Burlaki [back] on the Hudson

I finished Kimmy’s birthday movie with over a week to spare. Go me! It turned out pretty good, if I say so myself, but I’ll be sure to post here the raving reviews I’m certain to receive after its premiere this coming weekend.

Of course, I spent so much time focusing on that one project over the last three months, that a ton of other projects piled up behind it.

And as if I needed any more things to distract me, something really important and non-negotiable in nature sneaked up on me – The World Cup.

I recognize that most of my readers have little care for The Beautiful Game – feel free to skip the rest of this entry. I’ve been so neglectful a blogger recently that I deserve to be ignored when I finally find something I deem worth spending time on writing up.

Actually, it is a bit too early for any strong impressions of this Cup – 12 of the 32 teams are yet to take field for their opening games. I have to say that I am slightly disappointed by the quality of football that I’ve seen so far, but no major surprised have occurred, a few title favorites that have already played confirmed their claims, a few weaker teams were exposed as prime candidates for group stage elimination.

What I am mostly incredulous about is the quality of commentary and analysis on ESPN/ABC. I suppose I should not be complaining overall, with every single game available on prime channels live in magnificent HD. Furthermore, with British Sky network apparently not getting any broadcast rights for the Cup, ESPN/ABC hired several Sky commentators and talking heads to spice up the proceedings. I happened to like a number of those guys while I was a Sky subscriber.

Here in the States, they show immediate signs of degradation. Led by ESPN anchors who are all in love with the sound of their voice and can never condone asking a question that does not have several sub-questions and not take three time as long to ask as to answer, all of these commentators slide into meaningless platitudes, cliches and occasional sweeping over-dramatizations. They spend more time reminding the viewer of the upcoming coverage (ending each such reminder with the inane tagline: “Remember, one game changes everything!” – WTF?) than actually commentating. They try to sensationalize things as much as they can at the expense of the game analysis.

And what about those slo-mo close-ups of footballers’ grimacing faces every couple of minutes? Must be the next bright idea someone had about making football more appealing to an average American viewer: Inject emotions into the broadcast! Hey, this is not golf. You want to fill the pause in proceedings, show me a replay of the last key moment in the game, rather than what the broadcast director feels is the example of the players “feeling it”.

And the information graphics that comes up on the screen a la baseball stats is sometimes simply laughable. Every other fact is bound to be incorrect, from Holland listed as getting 4th place as their best result to-date (in fact, it was a runner-up not once but twice) to the names of clubs to which players belong misspelled or probably invented (how one misspells “Alaniya” to get “Kublan” for one Nigerian midfielder who plies his trade in Russia is beyond me).

It all looks so amateurish it is not even funny.

Reminds me of the Soviet TV coverage of the 1990 World Cup. Then, as one star player from each country would give a short immediate postgame interview, somebody in the TV hierarchy decided that it would be a grand idea to include those interviews in the broadcasts. The interviews were conducted in each player’s native language. For whatever reason, nobody cared to actually hire proper interpreters. Instead, the live sound stream would be sufficiently diminished to make the actual words coming out in Spanish, Italian, German, French, Portuguese, etc, practically indecipherable, overlaid with a bright young voice sounding as if it was translating.

One small problem. Football players have a habit of exchanging jerseys after completion of important matches. Hygienic considerations notwithstanding, a fair number of players would put the opponent’s jersey on when exiting the pitch – I suppose they want to keep their hands free for whatever reasons. So, an Uruguayan player puts on a jersey he obtained from his Italian opponent before coming on for his interview. Italy won 2-0. The behind-the-screen “interpreter” works off the sight of an Italian jersey and proceeds to talk about “elation”, “hard-won battles”, “scoring when we needed to”, “giving credit to the tough Uruguayan team”, etc… But anyone who’s just seen the game knows that the player in front of the camera is actually Uruguayan, and he is probably talking about “disappointment”, “missed chances”, “mistakes in defense”, “bad refereeing decisions”, “giving credit to the deserving Italians”… It was such a blatant attempt to deceive the viewers, exposed in such a simple but spectacular fashion. Every time I see an attempt at broadcast sophistication where incompetence is brightly shining through, I think back to that.

