What I've liked so far in these Olympics.

Despite my complaints about NBC's lackluster coverage of the Vancouver Winter Olympics, I've been watching like crazy, and there are two reasons for that:

1) I love Vancouver. I've been there a bunch of times and it's still not enough. I love hearing about it, seeing the places I've been to on TV, and daydreaming about getting back there.
2) I love the winter sports and much prefer them over the summer games.

Some of the highlights for me so far:

Apollo Ohno on the short track, particularly the Men's 1500m on Feb 13 when the two South Koreans crashed right before reaching the finish line and Ohno ended up with the Silver (and Selski with the bronze). Exciting!

I could watch all manner of Alpine Skiing for hours - downhill, slalom, Super G - especially if all of the skiers looked my new Olympics boyfriend Aksel Lund Svindal.

The moguls are crazy, and it was so awesome when Bilodeau won Canada's first gold medal on home soil.

Also crazy: Snow Cross and Snowboard Cross, where about 4 skiers at a time race each other down the hill. Terrifying and thrilling.

New for me this year was Curling. I had heard it was weirdly riveting and wanted to check it out. Well, I'm hooked. I have no idea what's going on but I love it.

Finally, my favorite commercial, one that makes me tear up every damn time I see it:



Have you been watching? Do you have a favorite sport, or athlete or story from the Games?

TV Talk: After watching the Vancouver Olympics for over a week, I think I can safely say that NBC's coverage stinks.

It is fragmented at best, irrelevant at worst (ice dancing in prime time, really?), and in this day and age, with the Internet and DVR capabilities, there's really no excuse for the shambles they have made of televising this thing. NPR.org's Linda Holmes blogs about it, and what she says makes so much sense.

"At one time, you could broadcast events hours after they happened, and you'd have a reasonable chance that people could live in a bubble while they were waiting. That is not the world we live in anymore. The fantasy that is indulged when Bob Costas speaks breathlessly about an upcoming ski race where he already knows exactly what happened is no longer even a fragile fantasy; it's a blatant fiction that everyone knows about."

It's a great article.

One more thing regarding NBC's coverage: I know that they have to pay for it and the way they do that is through advertising, but come on. I had a hockey game on yesterday and after about 5 minutes of commercials, then 5 minutes of Costas talking about events, and then another 5-7 minutes of commercials, I gave up and turned the channel. Thank God for late-night curling. Yeah, it goes on forever, but at least you feel like you're watching something in its entirety.