#230656 - 14/08/2004 00:46
...and while we were away...
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Carpal Tunnel
Registered: 08/02/2002
Posts: 3411
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NBC are showing the opening ceremony of the Olympic games, and during the parade of nations, every time they come back from a commercial break they list the handful of countries that were missed because of the break.
WTF? This is a taped recording. It's not as if it is a repeat of an earlier live show that included commercial breaks to begin with - they didn't show it live, preferring to reserve it for prime time. Why couldn't they just err..., stop the tape, during those breaks?
This doesn't bode well for the rest of their Olympic coverage. I can easily imagine commercial breaks obliterating key moments in events, regardless of whether the event is live or taped.
While I'm having a rant, their talking heads are doing a wonderful job. Blokey started talking about terrorism and muslims just as the first predominantly muslim country (Algeria) parades. Girly makes prejudicial comment along the lines of, "Looks like they decided to leave the furs at home", as the Mongolians walk past. Twats, the both of them.
Aargh, I'm in NBC hell.
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Mk2a 60GB Blue. Serial 030102962
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#230657 - 14/08/2004 01:21
Re: ...and while we were away...
[Re: genixia]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 13/02/2002
Posts: 3212
Loc: Portland, OR
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First time watching the Olympics from the USA, is it? As one who grew up watching CBC coverage, you have my deepest and most sincere commiseration.
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#230658 - 14/08/2004 01:53
Re: ...and while we were away...
[Re: genixia]
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stranger
Registered: 13/02/2002
Posts: 36
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LOL, I watched on CBC earlier today and again on NBC just now and was thinking the same thing about the commercial breaks.
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#230659 - 14/08/2004 03:22
Re: ...and while we were away...
[Re: genixia]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 27/06/1999
Posts: 7058
Loc: Pittsburgh, PA
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Quote:
Aargh, I'm in NBC hell.
The phenomenon you're describing is what NBC calls "plausibly live." Whatever genius came up with this idea should be dropped from the top of the Olympic stadium in Greece and have shotputs and javelins thrown at him as he's falling through the air. They leave things out to give you the impression that it's live... So apparently, they think that Americans are much better at Olympic events than they are at, oh, looking at a clock, or looking outside and seeing night when it's daytime on TV.
Anyway, it is a ridiculous concept. The good news is that a good portion of the Olympics will be broadcast live on CNBC, MSNBC, USA, Bravo, and even Telemundo (GOOOOAAAALLLLL!) So if you want live events, you should be able to catch them.
As for the commercials themselves, I don't plan on them bothering me much, as my ReplayTV units happily skip over them. Which is good, because I'm an absolute junkie when it comes to the Olympics, so I'll probably be spending a lot of time watching stuff recorded from the cable networks in the wee hours of the morning.
And, yes, Bob Costas and Katie Couric are dreadful. Not only in *what* they say, but also in their wooden delivery of canned one-liners, and their complete lack of conversational chemistry when they're ostensibly ad-libbing. I found myself looking for the "Mute" button that would just mute the two of them out, but apparently TV technology isn't quite there yet.
All that aside, the opening ceremonies were spectacular, the best I've ever seen by far. The Greeks really went the extra 26 miles on this one, and I hope they're rewarded by an enjoyable, memorable, and most of all peaceful Olympiad in the next 16 days.
Oh, yeah... almost forgot... USA!!! USA!!! USA!!! 
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#230660 - 14/08/2004 09:25
Re: ...and while we were away...
[Re: genixia]
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old hand
Registered: 28/12/2001
Posts: 868
Loc: Los Angeles
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Quote:
Why couldn't they just err..., stop the tape, during those breaks?
Well, someone pointed out one reason (link may be NSFW)
http://www.juiceenewsdaily.com/0804/olympics/olympicsweird.html
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Ninti - MK IIa 60GB Smoke, 30GB, 10GB
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#230661 - 15/08/2004 15:37
Re: ...and while we were away...
[Re: genixia]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 17/12/2000
Posts: 2665
Loc: Manteca, California
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I was struck by that same sense of weird, but my reaction was a little different. Why couldn't they have time compressed the parade of nations?
The other item that struck me was that they did a great disservice to the pagent. By providing only "safe" views, the continuity was pretty much trashed.
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Glenn
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#230662 - 15/08/2004 16:10
Re: ...and while we were away...
