The olympics

No thread about this yet?

I'm not planning on spend a lot of time in front of my TV or watching internet TV on my 2nd pc monitor. But I did watch the female 48 kg weightlifting competition, they really impressed me. Tiny women, most of them shorter than 150 cm, but the best of them lifted up to 114 kg, far more than I could handle. Heck, they could have lifted me, at 191 cm/100 kg.

little pibbur

Watched the opening - a great thing ! How they transformed the landscape into … - Wait ! I don't want to spoil anything !

If you can see the first half of the show on Youtube or so (don't know if its there), then do so !

Watched the USA-Columbia Womens soccer match. What a dirty, whiny batch of players Columbia has assembled. A total cheap shot given to Wambach and clamoring for a card everytime a foul was committed, no matter how minor. Glad Wambach got to score and we shut out that disgraceful batch. If thats how these women play during the Olympics, i can imagine how they play in league competition. I won't post details on the Mens 400M IM in case anyone hasnt seen it yet.

I loved the funny stuff in the opening and the way the flames all came together to form the cauldron was great symbolism. The rest, though….

(OK OK, I'm just bitter because Voldimort (sp?) got a huge character but there wasn't a single Dalek in the whole show. HMPH!! If only a few had shown up and exterminated a few Mary Poppinses...)

I'm on-call for work which means I'm semi stuck around the house (15-20 minutes away from computer is acceptable) so I thought I'd watch some Olympics and catch up on gaming and house chores.

<rant>Hate to be another American complaining about NBC but they suck (not as bad as previous olympics mind you). They only show like cycling, soccer and tennis all day on tv. So fine I'll use the streaming video on nbc website. Way too many clicks later and I since have comcast and apparently have a package to allow streaming so I should be able to watch using that means.

Apparently most sports are available live if I want to watch at 1 am in the morning and most are available after the event is completed but not the popular ones. I can almost understand not showing today's results until after primetime though I don't agree with it. But they are still blocking gymnastics and volleyball from yesterday on top of diving, gymnastics and swimming from today. I get that its all about money but do they really have to be so obviously money grubbing about it. Just show some ads in the stream and give me content like you do for everything else now. </rant>

Otherwise I enjoyed watching fencing, judo, archery and kayak events. Not stuff I would normally watch but fun never the less. I had a roommate that fenced so there is a tad bit of a connection.

I get 8 cable (fox) channels, plus the free to air channel for live coverage of nearly every sport, with regular replays of the major medals. Not bad.

Corwin said:

I get 8 cable (fox) channels, plus the free to air channel for live coverage of nearly every sport, with regular replays of the major medals. Not bad.

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same here, never thought i would watching archery!

Zloth said:

(OK OK, I'm just bitter because Voldimort (sp?) got a huge character but there wasn't a single Dalek in the whole show. HMPH!! If only a few had shown up and exterminated a few Mary Poppinses…)

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Hear, hear! There was not even a police box standing about. Yes, it could have been invisible at the time, but still. Major oversight in my humble opinion.

Still, the show was marvelous, especially the first two parts. Wasn't too fond of the pop/rock music history though.

I didn't like the pop/rock history either.
But Ialmost think it was necessary - so many movements began in Great Britain ...

Haven't seen anything too interesting so far. I wanted to watch the weightlifting, but it wasn't being shown during any of the times I had a chance to check.

Watched some table tennis today though.

pibbur who said:

No thread about this yet?

I'm not planning on spend a lot of time in front of my TV or watching internet TV on my 2nd pc monitor. But I did watch the female 48 kg weightlifting competition, they really impressed me. Tiny women, most of them shorter than 150 cm, but the best of them lifted up to 114 kg, far more than I could handle. Heck, they could have lifted me, at 191 cm/100 kg.

little pibbur

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Wow, you're a big dude.

I had pictured you as a semi-frail old man

NBC apparently didn't know who Tim Berners-Lee was (and suggested viewers 'google' him.. how ironic..). They also cut the 7/7 tribute, and appeared to suggest their viewers wouldn't be able to understand an unedited ceremony showing.

