I’m tired of the Olympics. Really, honestly, completely tired of them.
You see, I’m not much into sports. I’ll watch a tennis match every now and then, and things don’t get much better than a rousing game of croquet (as long as there’s significant amounts of alcohol involved,) but for the most part I’m not into the sports. Which, I know, makes me different from about 99.98% of guys, but I’m nothing if not unique.
This explains why I really don’t care about the Olympics. There’s not much there I’m interested in watching. True, women’s beach volleyball is always worth a look, but I lost interest in watching tennis about four years into the Williams sisters’ reign, and the fact that NBC is televising roughly 84,513 hours of the Games means that Olympic coverage is eating significantly into my morning dose of MSNBC (which I have to watch at 7 AM because for some reason CNN just has to show Showbiz Tonight every morning even though my interest in Brangelina is even smaller than my interest in who won the gold in Archery.)
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t mean to belittle any of the athletes’ accomplishments. I certainly couldn’t do anything like what they do. But I don’t really see why Michael Phelps’ ability to break every single swimming record known to man is more important (or fascinating) than my ability to move my windpipe two inches to the left while gargling It’s a Small World in Cantonese. I mean, I even looked into YouTubing that, but I’m pretty sure the demographics aren’t there. But I can turn on NBC at any given time and watch the silver medalist in Underwater-really-fast-basket-weaving pick her toenails.
However, I know I’m in the minority here, so I must grit my teeth and bear it, with a little help from BBC America, SciFi Channel, and Mythbusters.
That, and blog about it.
August 20th, 2008 at 7:15 pm
I wasn’t too impressed with your feat till I read the “in Cantonese” bit. That is TOUGH to sing in Cantonese, much less gargle it.
You win! You really are the most impressive man on the planet.
August 20th, 2008 at 7:27 pm
This week, for the first time since TV was invented I turned off the Olympics too. Right after all of the great little human stories of the games were discontinued and it became the Michael Phelps Show. Now my “ignore button” takes care of MLB, NFL and the Olympics. Strange, isn’t it: arrogance and greed weren’t in the original charter of any of them.
August 21st, 2008 at 10:28 am
Shelly: ah, but nobody would believe me until I YouTube it, and since the audience isn’t there, I guess I shall die unappreciated.
August 21st, 2008 at 10:29 am
Montucky: You’re right about the human stories being an important part of the Games. However, I don’t see them either. As for MLB and the NFL: can’t stand them and will never watch them.
September 1st, 2008 at 1:32 pm
My wife keeps hard-wiring the TV to the NASCAR channel. For years, I thought I was watching a traffic cam on Atlanta’s interstates. But I fought back and watched beach volley ball. I did it for journalistic purposes.
Malcolm