Just as with the Olympics, I have little choice in the matter. I want to watch – I’ll have to do my best to tolerate.

Chronicles, Sports, TV

What a joke NBC’s Olympic coverage is!

A single Olympiad occurred during my time in Europe and, having watched it in two different countries, I was impressed with the coverage both on BBC and also on Italian TV. It was much closer to what I remember from my Soviet days, when during the Olympics, practically every event could be seen on TV in its entirety, either live or earlier recorded, with the focus on the present competition.

Now, NBC has done its darnedest best to prove its uniquely inept approach to covering the Games.

Listen, NBC! I don’t need to hear for the fifth time in a couple of days that a Canadian skier draws inspiration from his severely-handicapped brother, or that his Australian rival is actually a Canadian born in Vancouver who bolted Down Under because of a conflict with Canadian team authorities, or that Chinese figure skating favorites have given 18 years of their lives to their pursuit of a gold medal. I already heard and saw that all on the last night’s broadcast! It is no longer enlightening if you keep repeating it. And it is not even news anymore if you simply re-cut the same video segment differently.

Least of all do I need two minutes of commercial breaks for each four-five minutes of event coverage. Especially when there’s been no athletic performances shown in the last 5-minute segment.

In the three hours of prime-time Olympic coverage that I watched last night, we’ve seen about ten downhill runs, a handful of snowboard cross heats and half a dozen or so figure skating pairs’ programs. With charitable approximation, that’s about 70 minutes of the actual event coverage out of 180 minutes spent in front of the TV. Ridiculous!

Some scheduling decisions are impossible to understand, period. I realize that with the 3-hour difference, some prime-time events are simply occurring too late for the younger kids to stay up and watch, but why would the broadcast of a final of a day-time event be pushed all the way back towards midnight? Kimmy was rather fascinated by snowboard cross, but only quarterfinal runs were shown before her bedtime. Semifinals were slotted in between figure skating performances around 10pm, and even I did not stay up beyond 11pm to see the final run. On the other hand, in one of those prime-time segments, we were treated to a riveting spectacle of a Chinese figure skater throwing a football at the beginning of his warm-ups. Followed by the drawn-out medal ceremony for the aforementioned Canadian skier.

Is there anybody out there who enjoys watching the coverage of one of the biggest sporting events on the calendar with the actual competition taking backseat to fluff? NBC has been at it for as long as I can remember. I suppose exclusive broadcast rights mean that my only alternative is not to watch Olympics at all, and since I do want to watch, I will unwillingly contribute to the ratings that will continue to fool NBC into thinking that their coverage was successful. If only I could move back to London for the couple of these Olympic weeks.

Sports

Both of the teams I was rooting for lost in conference championship games on Sunday. The Jets were exposed as a lower-class team with mostly toothless offense and only occasionally stingy defense. The Vikings turned the ball over four times and yet had the game for the taking with 2:29 remaining in the fourth quarter. Except, my erstwhile most favorite football player – on his second consecutive one-year un-retirement – single-handedly gave it up with yet another turnover, followed by the overtime in which he did not get a chance to touch the ball. NFL overtime rules are beyond stupid, a questionable officiating decision helped the Saints on their winning drive, but the bottom line is, as I was sitting on the couch repeating to myself “Protect the ball, get into the field goal range” at the end of the regulation, Favre managed the latter, and then screwed up with the former.

The Superbowl now holds decidedly limited interest for me: Not having seen it on the American TV for several years, I’m curious as to the commercials aspect of it. Colts in a shootout, anyway.

In other news, Cablevision and Scripps Networks have resolved their dispute regarding Food Network and HGTV, and both are back on air. Since these two channels constitute roughly 80% of Natasha’s choice of viewing, she is now back in contention for TV-watching time.

