The Official 2012 London Olympics Backlash Thread

[indesertum]

! my roommate has a copy of consider the lobster that lies next to my bed. i look at the cover every morning when i scramble to turn off the alarm. i should read it. i've read the gourmet magazine article.

 

[erictheobscure]

^ "Consider the Lobster's" good, but you might want to start with "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again" (the very long title essay of the book of essays by the same name). It's one of the only things I've ever read that made me laugh out loud repeatedly. Seriously ******* funny. I don't really do contemporary fiction, but I've had the chance to teach a few DFW short stories. The guy was off-the-radar smart. Can't believe he taught at my alma mater for a while (but showed up after I graduated).

 

[munchausen]



That is a pretty crazy connection! What school if you don't mine me asking? The story is called How Tracy Austin Broke My Heart. I would recommend just buying Consider the Lobster. It's definitely worth it.
And i still hate NBC's coverage, but it is getting a bit better as far as showing a few more sports than they normally do. I haven't seen any weightlifting yet though. Really hoping they show the velodrome track cycling. That's always a blast to watch.

If you watch during the day, the coverage is much better. It's the prime time that is horrible. I still prefer the commentator free online feeds.

Pissed I didn't get to see the Women's gymnastics finals today. I was hoping to be doing office work that would at least allow me to listen live, but I ended up in meetings all day.

 

[Pilot]



If you watch during the day, the coverage is much better. It's the prime time that is horrible. I still prefer the commentator free online feeds.
Pissed I didn't get to see the Women's gymnastics finals today. I was hoping to be doing office work that would at least allow me to listen live, but I ended up in meetings all day.

I watch stuff throughout the morning and day, then evenings before bed. I'm sure women's gymnastics will be on NBC all tonight.

 

[Lord-Barrington]

Can't believe the Olympics thread has turned into a DFW love-in.

Guy was one of the most overrated authors of his generation.

 

[Lord-Barrington]

Back to the Olympics:

Aly Raisman's parent's look crazy.

 

[erictheobscure]

..

 

[fir3fox]



So I know this is supposed to be a backlash thread but I really did enjoy, for once, the backstory and success of Missy Franklin.
How refreshing to see an actual amateur athlete, with a normal looking, well-adjusted family, taking it all.

Same here, she seems like an awesome girl.

I just hope NBC doesn't overload me with it.

 

[Lord-Barrington]



Same here, she seems like an awesome girl.
I just hope NBC doesn't overload me with it.

Oh, they will milk it for all it's worth.

I still prefer NBC to Canada's TSN broadcast which is 30% sports and 70% the anchors doing shtick/comedy routines. I don't know who told these overgrown tweens that we would rather listen to their crap than watch Olympians perform, but they seem to think they are pretty hot stuff.

 

[Pennglock]

Americans revere athletic excellence, competitive success, and it’s more than lip service we pay; we vote with our wallets. We’ll pay large sums to watch a truly great athlete; we’ll reward him with celebrity and adulation and will even go so far as to buy products and services he endorses.

But it’s better for us not to know the kinds of sacrifices the professional-grade athlete has made to get so very good at one particular thing. Oh, we’ll invoke lush clichés about the lonely heroism of Olympic athletes, the pain and analgesia of football, the early rising and hours of practice and restricted diets, the preflight celibacy, et cetera. But the actual facts of the sacrifices repel us when we see them: basketball geniuses who cannot read, sprinters who dope themselves, defensive tackles who shoot up with bovine hormones until they collapse or explode. We prefer not to consider closely the shockingly vapid and primitive comments uttered by athletes in postcontest interviews or to consider what impoverishments in one’s mental life would allow people actually to think the way great athletes seem to think. Note the way “up close and personal” profiles of professional athletes strain so hard to find evidence of a rounded human life -- outside interests and activities, values beyond the sport. We ignore what’s obvious, that most of this straining is farce. It’s farce because the realities of top-level athletics today require an early and total commitment to one area of excellence. An ascetic focus 37. A subsumption of almost all other features of human life to one chosen talent and pursuit. A consent to live in a world that, like a child’s world, is very small.


Read more: http://www.esquire.com/features/sports/the-string-theory-0796#ixzz22FUYoNT8

 

[munchausen]



You could say much the same about people who reach the pinnacle in almost any field.

 

[edmorel]

Ok thats it. I'm facking done with gymnastics and swimming. Because of NBC, I now hate the Fab Five, swimmers Schmidt, Locthe, Phelps, the male gymnastics team and the gymnastics parents. WTF is up with NBC, all swimming/gymnastics in primetime???

 

[Pilot]

Love how during NBC Nightly News they didn't mention hardly any other country besides a nice little jab at China getting 4th in women's gymnastics. Take that China!

 

[Rambo]



Ok thats it. I'm facking done with gymnastics and swimming. Because of NBC, I now hate the Fab Five, swimmers Schmidt, Locthe, Phelps, the male gymnastics team and the gymnastics parents. WTF is up with NBC, all swimming/gymnastics in primetime???

Its all about what's going to capture the most eyeballs. Phelps was the biggest story last time and he's the biggest one still. No one really cares about men's gymnastics. The women are the only ones that matter. At least until the men finally win something.

 

[edmorel]



Its all about what's going to capture the most eyeballs. Phelps was the biggest story last time and he's the biggest one still. No one really cares about men's gymnastics. The women are the only ones that matter. At least until the men finally win something.

yeah but phelps has been a dud. the qualifying rounds of the gymnastics are incredibly boring tv. The Fab Five have been bad also. Maybe NBC should be a bit dynamic in its programming and when events are boring or there little hollywood stories aren't working out, go to another ******* event. Its all recorded, they can show us pretty much anything that happened during the day. At this point, I'd rather a few hours of air pistols/archery then more swimming/gymnatics.