Ciao, Torino

Well, I tried. Tried watching a little of NBC's Winter Olympics coverage. But as I was watching today, I noticed that there sure did seem to be a lot of commercials. Finding that seriously discouraging, and with other things to do, I went off and did those other things. (The second half of City of Truth just became very significantly different from what we had originally planned. So it goes.)

Then tried again tonight, after watching Part Five of the completely terrific BBC adaptation of Bleak House. (Anna Maxwell Martin is doing superb work, and is my favorite recent discovery--and oh, how I love discovering great new actors.) And since I'd had the earlier impression that the Olympics coverage/advertising ratio was skewed, I kept an eye on the clock.

The result: six minutes of half-pipe coverage, then four minutes of commercials; five minutes of short-track racing, then three minutes of commercials. And you know what? Nothing that I saw of the actual competition set my heart to beating faster in the least; now maybe I could find myself settling in just to see what happens, if not for the fact that the coverage is being constantly interrupted by commercials. Too much advertising, far too much, for far too little reward.

Ciao, Torino. Ciao, Winter Olympics. I've got better things to do.

(And on a related note, I heartily recommend Laura Penny's impassioned book Your Call is Important to Us: The Truth About Bullshit.)