*sigh*

Luckily, as a Brit, I got to see the whole thing, including an acquaintance who was in the Chariots-recreation beach running scene with Rowan Atkinson.

Fabulous ceremony.

Arhu said:

Hear, hear! There was not even a police box standing about. Yes, it could have been invisible at the time, but still. Major oversight in my humble opinion.

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They played the TARDIS sound briefly, the Dr Who theme was cut due to time constraints. There was a LOT in it - I missed loads I'm sure, I hope they do a break down one day because there was so much there, some quite hidden.

PS does the BBC iPlayer work outside of the UK? If so, whole ceremony is here (including HD version):
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01l4ldk/Olympic_Ceremonies_London_2012_Opening_Ceremony/

Wife and I were watching the synchronized diving last night and determined we have no clue how that event is scored. Last night and on the 3rd or 4th dive, the Chinese team seemed like they were a bit off on their synchronization, basically the diver on the right entered the water while the diver on the left was easily a foot still out of the water. Yet they got 9.0's across the board for Synchronization. Our girls went next, looked like they were damn near perfectly synchronized (and entered the water at the same time) and yet got 8.0s for Synchronization. The Canadians went next and looked off, plus the black girl was all over the place (it looked like she went nearly 45 degrees out from the board, closer to her team mate, rather than straight out), yet got 8.5's?

blatantninja said:

Wife and I were watching the synchronized diving last night and determined we have no clue how that event is scored. Last night and on the 3rd or 4th dive, the Chinese team seemed like they were a bit off on their synchronization, basically the diver on the right entered the water while the diver on the left was easily a foot still out of the water. Yet they got 9.0's across the board for Synchronization. Our girls went next, looked like they were damn near perfectly synchronized (and entered the water at the same time) and yet got 8.0s for Synchronization. The Canadians went next and looked off, plus the black girl was all over the place (it looked like she went nearly 45 degrees out from the board, closer to her team mate, rather than straight out), yet got 8.5's?

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Were the dives all the same difficulty level?

kalniel said:

Were the dives all the same difficulty level?

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No idea, I'm no expert, but there are two categories for scoring, execution and synchronization so I would think the difficulty factors more into the former than the latter.

DArtagnan said:

Wow, you're a big dude.

I had pictured you as a semi-frail old man

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<BoomingVoice>
A mistake few lived to regret!!
</BoomingVoice>

pibbur who admits nobody has actually mentioned how they pictured pibbur before

I think diving is measured against the pirouettes etc. they do ?

Huge drama in the women epee fencing semis. Something for the olympic history books.
Score is even in overtime. Korean girl won the lottery for the advantage, so the German woman had to score a point. Within the last 5 seconds both scored ca. 3-4 double hits, the last two with 1 second on the clock! After the ref called a stop, the clock ran to 0. Ref ordered the clock back to 1 second. German girl jumps forward and attacks with a double (first the other epee out of the way, then aim for the opponent). The clock runs down and the German hits. All at the same time … or not?
45 minutes of discussions, tears, an unsuccessful protest. The German advances to the final. The Korean girl refused to leave the fight zone after the final decision, she had to stay there during the discussion to make clear she had not yet accepted the decision, even after a direct order by the tournament director she refused to go. Got a yellow card and was close to a black card (disqualification). Thank god the referees had enough emotional intelligence not to force the issue.

A no win situation for the refs.
Yes, the German effectively had more than a second. But the only other decision (don't set back the clock) would have been even more unfair.
Was the German's action started before the clock ran down (then it's a correct hit) or was it two single blows and the second one started after the end signal? Who wants to decide this?

It's clear none of the fighters can be blamed. The German attacked until the very last moment, the Korean did what she could to survive the last moments.

Both should get the same medal, imho.

I call THIS incident/decision unfair and cruel.

And not having something to do wirth "fair play". Because this end result isn't "fair" in the original sene o this word.

At least according to your tale.

Was she North or South Korean?

Yesterday the North Korean women's soccer team delayed their match for over an hour because they were offended by a mix up that showed the South Korean flag next to their names. They refused to take the field until they received word from North Korean officials that it was "ok".