And on an entirely unrelated note, my corporate overlords recently decided to block access to a variety of blogging sites. Stand-alone domains such as mine are still accessible, but services such as Blogger are not anymore. I can still use my RSS aggregator for reading, but my ability to click through has been curtailed, which means however little I commented in the past, there will be even less of that going forward. And it goes almost without saying that I practically never spend time on blog-reading when at home. If they block RSS sites as well, I might drop out of the blogosphere altogether. Advance apologies to all of my pen friends.

Chronicles, Sports

I am a rare European-born and raised naturalized American who gets baseball. For most of my fellow emigrants, the game is too static, too full of seemingly inconsequential action when only a couple of people seem to get involved (for instance, when the batter takes a ball), and not very athletic on the surface – occasional big-assed first baseman or a pot-bellied pinch-hitter among the major leaguers never fail to elicit an uncomplimentary comment from people of my background.

I can kinda see their point (just as I can kinda see the point about soccer – football – being a boring game where nothing of consequence may happen at all for long periods of times; the key here, of course, is what you count as being of consequence…). And when they ask me what I see in that game, I say that several things appeal to me: it is a rare team game in which your best player can only have as many attempts at scoring as your ninth-best player (and you cannot send him in to bat at the game’s most crucial moment, unless it is actually his turn); the expectation of something exciting happening on the next play – in simplest terms, a home run, – is greater than similar expectations in other team sports; and the stand-alone individual efforts manifested in the direct one-on-one clash of opposing players in the context of the overall team effort makes it easier to identify with the players you root for.

To say nothing of the feeling that if a big-assed, pot-bellied dude can be a major leaguer, then a reasonably-athletic yours truly could be too. Or, rather, could have been – if not for the obvious handicap of not having grown up in America and not having played the game as a child.

Things that are impossible to quantify, in other words.

Unlike football, though, I can’t really get much into watching baseball when the team I root for does not play. But when the Yankees play well into the postseason, watching them becomes a priority.

The few years that we lived in London, the Yanks ended their seasons in disappointment, bowing out in the first round of the playoffs or missing them altogether. We came back – and suddenly the Yankees are the best team in baseball again, and now only one win away from re-gaining the ultimate glory that eluded them for almost a decade. It has been a pretty interesting postseason too, with everything from brilliant pitching performances to overturned umpiring decisions to a once-in-a-lifetime steal of two bases on a single pitch.

And yet, some things in baseball are just plain weird. Joba Chamberlain entered the game in the 8th inning with one-run lead, which he unluckily gave up, exiting with the score tied. When the Yanks scored 3 more runs in the 9th, Joba ended up as the winning pitcher of record, even though he did not pitch anymore and, in effect, was the only pitcher who made things worse for the team. How exactly does that make sense?

Sports

I realize this morning that my attempt at congratulating my Red Sox fan friends (I can name only a couple off the top my head, anyway) last year has had a desired effect for at least this year: Boston is not going to the World Series this time around.

But I don’t know if I don’t feel worse at the thought that the Rays may be wearing the crown in several days’ time. At least, with the Sox, it was a respectably storied franchise that beat – or did better than – my Yankees. But a team who’s never even had a winning record before now possibly winning it all is hard to stomach when balanced against the Yanks’ recent postseason ineptitude.

Well, Philadelphia is practically in New Jersey. Go Phillies, then!

Sports

I catch glimpses of Olympic Games here or there on TV, but I look up results and commentary online regularly. Some of the assorted thoughts, below the fold.
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Sports

I did watch a couple of hours of Olympics today, and at some point it hit me: BBC shows them commercial-free, except for one or two promotional clips of upcoming BBC programs. Add in the fact that the multi-screen option allows me to pick from among several concurrent feeds on a single channel, and I am almost ready to forgive BBC being the reason for the abominable TV license.

How’s NBC treating American viewers these Games?

