Happy Birthday Kim!

 
 

August 12, 2008

We have been having just a fine time with our second visitor, Jean. Jean hails from Vienna and came to visit and help celebrate Kim's birthday. We've been spending a lot of time watching the Olympics; high interest is in swimming (Jean teaches swimming when she's not being a pediatric preemie nurse AND she gives me lessons). Both Kim and Jean complain about the Italian coverage (which I tend to like) because they cover all kinds of events--boxing, fencing, fencing, fencing, fencing, fencing, (note: I was forced to add fencing multiplicity because it was on most of yesterday; to make myself become superior, I googled the rules and while they complained, I explained.) sculling, kayaking, pistol shooting, skeet shooting, judo, tennis, swimming, basket ball, sand volley ball, archery. So far, no gymnastics or track and field; we wonder if it hasn't started as yet? They moan and groan when commercials or the news comes on; heaven forbid the war between Russia and Georgia cut in on the swimming heats!

One thing about the Italian coverage is that the focus is completely upon the athletes. When an athlete gets interviewed, we never see the face of who's doing the interviewing; just the back of their head and their outstretched hand holding the microphone. There's no "Back to you Howard or Bob" with their big smiling faces looking at us through the camera lens. In fact, we've never seen Howard and Bob as they commentate.

When the news is reported, it's someone standing holding a bunch of papers reading the news. No teleprompter or sitting at a desk. They tend to go into more detail about the story being covered. News occurs at multiple times during the day and runs for about 20 minutes, then back to programming. Speaking of programming, I like how they do it better than the US. Programs don't necessarily begin on the hour or half hour; they may begin on the hour, at 10 minutes past, at the half hour or 10 minutes to the hour. Depending upon whether it's an hour or half hour program determines commercial breaks. If it's a "half hour", it runs non stop for the actual 20 minutes and then there are commercials or the news. If it's an hour, it runs for almost 40-45 minutes before the break and then runs the last 5 to 10 minutes. I like the continuity better.

Tonight in honor of Kim's birthday, we'll go out for dinner--actually, this will be our first dinner out since we arrived. We don't know where we'll be going so I'm sure that will be another adventure...

The pictures are: Jean screaming with glee upon finally meeting SR Wendy face to face and the three of them (plus fan) watching the Olympics (and if you enlarge the picture, you'll see that it's a news break; what big babies!).