Looks like yendi has a case of the Mondays

[yendi]

Gah.

Have a class to teach at nine. Likely no backup (given the time and the fact that one person's out of town), and fifteen registered students (by which I mean faculty). I've run the batches I need to set things up, I've made copies, and I'll check the room out as soon as I'm able. The real problem? The coffee place in the library doesn't open until 9. Which means no more coffee before the class. Grrr.

Anyway, some very quick notes, mostly about weekend TV:

1. Arrested Development became yet another figment of Tommy Westphal's imagination! If it's going to end, I can think of few better ways than with these four episodes, which were just hysterical.

2. NBC's Olympics coverage blows goats. Seriously -- every time the show comes on, you can hear the sound of goats getting tumescent in a three-mile radius. Between the lack of knowledge, the bullshit tape delays (let's pretend that Italy's in the Eastern Time Zone!), and the repetition (take a drink every time Scott Hamilton mentions the new scoring system!), they're doing their damnedest to suck the fun out of things.

3. JLU. Oh dear god, that was fun. I loved so many aspects of that episode, from the subtle references to Barry, to the underscoring of the differences between Flash and so many other heroes. And we finally saw Linda!

4. For those of you snowed in in the NE, you're in our thoughts. Stay warm!

Off to set up the room.

Comments

[fmh.livejournal.com]

Anybody else notice...and you'd have to be a serious comic geek to pick up on it...in that JLU ep., as they're panning over the bar full of rogues, that the two guys sitting at the bar are the same guy?
Yeah. It's Mr. Element and Dr. Alchemy, which is the same guy at two different points in his 'career'.
I know, you could toast marshmallows in the geek-rays I'm emitting.

[crwilley.livejournal.com]

I'm so happy to live somewhere I can get Canadian TV. The CBC coverage of the Olympics has been infinitely better than anything on American TV for as long as I can remember.

[stevietee.livejournal.com]

I saw the part where the guy was announcing Michelle Kwan leaving the team, and he was acting like she was the Olympic Messiah. What a maroon.

[fujerica.livejournal.com]

I just watch the Olympics with the sound off. The coverage has sucked for so damn long, the only thing I enjoy listening to is how they pronounce some of the Scandinavian names.

And then there's the commercials every other athlete. GRR There are times, and this is one of them, that I wish they'd go ahead and save all the commercials to one hour-long show and play that at like 7pm or whatever. I know that's common practice in other countries.

[digriz.livejournal.com]

You forgot the wonderful "3-commercials between each individual performance" thing. Which leads to them skipping over stuff, which leads to confusion like "Huh? But, so-and-so was in the lead a few minutes ago, when did this person take over?"

I remember when they tried their "Red, White, and Blue" 24-hour, all-event channels in 88 (84?). It flopped then, but that's because pay-per-view cable was in its infacy. I'm fairly certain that a similiar scheme would be *highly* successful now, especially as people like me would get a cable box and pay for those channels just to avoid the stupidity that is NBC broadcasts.

I also like how Bob Costas (and Hamilton, although he was basically not there) did a nice 10-minute interview with Michelle Kwan. It aired *ONCE*, and they never replayed it, not even during the brief career retrospective later on. I had to go onto their horrid-ass website and fight with Windows Media Player DRM to watch it.

Having said all that, I'm not sure any of the other networks would be better. ESPN would be all-Berman, all-the-time, along with their wonderfully useless graphics and charts and updates that take up 90% of the screen. ABC would be similiar, only using John Madden. ("And as he comes over the hill, *BOOM* he missed that jump. Let's rewind it 100 times.") I don't think CBS remembers when they used to be good, and the less said about Fox, the better. (I'm imagining "Stories" like "When French Judges Go Bad".)

[yendi]

Heh. Yeah, I caught that one, and the presence of the Pied Piper. Also loved the fact that we got confirmation that this was the James Jesse Trickster.

And aside from the fact that Wally has Barry's old job (which I love!), didn't his (as I recall) unnamed supervisor seem awfully like a certain Silver Age Police Scientist?

[yendi]

Man, I wish I could get any coverage other than NBC's. I'm just happy for teh intarweb, which at least gives me reasonably up-to-date news.

[yendi]

I swear, it's like they had a contractual stipulation to have Michelle Kwan news at least eight hours a day.

[yendi]

I'm mixed on that. I think the commercials are overdone, but if they did that, no one would watch any of the commercials at all (not that I do anyway, but at least I record 'em and fast forward through them).

[yendi]

It was '88 (I think), and it was still my favorite US coverage to date. I'd kill to see it now.

As far as other chanels go, I'd like to just see them toss it to BBC America.

[chris-walsh.livejournal.com]

I'm thinking it was 1992 Barcelona (I remember seeing the ads for the service while I was at home, and I was home for the Barcelona games in '92, whereas I was traveling and not watching the Olympics on TV in '88). I'm blanking on what the special name for the pay-per-view broadcasts was, though ("Red, White and Blue" doesn't sound right).

Blast. My pop culture-fu is usually stronger than this...

But semi-related, I'm proud of how 1996 Atlanta went, and while I'm forever mad at the murderous asshat who bombed it (seeing that footage made me ill), it seemed to pull together people to make the games go on happily. Middle finger to the people who try to ruin good things!

[yendi]

I think you're right. I just knew it was after '84 for certain.

;96 was surprisingly well-organized. Of course, it was also one of the rare Olympiads where the networks actually showed things live. :-)

[chris-walsh.livejournal.com]

True on the "showing things live, score!" thing. Why why why did TV show so much of Salt Lake City '02 on tape delay? That was especially weird for those of us not only on the West Coast, but literally straight down the freeway from Salt Lake (Get on I-84 east out of Portland and keep going 'til it ends, and voila! SLC).

[digriz.livejournal.com]

Ah, found it. It was the Olympics Triplecast (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triplecast), featuring the Red, White, and Blue channels. And you're right, it was '92, not '88.

Given the rise of Tivo and cable-DVRs, Satellite TV (and things like "NHL Center Ice" and "NFL Gameday" packages), and what we've seen of the networks over the last dozen years, I'm pretty sure it would be more successful this time around. [Of course, that would suppose that NBC wouldn't screw it up...]

[chris-walsh.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the info and the link. Ah, the magical year of 1992, when I made sure to be home from school in time to watch Sheryl Atkinson on afternoon CNN...

[fujerica.livejournal.com]

My understanding is that... since there are no commercials at any other time, people do actually watch the "commerical hour" or whatever. But I wouldn't even mind commercials ever 20 minutes or so, even longer commercial breaks, just so long as it wasn't every 5 minutes or whatever that you get with bigtime coverage events.

re: Olympic coverage in specific... we were watching the pairs figure skating short programs, and there was a Polish couple skating -- and the announcer actually started talking about how the woman of the pair was from Auschwitz, "Famous for being the site of a Nazi death camp during WWII and the regime of Hitler". I was yelling at the screen, "SHUT UP!!! SHUT UP!!!", because there is simply no reason whatsoever to bring that up at all. He could have just said she was from "central Poland" or "they train in blah blah blah city". There's no reason to bring up that her hometown is a former extermination camp for the Nazis. I'm not squeamish about this at all, mind you, I just found it in poor taste to be bringing that kind of subject up while they were out there being Olympians and stuff.

[gladstone.livejournal.com]

What were the Barry Allen references? I'm not up on my DCU history, I'm afraid. I enjoyed the episode, but I'm sad that I'm not geek enough to catch all the subtleties.