Sports

The Olympic opening ceremony is about to start, and I realize that for the first time since I became actively aware of the wonderful medium of television I will not be watching Olympic Games that much.

It’s not because I’ve always felt it was an irresponsible acquiescence to award the Games to an oppressive regime. (I already vented about it once.) I still feel that way, but I also feel that boycotting the Games, whether from participation standpoint or watching standpoint, is downright pointless.

It’s not because I find watching delayed coverage less exciting than the live one. I do, but it did not keep me away from enjoying Games held in Seoul or Sydney or elsewhere not in my timezone. (And let’s keep aside any discussion about the past atrocious coverages of the various Games by NBC.)

It’s not because I am always a bit conflicted whether to root for the country of my birth or the country that I love. With both of them always among the strongest contenders for the overall athletic supremacy, – as reflected in the medal counts – the mixed feelings are always there, but I truly normally manage to resolve them – by rooting for both, when possible, of course.

It’s simply because Olympics is one sporting event that I always enjoy watching together with Natasha. And for the next two weeks, we are going to be either on our holiday (surely, not much of the TV time is budgeted as part of that) or apart while I stay on my own in London. Some might say that I have a perfect opportunity to veg out in front of the TV – and I will certainly attempt to try it over the weekend – but it’s just not the same for me to watch the Olympics in solitude.

The damn Games are making me feel more lonely!

[upd] I find it a bit spooky that my Olympic rant linked to above was posted on 07/07/07, while this one appeared on 08/08/08. I’m guessing I have to schedule some Olympic-related discussion for September 9th of the next year…

Sports

In most sports that I follow, besides rooting for a favorite home team, I have individual favorite players, whose teams transitively get my allegiance as well. For instance, I’ve been partial in the past to the Detroit Red Wings because of all the Russian players on their roster or the Utah Jazz while John Stockton was playing.

I started following American football in mid-nineties, right around the time that Brett Favre came into his own as one of the best players in the NFL. I liked the way he visibly enjoyed playing, so much so that he quickly became my favorite football player. I’ve always since said that I root for the Green Bay Packers.

But I do have a requisite home team that I root for as well, the New York Jets. And to my utter delight, I learn today that my hands-down favorite player is coming to play for my home team.

Wow! I don’t think this has ever happened to me before. Alex Rodriguez to the Yankees does not really count – that was the best player in the game coming to my home team, rather than my most favorite (despite all of Rodriguez’s personal achievements, he has never merited as much esteem in my eyes as Derek Jeter).

I’m all aflutter (although you hopefully would not notice that by observing me just now).

By the way, Kostyan, sleep easy. I no longer despise the Chicago Bears

Sports

As unpredictable as football can be, the football gods rarely insist on throwing their weight behind an illogical outcome, Greece’s triumph at the last championships notwithstanding. Today, we have a well-deserving champion.

The Spanish team was not the only one that went through the tournament unbeaten (the unfortunate Croatians were knocked out in the quarterfinals without having lost a game in the course of play), and they did not manage to win all of their games (they beat Italy on penalties, which is the mechanism to decide who advances, but not who wins the game, IMHO), but they were the only team who was better than the opposition in every game they played. They played fast, skilled and attractive style up and down the field. They beat only one team emphatically – twice! – but don’t let the minimal margins of victory fool you: Only somewhat misplaced generosity with their finishing prevented the Spaniards from running up scores on their other opponents the way they did against Russia.

There was never a doubt of who would win in any of the contests involving Spain. In the final, the Germans had one moment early in the game that failed to develop into a proper chance, and then just one single shot on goal that could have been counted as a half-chance. The Spaniards could have easily scored a handful. In the end, a brilliant pass from Xavi (who clearly earned his “Player of the Tournament” honors with his overall display over the course of the campaign) and a no less brilliant and determined effort from Fernando Torres produced the winning goal that sent Spain to their first major trophy in 44 years.

