Vancouver Olympiad

[rughooker]

Well, the Finns aren't exactly on fire for the semi-final match with the US. Right now with a minute and change left in the third period, the US leads 6-1.

Sorry, Urmas. Not this time.

[Urmas]

Egads. Lions my ass... bunch of pussies. 6 ing 1 against the ing Yanks. Messieurs big pros gonna be doing some heavy explaining for a looooong time once back at home.

Yuck!

[ChipDoc]

That was quite some game. I woke up about halfway through the 1st period and watched the fifth and sixth goals scored before drifting back to sleep. Sorry, Urmas. Enjoy the explanations!

[Urmas]

Enjoy the explanations!

Better be something way above and beyond the venerable "dull skates and broken twigs" number.

[ChipDoc]

Probably something to do with that dratted blended whiskey those Canadians drink...

[Lex]

Better be something way above and beyond the venerable "dull skates and broken twigs" number.

This, perhaps?

[ChipDoc]

At least the Finnish ladies did well, taking the Bronze from Sweden in Ice Hockey. Did it in the Ladies' 4x5 km Relay too, coming in almost 30 seconds ahead of the Swedes. And Peetu Piiroinen took the Silver in the Men's Halfpipe - an event where three Finns made the final group. Not a Swede in sight there.

And tonight we see Finland vs Slovakia for the Bronze in Men's Ice Hockey so it's not as if you're as bad off as Sweden, who didn't even make the medal round.

Go Finland!

[angeldust]

I was rooting for The Finns Urmas, up until they mentioned that this was the best the Slovaks had ever placed so I hoped that they'd force it into OT at least, but pulled Goalies do that to your chances at times.

Now the US-Canada game was great, one that could have gone either way right up until the final goal. In TO as we celebrated there were a lot of people saying the Yanks should get an Obama call for placing 2nd. A lot of people didn't give them a chance to even finish in Top 5 this time.
It was the type of game that makes you long for Hockey again.

Canada had a program called "Own The Podium" which was suppose to have us with the most total medals. It didn't happen, those greedy yanks, but we now have the honour of having the most gold won by a nation at the Winter Olympics & it might stand for a while (4 years at least )for us as a host nation.

Anyone see the closing ceremonies? They made fun of the torch failure in a typical Canadian way; we forgot to plug it in.

[Lex]

Anyone see the closing ceremonies? They made fun of the torch failure in a typical Canadian way; we forgot to plug it in.

We did indeed, and it was delightful to see William Shatner and
Michael J. Fox HERE once again.

[vtel57]

YAY! It's over with. Back to our regularly scheduled broadcast sewage.

[Urmas]

We did indeed, and it was delightful to see William Shatner and
Michael J. Fox HERE once again.

Where do I begin
To tell the story
Of how great a love can be
The sweet love story
That is older than the sea
That sings the truth about the love she brings to me
Where do I start


I start... here:

Competition video from the 2010 Winter Olympics is restricted to viewers within the United States

International viewers can still watch many other videos on NBCOlympics.com

Featured video for international viewers

OK, dumb distribution rights bullschitt, no biggie... there's a nifty button below the message saying "View all video [sic!] available for international viewers". OK, <clicky>... got thumnail previews... chose one <clicky>

You're one simple step from...

Exclusive Olympic video content in a player featuring:

* Stunning HD quality video
* DVR controls
* Enhanced navigation & video exploration

Clicking the button above will upgrade your browser with the latest version of Microsoft Silverlight.

The update is free and will not require you to restart your computer.

Yup, that's them... the Redmond wad Brigade... this'll be fun... <click>



"... please press the Click to Install button" - what button? Why am I not surprised? M$ at work. But hey, let's try... ommmm... "System Requirements":



"Linux, FreeBSD or SolarisOS - Various browsers. For details, see Novell." Following the Novell - the M$ patsy - link gets you here:



Dudes. Download... not Silverlight but MOONlight? Sure, I knew that - everybody knows that. It's down there, the font is a tad small... <clicky> :



"Watch the Olympics on Linux with our 3.0 preview"... yay. <click> :



And guess what... it doesn't work. Not that I'm surprised.

So... isn't it strange how Linux users tend to use... inappropriate language whenever the subject of M$ file formats/codecs comes up?

[Lex]

Seek and ye shall find [or not].

[ChipDoc]

I start... here:

Competition video from the 2010 Winter Olympics is restricted to viewers within the United States

International viewers can still watch many other videos on NBCOlympics.com

Featured video for international viewers

OK, dumb distribution rights bullschitt, no biggie...

In fact, the US viewers got screwed too. I had a little Google applet that showed the times for all of the Olympic competitions and noticed that the Gold Medal event in Women's Curling was scheduled for last Saturday morning. Now I don't know anything about Curling, but I know precious little about any of these winter sports and figured that it'd be fun to watch. I knew they wouldn't be showing it on the network, so I bopped on over the the Olympics site to set up the video feed. Guess what? No video feed. They're not losing revenue by having people watch something that they're not airing, so what's up with that? I got to see some wonderful (they really WERE wonderful) stills of the preliminary curling competitions, but I was SOL as far as video went. Maybe by the next Olympics they'll have figured this crap out.

[Lex]

Paul, I saw Kevin Martin in the winning rounds of Canadian Men's Curling on NBC in the afternoon, and I believe it was covered at times on CNN, too.

Here's a little promo:



It turned out to be the unique Winter Olympic sport which actually appealed to me; a bit like bowling but much more like pool, of all things!

[ChipDoc]

Ahhh... yet it still surprises me that the competitions weren't at least available after the fact. I was pretty disappointed. I watched in the afternoons, but I slept through a lot of it since that's my normal sleep time. Oh well. Glad you enjoyed it!

[angeldust]

You can watch @ ctvolympics.ca but you have to put up with Canucks being uppity proud.

http://www.ctvolympics.ca/video/index.h ... 81ae5e5f4b

[ChipDoc]

The Canucks SHOULD be uppity proud - you guys hosted a GREAT Olympics! I finally caught the closing ceremonies today and thought it was wonderful. Thanks, Canada!

[vtel57]

Yes. I didn't watch even one minute of it... couldn't have given less of a sh*t. However, from everything I've read/heard, the Canadians should be extremely proud of the fabulous hosting that they provided for the rest of the world. Bravo, Canuckers! Eh!