[Re: ninti]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 05/01/2001
Posts: 4903
Loc: Detroit, MI USA
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Yeah, lol, I was pretty surprised when I saw those pics come up on the Reuters News pics at yahoo.com! Anyone else notice that the Reuters have an ass fetish?
Ass 1
Ass 2
Ass 3
Ass 4
Boobs 1
Boobs 2
Bonus
Granted, I wouldn't have seen any of these if they didn't pop up on the "Most Emailed" and "Most Viewed" lists, but I was cracking up when I saw there were 3 or 4 "butt shots" in about two days, all composed the same way.
Edited by SE_Sport_Driver (16/08/2004 13:44)
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Brad B.
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#230663 - 15/08/2004 21:35
Re: ...and while we were away...
[Re: SE_Sport_Driver]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
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Quote:
Members of the 2004 Olympics Beach Volleyball dance team
WTF?!?
Has the Olympics turned into Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball?
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Bitt Faulk
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#230664 - 15/08/2004 23:46
Re: ...and while we were away...
[Re: wfaulk]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 05/01/2001
Posts: 4903
Loc: Detroit, MI USA
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Yeah, I re-read that a few times.... dance team ? ?
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Brad B.
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#230665 - 16/08/2004 02:29
Re: ...and while we were away...
[Re: SE_Sport_Driver]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 02/06/2000
Posts: 1996
Loc: Gothenburg, Sweden
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From a glimpse last nigh, it looks like they're cheerleading at the sidelines...
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/Michael
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#230666 - 16/08/2004 18:16
Re: ...and while we were away...
[Re: genixia]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 30/04/2000
Posts: 3810
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Quote:
Aargh, I'm in NBC hell.
I'm in a different sort of NBC hell right now. Now that I've got my shiny HD-TiVo installed and working, I figured I'd just program it to grab the over-the-air HD signal and I'd have my HD Olympics. Oh, how naive I was.
Turns out, my local NBC OTA feed is an upconverted version of their SD signal. After an hour of reading through the complaints on AVS Forum, I learned that NBC has rented channel 84 on DirecTV to play their HD feed in a continuous loop, but that not everybody was being allowed to receive it due to weird rules that the local NBC affiliate needs to give permission to effectively give up their monopoly on the local market. Thankfully, it works for me.
So now I've got my HD-TiVo programmed to grab the satellite HD feed from 3am-11am to get yesterday's Olympic highlights, such that I can browse them at high speed tonight. Or something like that. Thankfully, I'll be able to fast-forward through the Greek scenery flybys and lame Sony WEGA commercials.
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#230667 - 16/08/2004 18:31
Re: ...and while we were away...
[Re: DWallach]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 12/02/2002
Posts: 2298
Loc: Berkeley, California
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Quote:
lame Sony WEGA commercials.
Comercials? There's more than one? I was setting up a friend's HDTV yesterday and probably saw the "and salsa" comercial fifteen times. Sometimes more than once per comercial break.
Matthew
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#230668 - 16/08/2004 18:35
Re: ...and while we were away...
[Re: matthew_k]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 08/03/2000
Posts: 12338
Loc: Sterling, VA
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That commercial is hauting my nightmares.
I guess we're lucky here that we've been getting HD on OTA channel 4.1
Of course, that was just on Sunday. I don't know what they'll do for the other nights.
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Matt
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#230669 - 16/08/2004 18:37
Re: ...and while we were away...
[Re: wfaulk]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 17/01/2002
Posts: 3996
Loc: Manchester UK
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Quote:
Quote:
Members of the 2004 Olympics Beach Volleyball dance team
WTF?!?
Has the Olympics turned into Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball?
I saw some of this today, playing 'ooomph there it is' is not appropriate for the olympics.
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Cheers,
Andy M
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#230670 - 16/08/2004 19:07
Re: ...and while we were away...
[Re: andym]
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Carpal Tunnel
Registered: 08/02/2002
Posts: 3411
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Hmm...my favorite Beeb employee. Any hints for getting the Beeb's broadband coverage over here? The http proxies that I've tried just aren't cutting the mustard.
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Mk2a 60GB Blue. Serial 030102962
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#230671 - 17/08/2004 00:19
Re: ...and while we were away...