The Germans were a flawed team, especially on defense, producing a dominating display only in their opening game against the inferior Polish team, and then being worthy of a win only against Portugal in the quarters. But you have to tip your hat to them: Somehow, by the skin of their teeth, Germany seemingly always finds a way to figure among the contenders.

All in all, it was a grand and entertaining tournament. Too bad that it appears unlikely that I’ll have another chance to follow a World Cup or a Euro Championships this closely in the foreseeable future.

On a side note, I watched the final over a plate of fine cheese and wine. A bit unorthodox, I admit, but no less enjoyable.

Sports

Bookmakers are no slouches: We’ve got a Germany – Spain final.

Spain pretty much pasted Russia in the second half, winning in more than convincing fashion. The Russians played as I expected them to play in the previous game, i.e. reasonably well but worse than the opponents. The first half actually ended up scoreless in a fairly even contest, with both teams creating several half-chances. After the interval, though, only one team continued playing. Arshavin was invisible, the rest of the Russian team was far from impressive, and the Spaniards scored three very nice goals. My Arsenal favorite, Cesc Fabregas, was at his best, directing Spanish attack.

In the earlier semifinal, Germany was outplayed for most of the game by the scrappy Turkish team, but showed an amazing prowess in exploiting the few mistakes that the Turks made on defense. Turkey actually opened scoring for the first time in their five matches, but the Germans equalized pretty quickly, and the lively game then proceeded without serious threats but with discernible territorial advantage for the Turks as if towards the extra time. True to his form, though, the Turkish goalie blundered at some point, and otherwise ineffective Miroslav Klose scored on an excellent header. Turkey, of course, did not run out of its escape magic, scoring a goal seemingly out of nowhere four minutes from the end of regulation. But that was still the final gasp for them, as Germany managed to get back into the lead with an excellent passing display that led to a point-blank strike from Philip Lahm, who had a remarkably bad game at fullback otherwise. The Turks could not respond as they did against Croatia…

I have already admitted that I am a not very good pundit, but in the end, the team that I remarked on having put in the strongest claim after the first round of games in the top half of the bracket (Germany) and the team that was one of the most impressive in the bottom half (Spain) ended up advancing to the ultimate game. I should have stopped with my analysis then – and would be able to take a lot of credit for being clairvoyant…

Sports

After four quarterfinal games of Euro Championships, I suddenly feel that, although I considered myself reasonably knowledgeable about the Beautiful Game for all my life, I have, in fact, very little understanding of it.

Or some aspects of it, at least.

There were stunning reversals of form, dumb coaching decisions, plenty of missed of opportunities, and of the four group winners – who all, as you recall, won their respective groups with a game to spare and rested their first teams in the last group round – only one managed not to lose in the quarterfinal. Three games went to extra time, two of those were decided by penalty kicks, and the one game that ended after 90 minutes was actually the most evenly contested.

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Sports

A good live football match every night at a convenient viewing time. Heaven! I do not think I will ever have a chance like this again…

I have watched only a half of games after the first round of group play, but still, that’s all together 16 matches out of possible 24. Only 7 more left, which I am sure I will all see in live broadcast.

So, what does it look like at the quarterfinal stage?

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Sports

As I mentioned on a number of occasions, I am a horrible golfer. I am capable of adequate displays of skills – and I hope you all understand what I mean by adequate – but not for any length of time, which summarily produces double-par-or-worse outcomes in any given round of play. It’s a hard game to master even with regular practice (and I play too irregularly, unfortunately).

I also maintain a view that golf is the hardest individual sport to win at. Not to become good at (which I already admitted is hard in itself). But to win at. Golf may be comparatively not too demanding a sport from the athleticism perspective (as opposed to, say, tennis), but winning a golf tournament means outperforming a hundred of other people at the same time over the course of several days, without being able to affect their scores (in tennis, you have to be better than only 7 opponents one at a time while directly fighting each – I am not saying that it is easy, just that the magnitude of the opposition is on a different level).

Which makes Tiger’s continuing success all the more amazing.

