Two Guys Sports
Bruce BostwickAs Peter Griffin Would Say, ‘You Know What Grinds My Gears?'
November 17th 2008 08:11
As Peter Griffin Would Say, ‘You Know What Grinds My Gears?”
I am sitting here watching the beginning of the Nascar season finale. The final race of the year at Miami Homestead. At the start of the race Jimmie Johnson is in first place in the Nascar Sprint Cup Standings. Carl Edwards has a chance at taking over the lead. It looks even more promising since Edwards starts near the front of the pack, while Johnson starts back in the pack in the 30th spot where anything can happen to take him out of the race early.
So, I tune in at 1:30AM Central Time to ESPN2 to watch what is listed as 2 and a half hours of interesting racing. I either watch the replay, or record it to my DVR and watch it after the race is over. I do this because it takes what probably originally took 4 hours of TV time and cuts it down to just 2 and a half hours.
Now ESPN watchers far and wide will know that across the bottom of the screen the entire time is the ESPN Sports Ticker. This ticker shows scores and news from the day in sports.
So they go through the condensed prerace stuff, which is now a couple comments from reporters on the track, the national anthem, and not much else. Just as they are coming to the green flag to start the race I turn to actually watch the start, until now I had just been listening while doing other things on the computer. The second I turn to look, just as the drivers are hitting the gas pedals to speed up –
Across the bottom of my screen comes the line –
Jimmie Johnson wins his third straight Nascar Championship
Well guys, thanks for ruining it for me! I managed to avoid the results of the race all day. I had been out for most of the afternoon doing stuff. When I returned home I got caught up on the NFL scores, and then even watched the Cowboys beat the Redskins live on Sunday Night Football. The whole time no one pointed out who won the race and who won the points championship. No one that is until your bonehead network puts the results in the ticker right as your replay of the race is about to start!
Now I can hear two of my friends in my head pointing out that it is my own fault for not watching TV while it happens. I am notorious for watching almost NOTHING while it is originally on TV. I watch so very much TV, I am a TV fanatic. If I were to watch as much as I could while it was originally airing (while recording two other channels, sometimes three when shows are on at the same time) I wouldn’t be able to watch half the stuff I do. Eliminating commercials by fast forwarding, or watching shows online cuts down the elapsed time of watching shows so very much. I can watch an hour long show like Criminal Minds in about 42 minutes or less, and a half hour show like The Big Bang Theory in about 17 or 18 minutes. Saving 12-18 minutes here and there really helps, it means after 2 shows you can fit a third in the original time. With Nascar as I said above, it can make a difference as big as 90-120 minutes, especially if the race gets red flagged for some reason.
So I ask, what is the point in reairing an event later that same night if you are going to leave the results of whatever event it is in the ticker at the bottom of the screen? Wouldn’t it make more sense to edit the ticker to cut out whatever show is reairing in the middle of the night?
Now to finish off my rant I have to add what just happened. The race started less than half an hour ago (again it is scheduled for 2 and a half hours of airtime). While I was writing this they had a caution flag and went to a commercial. Now as I said I wasn’t watching, mainly listening. When they came back from commercial they were on lap 157! Someone hit the wrong button and skipped ahead more than 125 or so laps. While this is exceptionally annoying, and would normally really upset me since I wanted to watch the race, before I knew who won everything. Now I am sort of happy though since they ruined the result, because I still want to see the end and the celebrations. Now I shouldn’t have to wait 2 and a half hours.
So, I tune in at 1:30AM Central Time to ESPN2 to watch what is listed as 2 and a half hours of interesting racing. I either watch the replay, or record it to my DVR and watch it after the race is over. I do this because it takes what probably originally took 4 hours of TV time and cuts it down to just 2 and a half hours.
Now ESPN watchers far and wide will know that across the bottom of the screen the entire time is the ESPN Sports Ticker. This ticker shows scores and news from the day in sports.
So they go through the condensed prerace stuff, which is now a couple comments from reporters on the track, the national anthem, and not much else. Just as they are coming to the green flag to start the race I turn to actually watch the start, until now I had just been listening while doing other things on the computer. The second I turn to look, just as the drivers are hitting the gas pedals to speed up –
Across the bottom of my screen comes the line –
Jimmie Johnson wins his third straight Nascar Championship
Well guys, thanks for ruining it for me! I managed to avoid the results of the race all day. I had been out for most of the afternoon doing stuff. When I returned home I got caught up on the NFL scores, and then even watched the Cowboys beat the Redskins live on Sunday Night Football. The whole time no one pointed out who won the race and who won the points championship. No one that is until your bonehead network puts the results in the ticker right as your replay of the race is about to start!
Now I can hear two of my friends in my head pointing out that it is my own fault for not watching TV while it happens. I am notorious for watching almost NOTHING while it is originally on TV. I watch so very much TV, I am a TV fanatic. If I were to watch as much as I could while it was originally airing (while recording two other channels, sometimes three when shows are on at the same time) I wouldn’t be able to watch half the stuff I do. Eliminating commercials by fast forwarding, or watching shows online cuts down the elapsed time of watching shows so very much. I can watch an hour long show like Criminal Minds in about 42 minutes or less, and a half hour show like The Big Bang Theory in about 17 or 18 minutes. Saving 12-18 minutes here and there really helps, it means after 2 shows you can fit a third in the original time. With Nascar as I said above, it can make a difference as big as 90-120 minutes, especially if the race gets red flagged for some reason.
So I ask, what is the point in reairing an event later that same night if you are going to leave the results of whatever event it is in the ticker at the bottom of the screen? Wouldn’t it make more sense to edit the ticker to cut out whatever show is reairing in the middle of the night?
Now to finish off my rant I have to add what just happened. The race started less than half an hour ago (again it is scheduled for 2 and a half hours of airtime). While I was writing this they had a caution flag and went to a commercial. Now as I said I wasn’t watching, mainly listening. When they came back from commercial they were on lap 157! Someone hit the wrong button and skipped ahead more than 125 or so laps. While this is exceptionally annoying, and would normally really upset me since I wanted to watch the race, before I knew who won everything. Now I am sort of happy though since they ruined the result, because I still want to see the end and the celebrations. Now I shouldn’t have to wait 2 and a half hours.
| 43 |
| Vote |
Shared on
Add Comments
Read More
