disappearing demolition derbies

The highlight of my rural county fair growing up was always the night of the demolition derby. I haven't seen one in a dozen years, although if I ever saw one advertised near me I'd jump at the chance to go.

Unfortunately, today the demolition derby is falling victim to the economy, at least according to this account.

Derbies demolished

Michael Phelps' .01 second win last night will get some play on the highlight reels for a while (I assume - since I've been at the tennis until past midnight most nights, I haven't actually watched much of the prime-time coverage). I've been checking out a few different outlets' documentation of the finish, and the most startling thing is how different the finish looks depending on where the cameras were set.

The overhead TV camera makes it look as though Cavic beat Phelps to the wall. But Sports Illustrated had a camera underwater, right between the two lanes, and the frame-by-frame look at the finish seems to give Phelps the slight edge.

Shame the super-super-slow-mo footage swimming authorities looked at wasn't released...

cavemen

The Geico cavemen ads have clearly outlasted their humor usefulness, but that rarely stops advertising executives.

The new tennis ad simply baffles me, though. As you're sure to have seen unless you're one of those who manage to live without the pleasures of television, the caveman is playing a match against Billy Jean King. As he taunts her, she points out he's not winning and hasn't even gotten a serve in, to which he responds "you might want to look at the scoreboard." Both do, which shows that, in fact, he hasn't scored a point.

So here's my problem with all this - what's the point of the caveman appearing to not know the rules of the game? The whole premise of the Geico campaign is fact the tagline "so easy, even a caveman can do it" plays into a wrong-headed stereotype in this alternate world where cavemen simply happen to be a hirsute minority constantly struggling with the perception they have not evolved past the primitive pre-humans who lived in caves.

So either this ad is saying cavemen really are so stupid they don't know what's going on, in which case the point of the previous commercials sort of gets lost, or maybe they're indicating that the whole match is rigged, right down to the scoreboard operators, which doesn't seem very sporting, really.

tennis

This week I've once again been thrown in a perhaps surprisingly common situation - professionally covering a sport I know nothing about and have barely watched.

In fact, this week almost certainly marks the first time I've watched an entire tennis match (it probably checks in as the first time I've watched an entire set) in person or otherwise.

I've been covering the Legg Mason Tennis Classic here in D.C. for the Associated Press, an event that's turned out to be far more enjoyable than I expected.

For one, I'm generally always up for immersing myself in a sport I have no experience with (I've played tennis a few times, but I probably have more time in with Wii tennis than the real thing). A few matches have been wonderful to watch, and some of the personalities have been good to deal with throughout the week and I can now talk reasonably knowledgeably about tennis.

Thursday night had some of the best action of the tournament, but was also one of the worst days there.

Most of the time, play has started around 4 p.m. and wrapped up around 11, which works since I've been spending the rest of my time at the day job. Thursday, the last match finished at 1:27 a.m.

The main cause was a 2 hour, 43-minute match Andy Roddick managed to win (the best match of the event by far) - it pushed the whole schedule back. And then the final two matches on the schedule also went three sets and past two hours.

Thankfully, no day job for me Friday. And the matches went gloriously quickly. So I'm headed out to do something I haven't had a chance to do for a while - actually have a social evening.

Then more tennis - two more days to the end.

UPDATE: Of course, after I wrote this we sat through an hour-long rain delay. I'm still getting out before midnight, though.

olympics update

I have determined that the Air Pistol events might be the worst possible event to televise. In this case, it actually needs commentary. Because all eight contestants shoot at the same time, I can't figure out how they determine which one to keep the camera on.
However, it's so bizarrly bad I'm captivated.


To recap: live video of team archery - good. Live video of individual air pistol - bad.

More to come, I'm sure.

olympic obscurity

My favorite thing about the Olympics is always the really obscure sports, the ones you usually never see, but only read about happening in the previews when some publication picks the medalists in every event.

As the Olympics have gone on, each year there has been more time devoted to televised sports (I remember when it was a big deal that NBC was going to be showing events on more than one channel for the Games) but all that time is still filled with things like gymnastics, swimming and the rest of the sports I'm not particularly interested in (although this morning I did actually get to watch part of a team handball match, which is possibly the most obscure of all the Olympic sports, in this country at least).

But tonight I've discovered the live video feeds on NBCOlympics.com. As I type, I'm watching a qualifying round of team archery. Just a live video feed (thankfully with multiple camera angles, rather than just one camera turned on and left) with out any announcers. Just a little text box of live updated play-by-play. In other words, perfect.

I'm going to have to see how the live video works throughout the games, but for now it appears to be exactly what I've always wanted - the ability to watch whatever sport I want, with no annoying voices except the venue's PA announcer, and some unobtrusive informative commentary in text form.

(And I've been typing long enough that China has now beaten India in the team archery match).

It's this sort of thing that makes me wish I was still in college, when I could have shifted my schedule and devoted large chunks of the calendar to watching the Olympic stuff I've never seen before. (Seriously, have you ever seen archery televised? And it's interesting to watch. It quick-moving, and the scoring is easy to understand.) Now I'm going to have to do with sneaking in some watching here and there, during a week when I'm already going to be sleep-deprived because I'm working a day job and covering tennis every night this week.

What I'm really looking forward to, though, is the next winter Olympics. If I don't make it to Vancouver, you can bet I'll be watching all the curling rounds online.

all that, for this?

Of the assignments I regularly get, soccer is by far the hardest sport for me to cover.

It should be one of the easiest - the games go by relatively quickly and the AP usually only wants one short story, so there's no real deadline pressure.

But because the game moves so quickly and I cover the sport relatively infrequently and I'm pretty much a novice when it comes to the finer points of the game, it's not easy. When something does happen, the action moves on so fast it's hard to pick up who was involved in the play. And because I don't watch the sport often enough, I'm often a few steps behind the play instead of a few steps ahead, which is ideal.

So whenever I'm out covering soccer - especially when there aren't any early goals - I'm always wondering if I'll be able to describe enough action to fill out a story.

I shouldn't worry - because usually the stories are either this long or I get to write a longer story with quotes, and you can always fill out a story when you actually talk to someone.