TV Posts

23Feb
0

Torvill & Dean: Still My Favorite

I love figure skating. When I was a kid I used to pretend I was a figure skater and spin around on the kitchen floor in my socks. It’s something I myself am not very good at, which makes it even more spectacular to watch. I mean they do these crazy jumps and spins and the footwork too. Even just watching them FLY from one end of the rink to the other is cool. Pairs is pretty awesome, but we already know how I felt about this years pairs competition. So in the meantime while I wait for the ladies’ singles, I had my ice dancing.

Not going to lie, ice dancing is notoriously my least favorite of the 4 varieties. Especially the compuslory dance. I think those judges have their work cut out for them. Just watching people do the same thing over and over again is too much for me, much less evaluating each competitor’s. No thank you!! The original dance can be interesting. There were a couple this year that intrigued me. Of course there was also the one that confused the hell out of me – the Russians doing the Aboriginal Dance. Take a lack of impressive/challenging moves, combined with some RIDICULOUS looking costumes and a premise that already has people offended, and you get this. Seriously, WTF?!

But then last night we got to the free skate. It’s by far my favorite. I saw a few that I liked. Even two that I loved. These of course were Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir’s (Canada) dance to Symphony #5 and Emily Samuelson and Evan Bates’ (USA) dance to Canto Della Terra. Beautiful. Stunning. Amazing.

But still not my all-time favorite.

That award goes to Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean (UK), who were the first people to get all perfect 6.0′s in the artistic impression section of the old scoring system. For technical merit they were split 5.9/6.0. I’m not sure what it is about this dance, but I love it. Even though it’s from 1984 and the picture is horribly grainy, I could watch it over and over again. Maybe it’s the music, maybe it’s the artistry, maybe it’s the incredible synchronization. I don’t know. They start on the ground because their music was too long. Apparently it exceeded the length by 18 seconds, which they discovered they could get around if none of their skates hit the ice until 18 seconds in. Pure perfection. Here it is:

YouTube Preview Image
Posted by Caro in Discoveries, Music, Random, Rants and raves, Sports, TV, Videos, cool
19Feb
0

Really Julia Mancuso?

Julia Mancuso wore a tiara at the medal ceremony. A tiara.

You’re an athlete, not a princess. Yes, it’s great that you did so well, but you came in second. Stop showing off to the people you beat and have some class like the person who beat you.

Posted by Caro in Sports, TV
18Feb
2

An Open Letter to NBC

Dear Executives at NBC:

While I appreciate your coverage of the variety of sporting events at the Olympics, I have a bone to pick with you.

First and foremost, these Olympics are being held in Vancouver, which is the same timezone as the west coast. Unlike games past where the events would be held in the middle of the night for Americans, these sports are held at approximately the same time we are awake. Despite this, we are not receiving footage of the competitions until 8pm.

This is unacceptable. I cannot browse the internet during the day without fear that various Olympics results will be “spoiled”. You have multiple stations on which you can broadcast. Why not show the events, live, during the day on USA? Or MSNBC? A majority of Americans have some sort of recording device (TiVo, DVR, etc.) and could tape these events to watch at their convenience. If you wanted to re-broadcast the highlights in prime time on NBC, more power to you.

This is another issue I must raise. The prime time broadcast spans from 8pm to midnight. As a hard-working, tax-paying citizen, I must get up at 6:30am to get ready to go to my job. Staying up until midnight, or in some cases later, certainly doesn’t help come morning time. And while I have no problem rolling out of bed, throwing on some clothes, and driving to work, I can assure you that my boss is less than stoked to see yawning, grumpy, bags-under-the-eyes-which-aren’t-all-the-way-open-in-the-first-place Caro. Even moving the broadcast from the 8pm-12a slot to 7-11pm would vastly improve this situation.

Finally, if you are censoring the Olympics and waiting until 8pm to show me the clips of the competition you think I might enjoy, please refrain from broadcasting spoilers. Last night I turned on the NBC Nightly News at 6pm. After several non-gaming stories, the announcer switched gears to the Olympics. Thinking this was a preview of what I would be shown later in the evening, it didn’t even occur to me to change the channel. However, without warning, the results of the Women’s Downhill were posted. Thank you for telling me that Lindsey Vonn won gold. Thank you for sharing this with me before you showed it to me in any broadcast. If you are going to keep me in suspense until 8pm, please do not spoil the results at 6pm.

Aside from these issues, I greatly appreciate your commitment to showing me what you consider the highlights of the Olympics on a bi-annual basis.

Sincerely,

Caro

Posted by Caro in Life, News, Rants and raves, Sports, TV and tagged with
11Feb
0

2010 Olympics

Ok I’ll get to Chicago later. Something waaaaay more important is around the corner kids – the 2010 Winter Olympics!

I’m absolutely in love with the Olympics, and while the Summer games are definitely my favorite of the two, the Winter Olympics never fail to provide me with joy. I mean what’s not to like about sports such as the Biathlon? Cross-country skiing + target shooting, two things that clearly go together. Or Curling – pushing a giant tea kettle down an icy path and sweeping ice out of its way. What a novel idea! LOL. Actually though, much to my surprise the 2006 US Women’s Curling Team was pretty attractive. I’m not sure where they find these people, but apparently attractive curlers do exist!