[Re: DWallach]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 08/07/1999
Posts: 5549
Loc: Ajijic, Mexico
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I figured I'd just program it to grab the over-the-air HD signal
I'm probably in a minority here, but the Olympics really don't interest me that much. I'll watch the cycling events, the triathlon, maybe some of the rowing events (notice a pattern here? Any sort of mechanized transport interests me) but that's about it.
On a whim, I asked my TiVo to just list all of the Olympics coverage that the local NBC affiliate was showing over the next two weeks. I think it came up with something like 43 programs or segments -- and 32 of them featured volleyball in one form or another.
WTF?
tanstaafl.
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"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"
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#230672 - 17/08/2004 01:33
Re: ...and while we were away...
[Re: tanstaafl.]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 13/02/2002
Posts: 3212
Loc: Portland, OR
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Quote:
I'm probably in a minority here, but the Olympics really don't interest me that much.
I'd be more interested in the Olympics if I knew I was missing good coverage. But I now live in the US, and realize that the coverage here is ass, so I can't get excited about it.
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#230673 - 17/08/2004 02:17
Re: ...and while we were away...
[Re: tanstaafl.]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 27/06/1999
Posts: 7058
Loc: Pittsburgh, PA
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Quote:
I'm probably in a minority here, but the Olympics really don't interest me that much.
These days, I'm not so sure you're in the minority. The Olympics, at least among the people I've been talking to, aren't grabbing nearly as much interest as they used to, and I think that's sad. I absolutely love international competition at the highest level, except in the most bogus of Olympic "sports" (synchronized diving, air rifle, etc.) Sometimes, for sports I don't really follow or appreciate very much (weightlifting, judo, etc.) it takes a good "underdog story" or something like that to really grab my attention, and if there's an American athlete/team involved, that can certainly raise my interest. But even in the absence of those elements, I think the Olympics are worth watching, because they're everything that being human is all about -- trying to be the best you can be at something.
Now, we can go into a big long discussion about why the Olympics seem to have fallen off... Some here are choosing to blame crappy TV coverage, and I've heard others cite the allegations of drug use and other types of cheating as the reason they've lost interest. But I think both of these factors, while relevant, are overstated. A vast majority of the athletes do not break the rules, and the TV coverage is just a bunch of talking heads telling you what to look at in case you don't know already, along with a bunch of vignettes with dramatic music in the background, aimed at raising interest and appeal to the marginal sports fan. If you truly appreciate athletic competition, you should be able to enjoy the Olympics on a 3" black and white TV with no sound.
Or maybe what's really happening is that the masses are getting tired of the same old events each four years. After all, who would want to watch stories of man vs. man or nation vs. nation when you can watch six attractive 20-somethings eat sheep intestines for a chance at $20,000?
On second thought, I guess I'm way off here, the Olympics suck. Give us back our Fear Factor!
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#230674 - 17/08/2004 02:24
Re: ...and while we were away...
[Re: tonyc]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 24/01/2002
Posts: 3937
Loc: Providence, RI
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Well, the TV coverage may just be talking heads, but they have to actually show you the stuff, or it's hard to watch, and NBC seems to believe showing it to you a day late isn't also a dollar short...
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#230675 - 17/08/2004 02:39
Re: ...and while we were away...
[Re: Daria]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 27/06/1999
Posts: 7058
Loc: Pittsburgh, PA
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Quote:
and NBC seems to believe showing it to you a day late isn't also a dollar short...
I understand what you're saying, and I did my share of NBC-bashing earlier in this thread. But for me, the tape delay stuff doesn't matter, because even if they were showing it live, I'd be recording it on my ReplayTV so I can watch commercial-free. Fact is, most people have regular 9-5 jobs and wouldn't be able to watch the stuff live. Now, their decision to not show the really "big" events live is a terrible one, but providing you can avoid watching, reading, or hearing spoilers, even that terrible decision doesn't ruin the experience... For me, at least.
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#230677 - 17/08/2004 13:37
Re: ...and while we were away...
[Re: andym]
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Carpal Tunnel
Registered: 08/02/2002
Posts: 3411
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Yeah, but when NBC paid their $700m or so, they made sure that their crappy coverage wouldn't be ignored by ensuring that the likes of the Beeb weren't allowed to stream into the US market.
A stateside visitor to the Beeb's live coverage gets a "Sorry, content only available in the UK" message. Some UK-based anonymous http proxies 'work', except for the fact that I can't find one with the bandwidth/availability to watch more than 10 seconds of a stream.
