Today’s word: Trollin’. Bobby be trollin’ all throughout the show, baiting hooks with thick slabs of nerdbait, seeing if he can reel in Ryan Fleming, or the listeners, or people who think a third Hobbit movie is a good idea. Is Peter Jackson trollin? What about Danny Boyle? Is he trolling Skyfall director Sam Mendes by getting THE QUEEN OF ENGLAND to appear in his opening ceremonies with the master spy? Did Doctor Who get trolled? The only real presence of Britain’s icon is the sound of his broken time machine playing underneath a Queen song. Is NBC trollin? That’s a better reason for what’s going on with their coverage of the Olympics than the more practical answer, which is that they’re old and don’t understand how the internet works. Is Godsmack trollin? They tried to cover a Beatles song. Yes. That Godsmack. No kidding. Suit up, listeners, and make sure whatever you’re wearing is flame-retardant.
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{ 22 comments… read them below or add one }
Here is the link I promised. Click the link then follow the directions for a chance to win Resident Evil HD Chronicles HD Collection for the PS3.
http://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/win-a-copy-of-resident-evil-chronicles-hd-collection-for-the-psn/
With the exception of the Opening Ceremony, everything is shown live on NBC, and they cover every event in real time, no matter how many events are happening at once (because they use many different channels–NBC, MSNBC, CNBC, Bravo, Telemundo, 1 or 2 more I can’t think of). Primetime on the main NBC channel is a bunch of replays of the “best” events, but that doesn’t mean they still weren’t shown live earlier. There’s a nine-hour time difference between London and where I am (Western Mountain Time in Arizona), which means that all the events are streamed live almost exclusively during times when people won’t be watching (1 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. or thereabouts) because they are at work. Yes, people without cable are pretty much screwed. Both NBCOlympics.com and London2012.com have perfectly mapped out (well ahead in advance) what events will be playing on what days, and during roughly which hours. I have cable and a giant HD screen and am loving the coverage, which is actually very good, but I do not have a DVR, so I’ll be missing a LOT of stuff that I really wanted to see.
Also, I simply CANNOT get NBCOlympics.com to recognize that I have a TV provider. Their website won’t do anything when I say I have Cox, but *of course* it’s perfectly responsive to every other provider if you click on their logo instead. It’s driving me insane. If you want to complain about NBC’s job with the Olympics, start with how their online coverage is freakin’ unusable.
To recap: They DO broadcast live on MSNBC, CNBC, etc., they DON’t tape delay (except for that Opening Ceremony and the replays on primetime, at which time no more actual events are happening back in London), and they DO show all the “bullshit sports like archery.”
NBC does tape delays many of the big events and they have been receiving increased criticism for it. There are Twitter hashtags dedicated to it, and NBC’s Chairman was forced to defend the usage yesterday. Google “NBC tape delay” if you don’t believe me, and read the flood of complaints and stories about it.
NBC shows a lot of events, but it holds back some of the big ones like the swimming finals and medal rounds for the primetime block. You can watch the prelims in the day, but they don’t air the finals until after 7pm, and then only on NBC–unless it is an event without an American competing, then it is aired live. And it’s working too, since the Olympics ratings are stellar.
So to recap: They DO broadcast live on MSNBC, CNBC, etc., they DO also tape delay some of the big events.
And I enjoy the bullshit sports, but that doesn’t make something like “air rifle” any less bullshit.
Fatboy’s Korn impersonation was almost his Joe Biden impersonation.
I think you mean to say Korn is lucky they sound half as crazy as Joe Biden.
I started out sort of chuckling and thinking to myself, “Oh, haha, he’s trolling, wow, I bet there were people that really were going to comment, that’s so amusing” and then you got to Farscape and completely without my consent my fingers started to TWITCH WITH THE NEED TO TYPE A RESPONSE. Even though I was at all times fully aware of the trolling factor. How well my geek emotions are played upon.
