Mandatory Olympic viewing.

[T_Bone]

My wife made me watch.

I can feel my brain trying to escape out my ear.

[Glaucus]

I have the opposite problem. I almost never watch TV as just about everything on TV is crap, so I've had a hard time finding time to watch the Olympics. However, what I have seen has been rather exciting. I'm looking forward to the Marathon on Sunday. To be honest, I hope they release highlights on DVD.

Oh, and if you're wondering why all the channels are showing the Olympics it's because most people actually enjoy watching them. There's money in numbers.

  - Mike

[Speelgoedmannetje]

T_Bone wrote:
My wife made me watch.

I can feel my brain trying to escape out my ear.

poor sod :lol:
Well, I think looking looking at a sprinter or swimmer or whatsoever finishing 10 milliseconds earlier than his opponent is as fun as looking at a surgical operation on telly during dinner time.

[Tigger]

Wayne wrote:

Who had the bright fscking idea that every single channel should show the same goddamned boring displays of "I'm better and faster than you and can wave a flag to get on yet another TV channel and interrupt your day"?

Gee Wayne, since when did 5 channels out of the well over 100 you have on your cable system become every single channel??  Your soaps arent on for these two weeks, because the Olympics draws alot more viewers, which means the TV stations and the cable operators and the channel owners make more money by showing the olympics.  The Athens Olympics has won every single time slot its been shown on in the US, so it would be idiotic to not show as much as possible during the 2 week Olympics.  
   -Tig

[Ilwrath]

Oh, and if you're wondering why all the channels are showing the Olympics it's because most people actually enjoy watching them. There's money in numbers.

Certainly there's money in numbers, and the olympics work well for numbers.  And, honestly, I don't really have anything AGAINST the olympics, I'm usually just kind of oblivious to them.  (And, honestly, I was confused why my TiVo didn't pick up several things it usually grabs every week!  I didn't put it together until that post!)

I think the olympics are probably better for "having the TV on" vs. really "watching the TV."  They are fine for background at the local bar while having a few drinks with your friends.  But I couldn't sit down and actually pay attention to the most events of the olympics any more than I could the "World Strongman competitions" or the "X-Games" or any of the other semi-competition nonsense that airs...  

Of course, for actual sport, I plan on watching at least a few games of the World Cup of Hockey coming up...  So maybe I'm just weird.  :lol:

[Ilwrath]

Well, I think looking looking at a sprinter or swimmer or whatsoever finishing 10 milliseconds earlier than his opponent is as fun as looking at a surgical operation on telly during dinner time.

HAHAHA!  My friend's wife.... Surgical channel and Animal Planet are all she watches!  We're not sure how she does it!  After a few minutes, we have to hide in the basement.  (Of course the pool table is down there, anyhow, so that's where we'd end up anyway...)

[Glaucus]

Gee Wayne, since when did 5 channels out of the well over 100 you have on your cable system become every single channel?? Your soaps arent on for these two weeks, because the Olympics draws alot more viewers, which means the TV stations and the cable operators and the channel owners make more money by showing the olympics. The Athens Olympics has won every single time slot its been shown on in the US, so it would be idiotic to not show as much as possible during the 2 week Olympics.

Well said Tigger!  :-D

  - Mike

I only watch one soap opera on a regular basis and my "addiction" to it can be traced directly back to Melissa about 10 years ago.  However, every single show I watch on a regular basis has been interrupted, not just the soap opera.  Since it affects every single show I want to watch, whether it's one channel or 500 channels is irrelevant.  

I have absolutely zero interest in being forced to watch jocks that I don't know compete to instill fake nationalistic sentiment.  If you do -- or anyone else does -- that's fine and really doesn't interest me.  My complaint is that MY viewing schedule is interrupted by something I couldn't care less about.

The Olympics will be over soon enough, if they aren't already.  Contrary to your apparent belief, not everyone likes having the entirety of their TV watching interrupted on every single channel they normally watch for the sake of an unwanted series of events.  Admittedly, though sadly, TV viewing is all I have left to do, so it might affect me more than it does you.

[Glaucus]

Yeah, I see your point. I don't think you're the only one. The only good thing is that the shows you're missing, well, you're not really missing, they are just on hold for 2 weeks. So you're not missing out on something other's are enjoying, everyone is in the same boat.

As for every channel showing the Olympics, well, I can't blame the networks for wanting to sell to the masses. Like I said before, the Olympics are popular - especially in the US which currently leads the medal ranks. If you were in Europe a couple months ago the TVs would have been blitzed with the EUFA soccer tournament, but since North Americans don't really care about it we were spared that interruption (although of course I caught it on the Sports network).

Anyway, if you don't care for athletics, then you don't care for athletics. The good news is that it's only 2 weeks every 4 years. I can only suggest you see this as a break from routine and perhaps try something new. I certainly don't think it's good to allow this two week break to make you miserable.

  - Mike

[T_Bone]

Wayne wrote:
I only watch one soap opera on a regular basis and my "addiction" to it can be traced directly back to Melissa about 10 years ago.

:lol:

My wife got me hooked on "Judging Amy."

(hence this weeks avatar)

I think she only watches it because of Richard Jones :lol:

[Dan]

Glaucus wrote:

As for every channel showing the Olympics, well, I can't blame the networks for wanting to sell to the masses. Like I said before, the Olympics are popular - especially in the US which currently leads the medal ranks. If you were in Europe a couple months ago the TVs would have been blitzed with the EUFA soccer tournament, but since North Americans don't really care about it we were spared that interruption (although of course I caught it on the Sports network).
  - Mike

It´s because you don´t have public service television, here in Sweden the SVT, the stateowned channels bought the rights for everything but soccer and the only commerical channel that shows something is TV4 which bought the soccer-rights.

Anyway you can hardly have more olympics than Sweden, they broadcasted everything here, one off the two SVT channels was always olympics. And the terrestial digital newschannel SVT24 became a second olympic-channel and they broadcasted a extra channel SVTExtra with olympics in the terrestial digital network.

Not as much as the olympics in Sydney 2000, four extra digital channels they literally boardcasted everything, but quite a lot.

The really irritating thing is that the record and timedelay for example boxing or judo in favor off former jugoslavians playing handball :pissed:
It was a swedish competitor in some lame sport, like walking, I could understand it but this I didn´t understand.

Hopefully everyone will have digital next time and the tv-companys will use it for something good. Like broadcasting extra OS-channels instead off changing the regular programs, that way everybody would be happy.

Anyway I understand your frustration, watching the news was rather unnecessary it was only the Olympics all over again.
I think it´s rather charming that sport can stop a nation like this, there is no news to report simply.
All that happened was that some weirdo kidnapped and killed his shrink, they found her today.(Maybe he was disappointed that the Olympics ended)
The bankrobbers stays home and watch,no murders, no rapes and even the politicans and economists are running on empty because they knew nobody was listening.
You know why there wasn´t a terrorist attack at the Olympics?
Because the terrorists where busy watching it! :lol:

(Wow, this became a long post :-o)