The Loose Change

Watching the Olympics on NBCOlympics.com

I don’t have a TV in my office, just my desktop PC.  So watching TV is something of a luxury.  I had an old TV tuner on my old desktop, but haven’t risked plugging it into my new one and VISTA.  Everything is working just fine now and I am not interested in spending hours to fix it.  Plus you have to split the cable (one side for the internet, the other for the TV).

So instead, I go without.  And if you’ll see my last post I hooked up my laptop to my HDTV in my living room, so I have some of the angles covered.

However, NBCOlympics.com makes it dead simple to watch TV online.  I went to the site, plugged in the Microsoft Silverlight Plugin and I did have problems with the intro video pausing.  But then I switched to a channel, for example, now I am watching tennis, Raphael Nadal even, and here’s a screen shot of how it looks.

So far it’s been running smoothly and this way I can work on my main monitor and watch/listen to the video on the other monitor.  Obviously, I have dual monitors setup.  Which I highly recommend.  The video also is opens up in a new window, so you can move it around put it wherever you want.

There is also a commentary text button which allows you keep up to date with the announcers.  It’s kinda interesting watching a match and not hearing Dick Enberg or Johnny Mac rattle on about various things.  Just the players and the stadium noise.

So if you get a chance and want to keep up with the olympics, maybe you’re at work or something, you can just tune in and run it in a different window and it shouldn’t affect your work too much

Add comment August 11th, 2008

Rafael Nadal needs new underwear?

Ok, I’ve been a fan of tennis for decades.  And I’ve been patiently watching and putting up with the players obsessive compulsive behavior.  It’s almost funny at this point.  Djokovic’s obsessive ball bouncing (the announcers even have me counting the number of times he bounces the ball), Maria Sharapova’s loud screaming (not to mention the placing of hair behind her ears before each serve), but I have to draw the line with Nadals picking the underwear out of his crack on nearly every point.  Now he picks the underwear out of his crack, then bends over and checks his shoes, sometimes wipes his hand and is ready to play.

I know there’s a difference between obsessive compulsive behavior and habit, but for the life of me can’t figure it out.  And for some reason watching Nadal pulling his underwear out really gets me to NOT want to watch Rafa play.  I mean I respect the guy and all, I think he’s the real deal, but I just can’t handle his social demeanor, uh I mean sports ritual.  And I, of all people, am not one usually for social demeanor.

So my suggestion to Rafael Nadal and his shorts problem is to try a different brand of underwear.  Maybe he’s wearing a jock strap, perhaps he should switch to boxers.  Maybe briefs might help prevent the underwear from riding up into his butt crack on every point.  How about powdering that area so that it doesn’t stick.  I mean something, anything. 

I just don’t ever recall seeing any other player in the history having so much problems with his underwear as Rafael Nadal does.  So there has to be a solution, somehow, somewhere.

Add comment September 4th, 2007