Call Me Fife

I know, weird title. Call it a clue to the random Disney reference included in this post just for S&Gs.

This post was supposed to be about how awesome the Olympics were in general, how fantastic the skating is, and how great the guys asses look. Like this:

"I've always really enjoyed the Olympic Games. ::) I like the summer games (gymnastics!) but the winter ones are my favorite. More of the sports are fun to watch (though last summer games I was surprised how much I liked the volley ball competition, and the swimming was more interesting then usual). I like how just like holidays or the super bowl everyone piles in to watch together. I like just sitting back for hours watching the events I like, crafting while listening to the ones I don't, and generally enjoying myself with my people.

The various forms of figure skating is my favorite sport, though I have grown to enjoy other events. Snowboarding, downhill skiing, occasionally short track skating, though that was mostly just to cheer on Ohno last time. I'll try any event if it seems interesting or there's someone in particular to check out/cheer on.

Let's not forget the opening ceremonies! Outside of the sports themselves this is my favorite part of any Games. Seeing what they come up with and how it's presented, how they pull it off and ESPECIALLY what they do for the torch lighting. (I still vaguely remember the one where the torch came up out of the water as the best). I wish I had kept the tapes of the few other ceremonies I had taped at one point. I wanted to have a tape of nothing but them. That would be awesome if there was a DVD collection somewhere, but I doubt it. It's one of those things you just never see on DVD, though I don't know why. I'D buy it, isn't that enough?? ::P

But as I said, my top favorite sport is ice skating. The skill (obviously) but also the costumes and music and routines, the whole package. There's so much more packed into the sport then others for me. It's the same feeling as when I watch So You Think You Can Dance. It's weird, but despite how much I enjoy the sport, I never remember to follow it every year. Even when we had cable, I'd just never get around to watching the aired competitions, or look them up online. I just always forget about it. So by the time the olympics roll around with all these fresh new faces that have become famous I never know who they are. It makes me appreciate the returning faces I do recognize all the more though.

Since I haven't been following the hype about the games up until now, the only one I recognized this year so far is Evgeny Plushenko. He didn't wow me as much as I expected he would back in 2010, but he's still one of the greats, I always look forward to seeing his routines -"

Unfortunately, it's not about that. Instead it's about how we haven't been able to see pretty much anything. Yet. I'm hoping we still have some luck on Youtube since we're a few days into it now.

Not having TV in the house isn't as big a deal as you'd think. Everything comes out on DVD pretty much, and what doesn't you can often find on YouTube. Then you have Hulu (whose alien commercials I still think are awesome). There isn't much you can't find on the internet.

Which just demonstrates that living without TV isn't a problem. Living without the internet, however....

As I mentioned in my superbowl post there are a few times when not having cable of some kind kinda sucks dirty bog water. Times when you'd really like to watch something the day it actually airs, but you can't and you'll be lucky if someone posts it online in one full video instead of minute long visual bites. The biggest of these are, of course, the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and other Thanksgiving showings, the Rose Parade, and the Olympics. Things that you won't be able to buy on DVD later.

We were thrilled when we saw that NBC would be running complete live coverage on the whole thing, but our happiness didn't last. Once again we ran into that 'have to have a cable account' thing. Sadly for us, this time it was real. Almost four routines into the coverage of the men's individual short program figure skating qualifications we got cut off. Apparently those without a cable account were allowed thirty minutes free on their first visit. After that we're allowed a full five minutes every day. How generous!

We tried YouTubing after that but of course it was so early on not much was up, and any video that was more then a commercial or a set of still photos was completely blank. We haven't really bothered much since then, partially out of disappointment and annoyance, partly out of the need to give it time for people to post stuff. We'll start sifting again in the next few days and see what's available.

Still, what the fuck? Seriously? It's really freaking annoying. Just what is the point in only being to watch if you have cable? Half the point of having it on the internet is so that we who don't have cable can still see it. For anything except the Olympics, which of course has too much going on to show all on tv, if we had cable we wouldn't need to see it on the internet in the first place. I really hope this doesn't become standard practice, because this is a rip off. We want to see too! (Disney reference, can you guess?) Guess it just sucks to be us.

Sigh. Ok, enough bitching. How about some rambling about what I did see instead? I don't pretend to be any kind of commentator, I just feel like talking. ::P

From what it sounds the opening ceremony was very well done. Two of the few clips that were actually viewable were a short clip of the horses in the beginning, and the rings opening up. Which were cool despite their malfunction. The technology used in the ceremonies always impresses me. I still remember the one in China (I forget the city, d'oh!) with the huge LED screen and the cube thing we all thought was machinery but was actually people! I appreciate the ingenuity involved a lot.

We caught exactly 3.75 of the men's individual short program qualification event before the free pass died on us. I wish we knew that was the first visit only ahead of time, we might have been more choosy on when we used it. Anyway, the ones we saw were Matthew Parr, Paul Benifacio Parkinson, Yakov Godorozha, and Evgeni Plushenko. Of those I liked Parr's costume the best, the last half of Parkinson's music was good, Godorozha had a pretty good routine and of course it's always a pleasure watching Plushenko jump. We weren't able to see it, but I read that our guy, Jeremy Abbott, screwed up thrice. Too bad, though Parkinson didn't do too much better. I was expecting him to miss all of his jumps after falling on the first two.

I don't know if doing poorly or somewhat poorly is good or bad so early. It can either throw off the rest of your game or destroy you entirely, or give you that "I've already done my worst" attitude that maybe hauls you back up. Nervewracking. I'd probably never do well in a competition.

I suppose I can still include a short word on asses, too. ;;) I admit a lot of my attention was on the butts. I know, shallow considering I should be paying attention to the skill and artistry, and I was, trust me. But come on, a lot of those moves they're leading with their rear, and when the camera is rightthere I'm gonna pay attention. ::P Those costumes seem to be designed to make most of their butts look great. Their legs too. Though occasionally those high waist ones don't do great things for the abs. How can athletes like that look like they have pudgy abs?

Of course TPU was unenthused while TMU and I stared intently at the screen. ::P Dusty joined me for awhile. She was annoyed that I was sitting at the computer instead of the chair where she could sit in my lap, and employed a pitiful cry to express that. I plopped her up with me on the work in progress t-shirt rug TMU had started and she settled down in my arms while we watched. Figure skating and a purring feline, it doesn't get much better then that. ::)

Next post will probably be moar chickens and a bit of random yard stuff. I haven't done as much as I would like for Valentine's Day, so I thought I'd just save it all for a couple posts clustered around the day itself rather then post when I actually do it.

Here endeth the post.