Olympisized

I believe that this is the first Olympics that many people have seen in High Definition. The old TV's have been replaced by the High Definition ones throughout the land. I must admit the once you see them broadcasted this way, you are pretty well hooked. You may be watching sports you really don't care much about.

Its been pretty cool. There is the bright blue of the pool. The opening ceremony with its novel... I mean in both ways display... it designed to tell the story of Great Briton along with highlighting the celebrities and the culture of the country. It had a dramatic understated theme. It was an extravaganza but not in the sense of the in your face China Olympics. Sue was happy to see the Queen at the opening even though her facial expression, or rather lack of it was disconcerting. She was there however along with the current James Bond.

As there are many channels on the Direct TV set up that are affliliated with NBC, the media sponsers of the games, it has been fun searching around and finding that one channel is almost totally devoted the the boxing venue. This afternoon I came across the station where the basketball was alive and well.

My most interesting "finds" have been the whitewater kayak competition and the archery team competition. The women's whitewater competition was dominated by a 44 year old Czech.   It is amazing the venue that was manufactured for the event.The height and depth of the concrete channel with huge artificial boulders added to it and gigantic pumps that recycle the water in ferocious turbulence was pretty exciting to see. I couldn't help but think of the novella Trout Fishing in America by Richard Brautigan. The person in the book goes into the Cleveland Wrecking Yard in San Francisco and buys a section of trout stream. Someone was clearly buying sections of whitewater (designing and engineering it) so that this sport could happen at this venue. The coverage of the sport was very exciting.

The archery was a wild team event. The US team had knocked off the favored South Korean team and had only the Italians to beat for the gold medal. Sporting technologically "tricked" out bows the men drew their 50 pound strings and aimed at a target a long distance away. It got down to who could calm their hearts down and gently release the string so that the arrow would pierce the air and hit the target. After doing plenty of archery in my youth it still relied on the release. The winners did not "throw flowers" or jerk the release. The fingers had to release the arrow to its target while the thumb rested up against the checks. The results of the contest whose certainty wavered  throughout proved the Italians had a better team by two points. It was a contest that will never be shown in prime time. It was pretty exciting to a former archer.

The coverage of the sports even with the ability to time shift has resulted in some people running around kind of grumpy. The coverage ends at 1 am each night. There have been dramatic decreases in people out shopping in the stores of Merced when the Olympics are on TV. We have become a nation glued to the TV for some good news. These athletes have a chance to give us this chance. We all know that the good feeling afterwards is temporary ... it still will keep us glued.

Take care and blink those eyes every so often...

: ) Pat