The Fortunately, Unfortunately book....

When I was a kid, one of my favorite books was a picture book with a story line that put the reader through a series of fortunate and unfortunate circumstances. I can't remember how the book starts, but some of the finely written middle material includes the main 'character' (hard to call the guy a character, because really, what character development was there scene- hopping a dude through a bunch of circumstances, each with fortunate and unfortunate components?... but I digress)... so anyway, here's a stretch of the book's 'activity' that I remember: "...unfortunately, the plane's engine broke down. Fortunately, there was a parachute. Unfortunately, the parachute had a hole in it. Fortunately, there was a haystack. Unfortunately, there was a pitch fork in the haystack. Fortunately, he missed the pitch fork..."

Not to leave you hanging... I'm sure you now have to go buy the book... and not to ruin it for you either, but the dude ends up at a happy place in the end, after having broken through the end of a tunnel with a fireman's ax, and somehow finding himself at his own birthday party. Was this story induced by chemicals of some kind? Not sure. Hmmm... come to think of it, this author's writing style is just like my own! All over the place but with a happy ending!

So, the Olympic games have started. I love the Olympic games. Fortunately, we have television and can watch coverage in HD- A reasonable facsimile of being there. But unfortunately a... tape delay? I thought at least some of the games were coming to us LIVE --even while at trickier than usual hours for some people (for me, 8 AM Mountain I'm expecting to see the US Men's basketball team play China) - I made sure I was up to see MY team play in the biggest viewership draw of any basketball game in history. What? I have to wait until 9 AM to see a game I know started at 8 AM?

Doesn't NBC think those of us in the Mountain and Pacific Time zones care to see some of the games live? Perhaps we should all simply DVR the entire broadcast. Blitz through ALL of the commercials which their advertisers have paid top dollar for, and see our tape delayed events on our own schedule altogether.

Unfortunately, there's the internet... telling us all top results and ruining our tape delay broadcast. Fortunately, there's the internet, allow us to take in live streaming video of events as they occur, if we want to. Unfortunately, sitting in front of my computer monitor is not quite as comfy as lying on the couch. Fortunately, regardless of when I actually take in the events, if I don't peek at the internet, it's "live to me!" Unfortunately, knowing it's not live, makes my good Karma, energy focusing, cheering that I just KNOW aides the athletes... moot. "Go Michael Phelps!!!" I say... cheering him on... while actually he's getting a massage at that very time?

Don't know the answer. Far be it from me to control the NBC broadcasts.

I got up to watch the USA/China basketball game. Unfortunately, it wasn't on yet. Fortunately, it gave me an hour to write my blog...