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Mk2a 60GB Blue. Serial 030102962
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#230678 - 17/08/2004 14:34
Re: ...and while we were away...
[Re: genixia]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 17/01/2002
Posts: 3996
Loc: Manchester UK
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Sorry, stick, wrong end of..... I thought you were after a performance increase over a standard service, I didn't realise they were cutting access off completely.
A couple of years ago I would probably have rung my mole in IT and asked if there was a 'back door' that would give you access. But sadly times have changed, and since he's left, even asking the question to anyone else would probably get me bollocked.
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Cheers,
Andy M
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#230679 - 17/08/2004 15:12
Re: ...and while we were away...
[Re: andym]
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Carpal Tunnel
Registered: 08/02/2002
Posts: 3411
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Quote:
A couple of years ago I would probably have rung my mole in IT and asked if there was a 'back door' that would give you access. But sadly times have changed, and since he's left, even asking the question to anyone else would probably get me bollocked.
Shucks. That was the approach I was hoping for. Oh well.
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Mk2a 60GB Blue. Serial 030102962
sig.mp3: File Format not Valid.
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#230680 - 17/08/2004 17:11
Re: ...and while we were away...
[Re: tanstaafl.]
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old hand
Registered: 18/08/2000
Posts: 992
Loc: Georgetown, TX USA
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Quote:
On a whim, I asked my TiVo to just list all of the Olympics coverage that the local NBC affiliate was showing over the next two weeks. I think it came up with something like 43 programs or segments -- and 32 of them featured volleyball in one form or another
I did a wish list for whatever the official title of the Olympics shows are, 140 somehting shows I think it was. I didn't bother to look at what was on them all, just as long as there is something on in the middle of the night...
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Dave Clark
Georgetown, Texas
MK2A 42Gb - AnoFace - Smoke Lens - Dead Tuner - Sirius Radio on AUX
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#230681 - 17/08/2004 17:33
Re: ...and while we were away...
[Re: genixia]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 12/02/2002
Posts: 2298
Loc: Berkeley, California
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I sat down yesterday to really watch some of the olympics, and found that this year it was MUCH better than any olympic coverage I'd ever seen. Why? Because my ReplayTV had spent about 20 hours of the last two days reccording from various chanels anything with "equestrian" in the description. I then proceded to fast forward at 20x normal speed untill I saw an event that interested me, watch it, and start fast forwarding again. Two or three hours later I'd seen everything, without comercials. Sure the commentators could have been much better, but at least they had one previous olympian who knew what he was talking about.
Frankly, I couldn't watch the olympics any other way after yesterday's experience. Of course, NBC/Bravo/CNBC could break the guide information up by sport so I didn't have to reccord six hours for one hour of programming, but seeing as they conveinently hold the olympics in the middle of August, I'm only missing reruns of Buffy and Family Guy.
Matthew
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#230683 - 19/08/2004 05:50
Re: ...and while we were away...
[Re: tanstaafl.]
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old hand
Registered: 14/02/2002
Posts: 804
Loc: Salt Lake City, UT
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Crap! I missed the Time Trials today. I think it's probably the best Olympic cycling event and I missed it! Oh well.. I'm happy with the results. Two Americans, and Ekimov who rides for Team Postal. All good riders. Now I have my cycling wishlist set up. Should have done is sooner. 
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-Michael
#040103696 on a shelf
Mk2a - 90 GB - Red - Illuminated buttons
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#230684 - 23/08/2004 11:03
Re: ...and while we were away...
[Re: andym]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 09/08/2000
Posts: 2091
Loc: Edinburgh, Scotland
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I am just glad that this Olympics I have been able to watch almost all the sailing I wanted thanks to BBC Interactive. Yay! And it looks like I will be able to watch my wife's ex boyfriend win in the cycling team sprint (they are favourites) - aside from that, the womens marathon was quite gripping, and I was amused by the archery. At least they have nothing like this crazy 'sport' which we saw at a County Show 2 weekends ago! SOooooooo bad it could have been scripted by Monty Python. p.s. Andy - are you guys still keeping your existing roles when SBS take over that side of things?
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Rory
MkIIa, blue lit buttons, memory upgrade, 1Tb in Subaru Forester STi
MkII, 240Gb in Mark Lord dock
MkII, 80Gb SSD in dock
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