YESSSSSSSSSSS
I drove through Kansas several times and Kansas is flat. There was no curvature of the earth. There were only 7 things I saw that were above ground, 6 trees and a billboard advertising for the wizard of oz museum.
Ryan- I absolutely was just joking last week, no offence was intended, I was playing off your sarcasm but that is obviously something you can’t really tell by reading. Also, if you want to hate England, carry on, because I’m from Scotland, haha
Anyway, Matt Smith was in a drama on the BBC about Olympic rowers last week so, I was going to say that maybe he was too busy with that and filimg Doctor Who than to prepare anyhing for the opening ceremony. This was before I discovered a Who segment was cut, which sucks, would loved to have seen that. Although, David Tennant’s Doctor did the London 2012 thing in the episode Fear Her, which was a bit rubbish. I enjoyed the opening ceremony and while I too thought Shakespeare got shafted, the point of the JK Rowling part was a celebration of children’s literature which is why Peter Pan and Mary Poppins was also in that segment. I loved the fact that Boyle celebrated the NHS because so many of us are proud of it. Our current Prime Minister apparently hated that segment because he is trying to abolish the National Health Service which would be a mistake and ‘f’ him. So many people owe their lives to the doctors and nurses of the NHS and it was about time it got celebrated.
Finally, NBC cut out an ‘in memoriam’ section for the people who died in the London bombings in 2005 who (obviously) couldn’t be there for the Olympics. This annoyed some people, though, as if it was the other way round and the show was Amierican and had a tribute to 9/11, the BBC wouldn’t have cut that. Some felt NBC were being disrespectful to the dead.
Ooh, question- what is the theme tune that was used at the end of the show?
Smith ran with the torch through Cardiff.
(I don’t know if that was mentioned on the show because I haven’t listened yet.)
No worries, I assumed you were. It just quickly became a theme of the show. My Dad’s family is from Scotland and my Mom’s is from England. Both have a bit of Irish mixed in, because the Irish are like sand and they get in everything.
Ha. Yeah, my mum’s dad was Irish, too, they get round, that lot. Any idea which part of Scotland your dad’s family is from?
Also, I feel as though, as we have mentioned everyone else, we should mention the Welsh……….nah, fuck those guys
Wait, this is a comedy show? I thought it was about knitting and you guys were just slow getting to the point.
I’m sorta surprised that nobody’s done a needlepoint portrait of Cort or myself.
I KNOW NEEDLEPOINT ISN’T THE SAME AS KNITTING, OKAY? I KNOW. I FUCKIN KNOW IT’S NOT THE SAME AT ALL, IT’S TWO COMPLETELY DIFFERENT THINGS, NERDS, I FUCKIN KNOW.
jeezy weezy.
We started a website for you Mr. Fatboy. It’s pretty in depth.
http://www.shitbobbyisincrediblywrongabout.org
I personally like the entry on ‘everything’.
Wrong? Heh. Wrong LIKE A FOX.
I KNOW, NERDS. I KNOW IT’S CRAZY LIKE A FOX. OKAY? FUCK! I KNOW IT’S CRAZY LIKE A FOX, NOT WRONG LIKE A FOX. FOXES ARE FUCKING CRAZY. THAT’S WHY THE SAYING IS THE WAY IT IS. NOT THE WAY I SAID IT.
Jigglypuff ‘n’ stuff, boy howdy.
Jeezum crow, guys. Jeezum crow.
Cutting Dr. Who for TIME seems ironic.
I’ve complained about the Olympics in the first few days. This is one of the few times in life where I truly get psyched for a sporting event, but I enjoy watching some of it, especially the “obscure” events. Everyone can have their basketball and gymnastic. Hawaiians love volleyball and we will bash certain players because they went to the wrong high schools, but we show support anyway. Speed walking… sorry, “racewalking”? Hilarious to me, but someone has spent four years, if not a lifetime, to get there. It may be the nerd or geek sports, but I love that stuff. Then again, I also enjoy watching water polo and kayaking. I’m a dork.
