What to do now?

WeightWatchers update: On Monday, E and I began our weekly Weigh-In with hope in our hearts.  We had been good, mostly, and Monday was Day forty-fucking-three.  We thought we'd earned it.  Instead: devastation! Both of us weighed exactly the same as the week before and the week before that.  The pain! The disillusionment! The resentment! WW Online informed us that we had hit a "plateau" and basically accused us of incorrectly recording our daily points.  Oh, hell to the no! So we did what anyone else in our position would do: we drove directly to Canadian Tire and bought a new scale. I can now recommend that as the best dieting tip I've learned so far  (New Scale gave us a much lower reading than the old one).  I plan to sell all the old scales we collect on ebay.

Now that the Olympics are over, I have no idea what to do with all my time.  I mean, I have *some* idea but work doesn't seem that compelling and certainly not as gripping as women's soccer or taekwondo or even kayaking.  For my American readers, you probably were only vaguely aware that these sports existed at the Olympics but they do and Canadians were in them though, of course, not as gold medalists.  We won our sole gold medal in trampolining (which is an awesome sport to watch, fyi), and I'm actually really proud of our modest medal count because it seems a little more balanced and organic and sane than other efforts out there.   While I would have given it all up for commercial-free BBC coverage, in the great white north we had the enviable luxury of being able to watch all kinds of different Olympic coverage: CTV (who had the major rights to the games this time around, next time it will rotate to the CBC), TSN (our version of ESPN; it was allowed to augment CTV coverage), the French versions of these channels (which usually showed different sports), NBC (the place to go for commercials, Bob Costas, swimming, Bolt, and American women's gymnastics), and BBC highlights.  For sure, I'm not saying that all of this coverage offered a comprehensive view of the games at all - in 6 channels I still never saw anything about handball or field hockey, for example.  But I also never got up off the couch long enough to check it out on the interwebs so that shit's on me.

Things I learned:

1) All commentators, particularly the all-sport dudes out there who are sent in to commentate on anything from synchronized diving to steeplechase, are just Michael Scott and Perd Hapley.

It's not a matter of if they're going to say something offensive or ridiculous, it's just a matter of when and how many times.  Don't they have to go through some kind of sensitivity training?  Or worse thought: they've already done the training and passed with flying colours.

Moments prior to one of the main track events, CTV ran a background piece on the place of sprinting in Jamaica - how it's a massive spectator sport even at the gradeschool level, how a lot of resources are channeled into producing excellent sprinters, how successful sprinters attain superstar status, etc etc.  I was delighted because it presented a structural, socio-cultural explanation for how Jamaican runners have become so dominant in the sport.  Wonderful work, CTV.  Then we cut back to Brian Williams (the Canadian one) and he says, "You see? It's in their blood."  And all of that good work just evaporated.  I don't even want to know who Brian Williams thinks "they" are but seriously, dude, STFU.

2) Brian Williams (I'm not talking about the NBC one) needs to retire.  Right now.  If you don't know who Brian Williams is, you're probably not Canadian.  He has been a sportscaster, first with the CBC and now with CTV, my entire life.  No, I don't think of him as someone I've grown up with, I think of him as the destroyer of Olympic coverage for the entire nation since 1984.  I'm not just tired of seeing his face, like I am of Bob Costas'. I seriously think his work is subpar and his vibe infuriates me to no end.  Dick Enberg (yes, the American one) is an old racist artifact, for sure, but hating him is like hating vanilla ice cream. My objection to Brian Williams is in a different category: imagine the content of Michael Scott's brain delivered with the intensity of a motivational speaker/actual journalist and with no regard for things like irony or even contemporary humour.  Add pleasant packaging to that and it sounds like the recipe for a Republican candidate - but it's just Brian Williams.  Go now, BW.  Let someone else eff it up.

3) If Quebec ever separates and sends its own Olympic team, Canada is going to be effed in the eh/é. [I know, but I couldn't resist.]

4) NBC's coverage, of which there is so much written!, scared the shit out of me.  This has been said before, but I still feel like echoing it: the emphasis on medals and winning and Americans, to the exclusion of all else, even context, seriously, seriously, seriously, ironically, reminded me of when NBC's 30 Rock satires North Korean coverage of anything.  Yep, the difference is they didn't make up the news but that doesn't comfort me when you acknowledge that the two countries who won the most medals are the ones who invest in winning the most medals.  Maybe it's called "overdetermining the news."  Congrats!  CTV's coverage certainly had its tunnel vision too. I only heard the Chinese national anthem twice via CTV - how is that even possible?

5) Speaking of a questionable moral compass, one of the most disturbing things about CTV is that it, like the Globe and Mail, is owned by Bell Media (yes, a fragment of the old American Bell monopoly, still alive and well in Canada).  So we were tortured by "Olympic Twitter Updates" and the sad truth of what was trending on twitter is that it wasn't interesting or relevant.  Athlete A thanks everyone at home for their support, Athlete B pledges to do his/her best in the next heat, Athlete C is having a great time with other people in this photo.  The segments were always introduced as if this was the real story of what was going on out there, as if we were gaining valuable insight into the Arab Spring - which we were not.  The only thing it did was attempt to sell mobile phone contracts and justify lack of support for actual journalism (and possibly de-fang any subversive potential social media might still have.)  Sigh.

6) Sports are cool! I want to do some! I feel like my slowly, slowly shrinking 36-year-old body has some game left.  What? Where? When? Don't know but I'm on the lookout and have been reminded that there are lots of different sports to choose from.  Stay tuned!