Olympic Comedy and Tragedy

I knew something was up with Olympic coverage when I couldn't find a live showing of the opening ceremonies. The Washington Post TV guide had a '(L)' next to the prime time scheduled event, which I had to patiently explain to my father couldn't be live (No Dad, it'll be 2 AM there. Trust me no one is going to the stadium when the tube won't even be running).

Thank goodness for streaming BBC One's (excellent) commercial free coverage. I didn't even have to sign up for a $100 a month subscription to a cable-TV service of their choice (Neither of my parents have cable btw NBC. And they likely never will).  Heidi Moore has a great piece on NBC insistence that we "huddle around the radio" to receive our Olympic news in "NBC fail shows network's commitment to 'the last great buggy-whip Olympics'".

I'll continue to show my displeasure by making use of the trending #nbcfail twitter hashtag (Women's soccer gold match game anyone? Oh, never mind.  You need a cable subscription for that too. I braved Lucky Bar by myself on a Thursday for this?). I also highly recommend following NBCDelayed on Twitter to feel vindicated.

Tip of the Hat to the Guardian for their London 2012 Viral Video Chart: the 10 best videos from the Games, which showcases the viral video highlights of the Olympics thus far. Cry all over again with South Korea's Shin A-lam's mind-boggling defeat with (literally) a brick-by-brick recreation of the women's fencing semi-final. Then watch Funny or Die's video of Sir Patrick Stewart swindling yanks as an Olympic ticket scalper to make the pain go away.  (sigh. wishes were a knight or a dame or whatever.) You get Simon Pegg, Ryan Lochte's patriotic grille and that girl who plays Arya on Game of Thrones.

 Enjoy.