Tag Archive for 'Olympics'

Olympic Curling

Maybe I should have put up some Olympic clips earlier because so many have piled up over the last week, but I’ll start with a bit of curling.  Since this is the first Winter Olympics where I can actually watch and record curling, I’ve found that it’s a very interesting game.  Except for the fact that Team USA (both men’s and women’s) stinks and are out of medal contention, it’s been a lot of fun eating dinner while watching the day’s recorded curling matches.  However the standouts have been the curling commentators, Don Dugrid and Colleen Jones.  Their insight has been simply exquisite.  They make you want to go out to your “local” curling club and start playing.  I’ve also found that there is quite a bit of yelling involved as seen in the clip below.

There are more intricacies to the game as well, but I’ll let Michael Scott explain.

One thing that I have to complain about with NBC’s coverage is that the streaming video is much much worse than the coverage for the 2008 Summer Olympics.  It’s practically non-existent unless you have premium NBC channels.  Even then you can only watch curling and hockey live.  I’m sure someone would like to see their favorite Indian skier finish 57.09 seconds off the pace in the Men’s Giant Slalom.  The other problem is NBC’s habit of tape delaying the popular sports to show in primetime. At least the upcoming short-track and ladies’ figure skating is mostly live (without tape delay, not live streaming).  Great job by Kim Yu-Na tonight though, that 007 James Bond music medley was much more exciting than the typical classical music everyone else picks.  The Pirates of the Caribbean music Mirai Nagasu picked was probably a close second.

New Year’s Update

It’s been quite a while since I posted a real blog update.  Instead I’ve let Twitter Tools do the work and gather everything from my Twitter account, which has worked out pretty well.  Or it could be that I’m too lazy to sit down and collectively write down my thoughts.  Not that I’m actually thinking about anything worthwhile in my opinion, but apparently I have nothing better to do in the mean time.  I was going to cook red bean soup (紅豆湯) tonight except for the simple fact that I didn’t soak the beans beforehand, so that will have to wait until tomorrow.  Quite disappointed about that because it’s freezing in here.

One of the things I like to do each year is take a picture of my home office.  It’s like those people that take a picture of themselves every day of the year, but at a much higher interval.  Now that I look at the transition from last year, it looks generally the same.  I’m not Vern Yip so it’s not an interior design masterpiece.   At the very least it’s relatively neat.  The chair certainly needs an upgrade and by the end of the year I hope to build another PC.

What’s exciting is that the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver (Feb 12th) and Chinese New Year (Feb 14th) are coming up at the same time.  The Olympics are always exciting (especially the last one in Beijing), but I’ve always believed that Chinese New Year is more meaningful than the “standard” Gregorian New Year.  I’m sure I’ll have something interesting to say (and maybe some pictures of my cooking) when the time comes a month from now.  Anyway, Happy New Year and good luck to the NY Jets who went to the playoffs as I typed this up!

Jackie Chan at the Olympics!

As the Olympics closed in Beijing last night, you might have seen a familiar face and fan favorite, Jackie Chan!  They even let him sing for a good 15-20 seconds before he was left to clap and wiggle around that circular tower in the center.  If you liked him in that, you might want to check out his Greatest Hits CD as well.

Now I’m left with little or nothing to watch for a week until Prison Break makes its return on September 1st, then Terminator on the 8th, House on the 16th, Survivor on the 18th, Heroes on the 22nd, The Office on the 25th, and The Amazing Race on the 28th. :O

Bela Compilation

As the Olympics close, we’ve already seen the many characters throughout the games.  Now presenting the most vocal and biased commentator that the world of sports has ever seen, Bela Karolyi.

Dirty Olympians

Most of the Olympics has been filled with clean competition, but you eventually come across a few people that rub you the wrong way along the way both literally and figuratively.  Take a look at these. (fail)