Olympics- Opening Ceremony

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I wasn't a fan of the "socialized medicine" bit with the kids on hospital beds. That seemed to be aimed at us. I don't really need to see Brits dancing out how much they love their health care.
 
Wife complained the other day that some news sites were "spoiling" the results before she could watch on NBC. I told her to just stop reading news sites and facebook if she doesn't want spoilers!

Then friggin NBC spoiled the results of a swim match last night 5 minutes before the race!!! THE SAME CHANNEL!!

WTH is wrong with these people? Giving the results BEFORE you air the event??
 
I was following a thread about the opening ceremony on my English s*ccer forum, and it was the complete opposite to this thread, they seemed to love it! That surprised me coming from a bunch of soccer hooligans, so I put it down to national bias.
Since then, I watched some of it again on the BBC website as it was when it was screened in it's entirety with the BBC narration. It was a completely different show when viewed with insightful context that was given when needed, and without trivial comments. The truth lies somewhere between excellent and boring, a composite of the two threads I have been following.
NBC made a truly awful job of editing it, then decided to let the Muppets narrate it and threw in some Ryan Seacrest and Justin Beiber for good measure, adding volumes of meaningless, moronic drivel.

They were definitely two entirely different shows.
 
You were expecting something from the U.K. (other than Monty Python) to be anything other than boring?

I haven't watched any of the Olympics at all this year.

Not enough car chases for you? Never mind, they inserted some Ryan and Justin to brighten it up for you. ;)

I wasn't a fan of the "socialized medicine" bit with the kids on hospital beds. That seemed to be aimed at us. I don't really need to see Brits dancing out how much they love their health care.

Being a bit self-important aren't you? They were showcasing something they like about Britain. Since the whole show was about them, I doubt they would put that in just to have a dig at the US. :drunk:
 
Wife complained the other day that some news sites were "spoiling" the results before she could watch on NBC. I told her to just stop reading news sites and facebook if she doesn't want spoilers!

Then friggin NBC spoiled the results of a swim match last night 5 minutes before the race!!! THE SAME CHANNEL!!

WTH is wrong with these people? Giving the results BEFORE you air the event??

It's starting to look like NBC have declined to buy the rights for any live coverage at all.
 
My wife and I began watching the opening ceremony...and we both started to fall asleep. We finally looked at each other, said, "This is a waste of time," and went to bed. I think the sleep was far better than the broadcast.

glenn514:mug:
 
Oh, I shouldn't have. But I turned on the closing ceremonies.

first up- a band called "madness" singing their 1982 hit "Our House" (badly). Does anybody remember that one-hit band? Or that song?

Followed by Ryan Seacrest?
 
Incidentally, the first time I went scrolling through the TV listings and saw "XXX Olympics," I thought it was for a porn parody. Which kind of makes sense, given that the Olympics logo this time around looks like Lisa Simpson giving a blowjob.

8605243BRq_o.jpg
 
Speaking of porn, they just had a nice tribute to John Lennon. followed by a live performance of George Michael.

Now, is it just me or does EVERYBODY laugh out loud when they hear the words "George Michael"? And then think of sexual predation and drugs?

Where are the British artists? Eric Clapton? Or even Rod Stewart? Seriously. George Michael?
 
I was *very* disappointed they didn't make John Lennon and Freddie Mercury into holograms. Seriously - they can make a Tupak hologram and sell tickets to his "concert", but they can't make Lennon and Mercury sing a duet for the Olympics? C'MON, MAN!
 
the_bird said:
Uh, George Michael is British. Pretty sure every band that's been involved tonight is Brit.

His british nationality is not in question, his status as an artist is.
 
If the Kaiser Chiefs REALLY wanted to invoke the spirit of The Who with their "Pinball Wizard" rendition, they should have driven one of those fool motorcycles into the Olympic pool.
 
If the Kaiser Chiefs REALLY wanted to invoke the spirit of The Who with their "Pinball Wizard" rendition, they should have driven one of those fool motorcycles into the Olympic pool.

Oh, C'mon. Sure, you wanted a Pink Floyd reunion, but heck they did you one better. There is a Spice Girls Reunion going on right now!!!!
 
Ok I gotta admit riding around a stadium on the roof of a mini looks like fun. Certainly more fun than riding around inside said mini.
 
How do you do a Queen "reunion," with Brian May and Freddie Mercury on the big screen, and *not* play "We Are The Champions?" At the freakin' Olympics?
 
I put pretty much everything on DVR. That way I get to skip Ryan Seacrest segments.
Got screwed last night though, when the DirecTV feed went off the air after an hour, with a message to switch to the non-HD channel. Which of course I didn't see since I wasn't watching in real-time.
 
The closing ceremony was pretty average IMO. On the plus side, when did you last hear the lyric "Life's a piece of ****" during any Olympic event? ;) I watched it live on the BBC website just like I did most of the Olympic games themselves. After seeing what a total mess NBC made of the opening ceremony and then even the games themselves I felt compelled to make the switch. NBC managed to make a total balls of everything they touched, which was a huge shame.
 