What I liked about the opening ceremonies of the Olympics is that, outside of it doubling as a history lesson, it was done in a country who were not afraid to show its good and bad sides. The ceremony showed its imperfections, its flaws. I didn’t originally notice that there was a segment dedicated to songs that were banned in England, thus why “God Save The Queen” and Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s “Relax”. The censorship of music was mixed in with the freedoms of speech with social media. The social media section also showed, in music, the influence of Jamaica, its people and its music, specifically ska and reggae, up to and including Amy Winehouse’s love of the music. What NBC didn’t show was how the Jamaicans got to England, and that was in a segment that represented the immigration in 1948 via the Empire Windrush. The Jamaican impact influenced everything from comedy to music, films to sports, and of course the work force. Look at Paul McCartney’s constant references to ska and reggae: the mid-section of “Live And Let Die”, “Arrow Through Me”, “Take It Away”, “C Moon”, and of course “Seaside Woman”. All of that removed by BBC because they felt American audiences wouldn’t get it. My thought was, as much as I hated the pop-up video phenomenon, they could have made it like that, a text sidebar explaining/interpreting what’s going on. I don’t know when NBC’s ownership of the US coverage will stop, but it almost leads to the inevitable: live streaming via Netflix or Google. In my timeline, people are finding ways to watch the BBC or CTV feeds in Canada. Yes, one can watch CNBC, MNBC, NBC Sports, along with Telemundo (who are owned by NBC/Universal), which may run it in (of course) Spanish but they will feature games that aren’t shown on the other networks. This is more of a mess than the 1992 Triplecast efforts, as mentioned by Ryan Fleming.
I know in some circles, it had been said that Led Zeppelin’s music is about “raw fucking” while Jimi Hendrix was about “foreplay”. Arguable, but maybe some truths in that. I mention this in the battle between “Fat Bottomed Girls” and “Whole Lotta Rosie”. Both songs are sexual in nature, but Queen have always been perceived as the group who cared about vocal arrangements and harmonies, musical complexities, and how it was recorded. That would be the “foreplay”. AC/DC is a band grabbing their schlongs and wacking it on women without regret, and they’ll do it repeatedly in three keys, never more. Both songs are equal in intent, but people will say Queen had great musicality, while AC/DC will lead to discussions of back seats and keggers. Yet, listen to early Queen and that comes off like Bon Scott-era AC/DC too. Queen fans will battle it out between “Stone Cold Crazy” and “Radio Gaga”, but if you bought the single for “Radio Gaga”, they had “I Go Crazy”, which was old school Queen at its best.
While it wasn’t mentioned, the idea of minimalism was suggested here, the idea that a song like “Flash Gordon” can still rock with one or two notes (not unlike Vangelis’ “Chariots Of Fire” theme). AC/DC are masters of it, but that repetition of minimalism in rock’n'roll is what leads to that sexual energy. Therefore, when it comes to AC/DC, my favorite song is “Guns For Hire”, for when Angus Young finally plays that one note before the drums kick in, it’s incredible. I used to love “Bohemian Rhapsody” and I still do, but I feel classic rock radio and WAYNE’S WORLD has burned it out a bit, equal to “Stairway To Heaven”. For me, I’d have to go between “We Will Rock You” (it too minimalist in its approach) or “Another One Bites The Dust”. However, in the battle suggested in the show… I don’t know. Queen is a well coiled water hose, while AC/DC is someone tying a knot in the hose, turning on the water, and it moving around in the yard until it eventually bursts. You put on the live version of “Whole Lotta Rosie” from IF YOU WANT BLOOD… and I’m gone. Regardless, both are great songs.
NBC has the rights to the Olympics, both summer and winter, in 2014, ’16, ’18, and ’20.
That was a great sum-up of the Fat Bottom vs Whole Lotta soundclash. Thanks John.