguably more important problems with the Olympics that concern matters political and commercial, something I've noticed recently is that one of the reasons I don't join Jeannette for more Olympics viewing is that too many of the sports are just excruciatingly boring to watch (and the worst part is that they tend to show the boring bits and not the potentially exciting bits).

Now that I've taken time to think the matter over I've realized that watching top athlete after top athlete complete the same course makes for uninspiring viewing.  Unfortunately for the Winter Olympics, this seems to characterize most of the sports (hockey, curling, cross-country skiing [and derivatives], and snowboard cross being the main outliers). There's no drama.  And, most importantly, there's no real competition.

What's worse, is that not only do they insist on showing boring downhill run after boring downhill run, but they tend to focus on the final runs rather than the qualifiers.

This approach is problematic for at least two reasons.  Firstly, the efforts  of hundreds or thousands of Olympians go uncovered.  Secondly, and more importantly, by focusing only on the best athletes inexperienced viewers aren't shown the full range of athletic talent at the Olympics.  The fact that the best skiers routinely land their jumps would be even more impressive if we were shown the world's 30th-60th best competitors in the sport failing.  Furthermore, for those sports where style points are in play (and lets not even get into the issue of the overall classification of these events as sports) the distinction between the first and second best skiers in the world is often almost impossible to spot, while almost anyone should be able to spot the differences between the first and sixtieth skiers.

So it seems that not only have the Olympics given us many reasons not to watch for moral and political reasons, it's also the case that they just don't put on all that great a show.

Oh, and I also really don't like watching teenagers and young adults risking serious life-long injuries or death just to entertain me on a grey winter's afternoon.

Cameron - 15
Neil - 0

A Few Quick Notes 608

-Apparently it's -29 with the wind chill at the moment.  Because I haven't been outside (except when I reached out to grab the paper this morning) I'll have to take Environment Canada's word for it.  Of course, as we're in Regina it's quite sunny.

-Though the Olympics aren't my thing (actually, I quite dislike them), we've been a pretty Olympics oriented house since Jeannette returned home from work yesterday evening.

Because of the time difference I'm not sure if anything but tape-delayed replays will be available this evening.  If so, maybe that will be a good thing as most of the available content has already been viewed by the Olympics-watchers of this household.

-While Jeannette's been watching the coverage of the Olympics the cats have been hanging out on the foot of the bed.

Sometimes they were more clearly cuddling.

Has the more or less devolved into an excuse to post cat pics?  And, if so, is that a problem?

Cameron - 8
Neil - 0

What did the world have against rabbit ears?

The switch from analog to digital TV transmission isn't something that I have spent much time thinking about over the past few years.  If memory serves me correctly, the most time I spent thinking about issues relating to the switch were associated with a digital antenna installation I assisted with a few years ago.

Of course when I purchased a device for a computer monitor that also has the capacity to be a TV and Jeannette decided to use it to watch this summer's Olympics the recent switch to digital suddenly became important.  Not only did we need to make sure that we had an appropriate antenna, but we also have started to have to contend with a few of the problems inherent to digital broadcasting.

Firstly, it seems that our neighbourhood's namesake, Sandy Hill, is itself something of a problem for digital transmission.  I gather that this hill blocks a good number of residents from receiving any of the channels that should be available in the area (when I was buying an antenna the salespeople were even kind enough to point this out).  I'm sure that the ever increasing number of tall buildings in the area aren't going to help either.

Secondly, my limited experience with this new transmission format seems to suggest that one either has a version of the channel or they don't, no longer is one able to accept fuzzy transmission if a clear version of the channel isn't available.  This is definitely a bit of a bummer.

Thirdly, though our experience is limited, it seems that channels intermittently appear and disappear.  For instance, just a few minutes ago Jeannette was watching Olympic coverage when all of a sudden the channel disappeared with no warning.  Despite the fact that we've moved the antenna around and reset the equipment we haven't been able to regain the transmission.  Back in the good old analog days I don't remember ever having such problems, unless, of course, someone bumped the antenna.

Given the cost incurred by broadcasters and consumers and the number of problems viewers are having with this new service I can't help but wonder why such a change was initiated?  Who are the beneficiaries of this change?

Anyway, I just hope we don't have too many more problems with this stuff.  We're less than a day into the two-week long Olympics and I'm already tired of fiddling with our antenna.

Well, that didn't go quite as expected

I don't tend to follow Olympic coverage much as I am not a particularly big fan of the event, but I did get sucked into a recent story in the Globe and Mail about the process for determining the location for the 2016 summer games. According to the article, and image below, Chicago seemed to be the leading contender.

2016 Olympic Contenders

Imagine my surprise when I learned this morning that not only did Chicago not get the games, but that they were the first to be eliminated. It seems that Rio was the winning bid.