Seriously though, there’s tons of great winter sports, both random (see above) and high profile (skiing, snowboarding, figure skating, speed skating, etc). The one sport that bores the crap out of me is simple cross-country skiing. I mean yeah, it takes incredible skill and athleticism to ski cross-country. But why watch this when you can watch people ski AND shoot in the biathlon? I’m also personally not into hockey. I’m sure I’ll catch a game or two, but I definitely don’t plan to make a habit of watching all the games.

As always I’ll be cheering for the red, white and blue of the US and the green and gold of the land down under.

The full schedule can be found here, but these are the highlights as I see them:

(more…)

Posted by Caro in Sports, TV, cool, fun and tagged with
02Feb
0

I’m A Rah-Tard

So I’m headed out to Chicago this weekend. I planned this trip about a month or so ago, and wasn’t really thinking about anything else. My friend is going to be out there during this one particular weekend, and I decided to go too. I booked my flights there and back so as to allow myself the most time for sightseeing with the least amount of time off work (1 day max), while still returning Sunday night in time to get some sleep and be up for work.

My flight home was scheduled to leave Chi-town at 6:30pm on Sunday February 7.

Maybe that doesn’t mean anything to you. Or maybe you’re aware that February 7 is Superbowl Sunday, and the Big Game starts at 5pm Illinois time. (more…)

Posted by Caro in Life, Sports, TV, Things to do, Travel, fun and tagged with
20Jan
0

A Colbert Olympics

I’m sure you all know what a fan of the Olympics I am. I mean, each variety of Olympics only comes around every 4 years! During the 2008 summer games I was unfortunately out of the country and had to rely on my TiVo figuring out which sports to record. It didn’t work too well. So after the ’08 viewing fiasco, I’m set for 2010 in Vancouver.

And so is Stephen Colbert.

A while back he made an announcement that Colbert Nation would sponsor the US speed skating team following an announcement that their previous sponsor had gone bankrupt. Colbert Nation sponsoring the Olympics? HELL YES!

(more…)

Posted by Caro in Sports, TV, cool
17Nov
0

Why I <3 Old Men

Basically, this is the best thing that happened in football this week. Tennessee Titans owner Bud Adams decided to stick it to the Bills after their big win. And since he’s 86, the best way for him to do that apparently was with his hands. Amazing.

YouTube Preview Image

Was it worth the $250,000 he was fined? For my entertainment value, absolutely!

Posted by Caro in Hilarious, News, Sports, TV, Videos
12Oct
4

Top Tier Television

After a long summer hiatus from quality programming on television, it seems that things are back in full force! I realize now that there are WAY too many good shows on and I know I’m missing out on a bunch of really awesome ones. Like Modern Family. I’ve heard it’s great, but I never added it to my TiVo, and thus it’s not a part of my weekly routine. And I’m behind anyway. Downloading shows and catching up on multiple seasons is such a pain in the ass, so I think I’m going to spend my winter break catching up on what I can. Like marathon days in front of the television.

So here’s the list of shows I’m addicted to and watching religiously:

(more…)

Posted by Caro in Discoveries, Hilarious, Rants and raves, TV, cool
30Sep
0

Cheating Death

We all know how much I enjoy Stephen Colbert. I also really enjoy his “Cheating Death” segment, as it’s a sure source of comedy. Last night’s edition of this segment was probably one of the funniest bits of all time that I’ve seen from this man. Seriously genius. And so funny that he himself couldn’t keep from laughing. Enjoy!

The Colbert Report Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Cheating Death – Snus & Placebo Effect
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Michael Moore
Posted by Caro in Health, Hilarious, Rants and raves, TV, Videos
03Sep
0

If It Kills Me

We’ve already established that I’m totally obsessed with So You Think You Can Dance. This isn’t news. However, tonight I was very pleasantly surprised by the episode that popped up in my TiVo. Apparently Season 6 starts next week (hooray!) and as a segway into that, Nigel Lythgoe came on and hosted a show with his 15 favorite dances. Basically it was his top 5 per season.

There were some classics I had forgotten about:

*Courtney and Mark dancing to “The Garden”, choreographed by Sonya – it was so strange, but that’s why I LOVED it (watch)

*Neil and Sabra dancing to “Sweet Dreams”, as choreographed by Mandy Moore (watch)

As well as classics I hadn’t forgotten about:

*Kayla and Kipono dancing Mia Michels piece on addiction to “Gravity” (watch)

*Mark and Chelsea dancing to “Bleeding Love” as choreographed by Tabitha and Napoleon (watch)

But of course my favorite routine of this season was with Jeanine and Jason, dancing to Jason Mraz‘s “If It Kills Me”. OMG so beautiful. And passionate. And everything else. Definitely glad it made it into the top 15:

YouTube Preview Image

(more…)

Posted by Caro in Music, TV, Videos
Next Page »
« Previous Page