After seeing what a total mess NBC made of the opening ceremony and then even the games themselves I felt compelled to make the switch. NBC managed to make a total balls of everything they touched, which was a huge shame.

I'm glad I wasn't the only one who thought this. I thought NBC's coverage this year was atrocious. I can't tell you how many 100 and 200 meter heats and volley ball quarterfinal/semi-final matches that I saw but didn't see any field events like shotput, discus, javelin, or more obscure sports like sailing. The coverage was way more American-centric than in previous years - if an American wasn't expected to win a gold medal in it, then we didn't get to see the event. That and NBC found ways to spoil the results with it's Primetime Announcers and even commercials. I did find the coverage on NBC's other networks to be better, but still I was very disappointed.

Watching the final night last night, I found myself yelling at the TV. Why the hell is Seacrest interviewing athletes? Are you f'in serious!!??
 
I'm glad I wasn't the only one who thought this. I thought NBC's coverage this year was atrocious. I can't tell you how many 100 and 200 meter heats and volley ball quarterfinal/semi-final matches that I saw but didn't see any field events like shotput, discus, javelin, or more obscure sports like sailing. The coverage was way more American-centric than in previous years - if an American wasn't expected to win a gold medal in it, then we didn't get to see the event. That and NBC found ways to spoil the results with it's Primetime Announcers and even commercials. I did find the coverage on NBC's other networks to be better, but still I was very disappointed.

Watching the final night last night, I found myself yelling at the TV. Why the hell is Seacrest interviewing athletes? Are you f'in serious!!??

They made fun of that on The Soup. They told everyone to plug their ears, then put up a list of winners.
 
One last thought about the Olympics.

If the cable companies have room to squeeze in The NFL Network and NBA TV and countless other specialized sports channels, there should be a 24/7 channel dedicated to women's beach volleyball. Or as one (female) friend likes to refer to it, "Ass Volleyball."

I'd subscribe, or I'd at least buy a three-hour block while the_Wife and kids were away :D
 
I'm glad I wasn't the only one who thought this. I thought NBC's coverage this year was atrocious. I can't tell you how many 100 and 200 meter heats and volley ball quarterfinal/semi-final matches that I saw but didn't see any field events like shotput, discus, javelin, or more obscure sports like sailing. The coverage was way more American-centric than in previous years - if an American wasn't expected to win a gold medal in it, then we didn't get to see the event. That and NBC found ways to spoil the results with it's Primetime Announcers and even commercials. I did find the coverage on NBC's other networks to be better, but still I was very disappointed.

Watching the final night last night, I found myself yelling at the TV. Why the hell is Seacrest interviewing athletes? Are you f'in serious!!??

It was much less of a problem for me, being British, to watch a coverage that would obviously have a British bias towards the coverage. Ideally, I would have liked to be able to keep an eye on both Britain and the USA progress.

NBC made their coverage unwatchable from the viewpoint of anyone less than a redneck. I made the permanent switch to BBC coverage when NBC showed a medal ceremony in which the USA got Gold and bronze. They showed a cropped version of their feed in which you could only see the two Americans getting their medals. The poor foreign bugger that won the silver was off the screen, and totally disrespected.
 
NBC made their coverage unwatchable from the viewpoint of anyone less than a redneck. I made the permanent switch to BBC coverage when NBC showed a medal ceremony in which the USA got Gold and bronze. They showed a cropped version of their feed in which you could only see the two Americans getting their medals. The poor foreign bugger that won the silver was off the screen, and totally disrespected.

This is just inexcusable. The only time we got to see the other athletes was when the Americans went over to them and congratulated them, or if they broke down and cried because they lost. I'm ashamed of NBC, and hope the rest of the world doesn't think we are really that full of ourselves.
 
I relied on the streaming options to watch some of the more obscure sports or stuff that's apparently fallen out of favor for prime time. Sure you don't get announcers most of the time but that is usually a blessing in disguise since most of them are vapid stooges parroting the same 3 things off of the fact sheet in front of them. I think the coverage was mediocre at best and I had to laugh when they started putting commercial breaks in the soccer games.

I would really like to see them step it up for the next Olympics, being that they are in Brazil and infinitely more time zone friendly, and make live access of most events more possible on TV. I doubt that will happen though as when NBC looks at the Olympics they see a cash cow which needs to be exploited for maximum monetary gain, hence Ryan Seacrest playing a role in this years coverage...
 
TO be fair, spammers have been getting more capable of bypassing all sorts of registration & anti-spam measures. My local brew club forum had to move to the draconian method of Admin Activation Only for new forum accounts, because I was deleting about 20-30 spam users per day - of those hypothetical 20 users, 18 would have zero posts, but the other 2 users would have 50 junk posts each by the time I woke up and saw they were posting.

It's an ongoing battle and I don't envy trying to battle spam on this monstrously large of a forum.
 
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