Olympics Survival Tips for Twitter Addicts

It has come to my attention that people, including both Mike Greeney AND Mike Golic, are complaining that because of the way NBC is broadcasting the Olympics they already know who won a certain event before they get the chance to see the network's tape delayed and edited broadcast in Primetime.  The culprit: social media.

You know how it goes.  You are kicking back in the man cave.  You're reclining in your giant leather chair and you got a six pack on ice sitting next to you.  You are getting ready for some hot beach volleyball action in Primetime when you check your Twitter feed and see that your buddy Smitty has sent you a...ugh...."tweet"....saying that Walsh and May-Treanor thrashed the Russians to get to the next round and they looked sooooo good doing it.  Of course, you watch it anyway for the obvious reasons, but knowing they won (though, honestly, it would be truly shocking if they lost...) takes some of the fun out of it.   And you think "God, this would be so much better if I didn't know the outcome".

Well, America, never fear.  I, Nick Marickovich, Mr. Tape Delay himself, is here to give you some pointers on how you can never suffer the same fate again.  I assure you that I am extremely well qualified.  As an avid soccer fan, I often record key games on the DVR and watch them late at night, hours after they have been completed, without knowing the result.  It's as if it was live, even though...you know...it's not, and it leaves me with the rather unsettling question every time a goal gets scored of what exactly I am celebrating in regards to the space time continuum.

There are three simple steps...though I guess maybe the first one is a little complicated.  You'll see what I mean.

1.  Media Blackout.

If you don't want to know the result of a match or event, limit your information.  The severity of the blackout depends on the magnitude of the sporting event.  If, say, you want to watch Aston Villa v. Torquay United  in the first round of the FA Cup, you can probably limit the blackout to soccer websites like  www.AstonVilla.epl.net and www.HeyguesswhatTorquayhasafootballteam.com.  But if, say, you can't watch the Super Bowl live because you have a bunch of TPS reports to file, well, you better avoid TV, radio, Internet websites of all kind, and naturally all social media outlets.

Sadly, the Olympics is one of those times when its best to just shut it all down.  No radio, no TV, no Internet, and of course no social media.  You never know when NPR, or CNN, or FOX News, or The Bugle, is going to make a tweet or run or a story about the athlete who recovered from cancer 4 times while fighting to get his mother out of prison and went on to win the gold in Fencing even after losing an arm not three months ago in a tragic potato chip incident;  You never know when your best bud, moved by a sudden outburst of patriotism after seeing a US gymnast just barely eek out gold on the parallel bars, will tweet "WHOO! We Gymnasticated the fucking shit out of everyone!  USA USA USA #USA!" 

So when it comes to the media, just turn it off.  Don't take your chances.

The approach of a total blackout also helps put things into perspective.  Are you willing to go without Twitter  for a few hours so you can watch the Olympic duck duck goose finals?  If not, then maybe you aren't as interested in the event as you thought.  Or maybe you are so addicted to Twitter that you need serious help.

2.  Tell everyone that you don't want to know who wins.

Hey, it's a free country.  You may be in blackout mode, but your friends will not be.  If you find yourself at work or out with some friends during the event that you cannot watch, make sure you tell everyone you don't want to know the winner because you are going to watch it later.

There are two responses your friends will have to this:

• they will either be really considerate and not mention it even if they do get some kind of sports alert on their smart phone that tells them that, yes, Hector Rodriguez of Mexico won the duck duck goose final after the early selection of the heavily favored Nico Stepanovic of Croatia as the goose.  
• Or your friends will be total dicks and tell you that, yes, Rodriguez won as the early selection of Stepanovic caught the Croatian completely off guard and Hector was able to make a run for it, forcing Stepanovic out with three overs and a half jug.  Having eliminated his best competition, Rodriguez picked off the rest of the field with surprising ease, winning by the score of eleventy seven to twelve.  

3.  Convince yourself that if your friends to tell you the result, they are just messing with you and, to continue an example, Rodriguez really didn't win that final.

Apply a little deniability and delusionality.  To guard against the devastation of learning the outcome of an event before it happens, inculcate the belief that everyone talking about it is in a grand conspiracy to mislead you as to the winner.  Why they are doing this you don't know, but you never liked them very much anyway, and the situation definitely bears watching.

So there you go.  Turn off the Twitter for a bit, go about your business, and enjoy NBC's Primetime coverage of the Olympics in the full, sweet bliss of total ignorance.

On the Dark Knight Shootings

I think Charles M. Blow's excellent Op-Ed in the New York Times puts it pretty well:

"It is on days like this that we are reminded of how much more alike than different we are, when we see that tears have no color, when ideologies melt into a common heart broken by sorrow".  

The only thing I would add to that is that I find it sad that the only time we can come together as a nation is in the wake of tragedies like this; that the only time a staunch conservative and bleeding heart liberal can stand by side on a stage with common purpose is when it is time to mourn.  

Of course, it won't last long.  Already we are in a sharp skirmish over gun control laws.  But if I were to place my bets, I wouldn't place them on having some kind of sober national dialogue that actually changes anything.  Neither presidential candidate is likely to make gun control a plank in their campaign platform, and soon we'll be squabbling over Romney's tax returns and Obama's birth certificate once more.  Normal service shall resume.  

But let's focus on the current debate, however briefly it may last.  The arguments are familiar.  One side says if we simply outlawed all guns, the deranged perpetrator of these shootings would have never had access to the weapons he used and the shooting would have never happened.  The other side says that if someone had been carrying a gun in the theater they might have been able to take this guy and maybe save some lives.  

As with most purely ideological stances, both are arguments I find to be impracticable.  You simply can't ban all guns.  Our nation does have a gun culture (whether you like it or not), and if someone wants to have rifles for hunting or shotguns for home defense, if some old lady wants to carry around a 9mm in her handbag because it makes her feel safe, well, more power to them.  It's their right to do so.

On the other hand, when does somebody's right to own weapons infringe on another persons right to feel reasonably safe walking down the street or going to the movies without one?  While I readily recognize the fact that we have a gun culture, I also believe that it is out of control.  The argument that a citizen carrying a gun can thwart an event like this makes me think that the gun lobby really wants our nation to resemble the wild west.  Thanks, but that's really not a society I want to live in (though I'll take the hats and mustaches).  I'd really rather not have to lock and load just to go to the library.  Also, I wish to point out that it seems to me a person carrying a handgun in this situation might be a little outmatched by a man wearing tactical armor and carrying an AR-15.  Just an opinion.  

So, Government:  I would like to see more sensible gun control laws, please.  I think a good place to start would be a ban on assault rifles.  The only reason to have one is if, as the name implies, you are going to actually assault something.  Private citizens should have no need to do so.  And sorry, I don't buy all that stuff about how an armed citizenry safeguards democracy.  The implied threat of open violence against the government laced within such an argument is just a little frightening.  This isn't 1776.  

It's impossible to completely prevent tragedies such as the Dark Knight Shootings, April 16th, or Columbine.    I have to believe, though, that banning assault rifles and 100 round clips (or at least making them very, very hard to obtain) would lower the heartbreaking frequency at which these acts of depravity occur.  And when they do happen, maybe the lives lost will be less.  The police may be able to move in faster knowing a suspect is more lightly armed than they.  Maybe even that granny with the 9mm in her handbag would actually stand a chance.  

But there is no way our nation would ever be so sensible.  No way that the gun lobby, safe guarders of liberty and keepers of the peace, would be okay with giving up a freedom we really don't need so that the rest of us can actually be a little bit safer as we pursue our own happiness.  There is simply too much money, and votes, at stake.  

And so it goes.