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Sports

To the envy of many, I am sure, I have watched every single game of the European Championships in its entirety thus far. Live, too, with only one 30-minute-delay PVR-enabled exception. In other words, at the conclusion of the first round of group play, I have seen each of the 16 teams in action exactly once.

At the top of the draw, both Portugal and Germany looked confident and solid. Their respective opponents, Turkey and Poland, started out well enough, especially the Turks, but simply did not have enough talent to compete. The supposed second-best teams in these two groups, the Czechs and the Croats, looked utterly unconvincing in scraping out minimal wins against lesser opposition, Austria and Switzerland, respectively, who were supposed to be hopefully outclassed but compensated with heart and effort for what they lacked in ability.

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Sports

A resident hawk attacked a local girl on a school trip to the Fenway Park.

The girl’s name?

Alexa Rodriguez!!!!

(And she was the only one attacked.)

The Sox Nation must have gone completely bonkers to train their wildlife to strike anyone who’s got any – however cursory – association with the Yankees.

You really cannot make this one up!

Sports

Because I live five hours ahead of the Eastern time zone, I cannot conceivably watch the late-night football games in their entirety. Let’s just say that I am not rabid enough a fan, and leave it at that. So for the second time in a row, I watched the first half of an important game until well after midnight, went to bed with the team that I was mildly rooting for unconvincingly ahead… and woke next morning to a Giant upset.

I admire how the Patriots put their team together (although I am disturbed by the on-going Spygate allegations) and I would have liked to witness an undefeated history – hence, my rooting in this Superbowl, – but I cannot help thinking that I personally have not seen their greatness this season: In every game of theirs that I chanced to watch, they produced a middling effort and squeaked by on stamina. The Giants, on the other hand, had an aura of destiny all over them in the last few weeks.

And – damn! – I had a stray thought before the game that putting some money on the Giants was a promising bet. Alas, I am not much into betting…

Oh well… Every time a New York team beats a Boston team, it is ultimately a happy occasion. Hope the Yankees take a hint…

 
[update at 4pm] I caught the fourth quarter replay while running on a treadmill at the gym, and I realize that at some point with less than two minutes to play, the Giants had in succession a near lost fumble, a near interception and then a near sack on third and long. The latter inexplicably turned into a circus catch by Tyree, which set the stage for another couple of botched plays, culminating with the touchdown on another third and long. Not exactly an emphatic performance, but perfectly in line with the resilient label.

The Patriots seemed to let it get away, further convincing me that their greatness was somewhat exaggerated.

Sports

Winter golf is actually not as bad as it sounds. If the skies are clear and there is no wind, then even freezing temperatures are tolerable. That is, if you wear layers…
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Sports

Remember this ESPN commercial that ran during the World Cup last year?

 
On any given Sunday these days, I proceed from watching one football to the other and back. I can’t help but notice how the environment dictates the primary watching habits. While the last few years of my sports fan life have been dominated by the American football (and baseball), I am now firmly engrossed again in football that only America calls soccer.
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Sports

So, the Red Sox won the World Series again. The next 86 years of the life of the Nation turned into just 3. Somebody, please, curse that team again, quick!

My dislike for the Sox stems not only from the fact that I support the Yankees, but also from the realization that for all their blustery talk about New York being “the Evil Empire” having accumulated all the high-priced mercenaries, it was actually Boston who had fewer homegrown regulars in recent years. In 2004, for instance, the only such player in their lineup was the altogether remarkable Trot Nixon, whereas the Yankees for years boasted the core group of Jeter, Pettitte, Posada, Willams, Rivera, just to name the obvious stars…

But coming back from 3-1 ALCS deficit to sweep the next seven games is almost as impressive as coming back from 3-0 ALCS deficit to sweep the next eight games. And that is something that I find hard imagining the Yanks of late do.

So, for the few of my acquaintances who are Sox fans, congratulations! May your twice-in-the-lifetime moment never become a third!

Sports