The plight of a west coaster

With the arrival of the Olympics a long debated point concerning television broadcasting has been brought up again.  The misleading term: live.

Somehow living on the West Coast does not entitle households to watch live coverage of events.  There are plenty of arguments for this including getting satellite, not watching television, and saying how stupid the Olympics are.  However, whether you watch the Olympics, watch any other live events, or do not even watch television the debate goes beyond just television.  The main reason that the major networks do not show events live on the West Coast is to ensure that they can be tape delayed and aired during primetime.  I find it amazing that one network has enough clout that they can dictate when the events are scheduled such that the coincide with primetime on the East Coast.  The swimming events that have hundreds of competitors were specifically arranged to occur in the morning in Beijing so that the "majority" of the American public could watch them truly live.  While I have a problem with the fact that the numbers say that since there are more people living on the East Coast the broadcast is set for live for them, but on the West Coast we have to wait until 3 hrs later to watch.  We are not given the chance to watch the broadcast earlier nor are events that could be broadcast live shown live even if they occur during primetime on the West Coast.  The real problem I have is that East Coast viewership represents approximately 8% of the total global viewership of the Olympics (assuming the entire East Coast population 150 million watches the Olympics and the Opening Ceremony viewership was 2 billion globally) and the NBC investment in the Olympics is on the order of 40% of the IOC's total budget.  I know this probably doesn't surprise anyone, but it's amazing that with such a large investment stake that NBC can dictate when 92% of viewers see the events. 

Goals

A friend of mine recently completed the San Francisco Marathon.  She not only completed it, but also managed to do so on probably a few months training.  The day of the marathon happened to fall 9 months to the day before I turn 30.  I started to think about what I have done in my life and what I want to do.  I have never been one to set goals for the upcoming year when I have a birthday, but that is something I have experienced through the HyWy.  I decided to set myself some goals for the remaining months prior to my 30th birthday.  I decided that I too want to run a marathon before I turn 30.  In setting that goal for myself I realized I also need to train and find a marathon that I want to run.  I thought I could run 26.2 miles on the San Francisco Marathon course with a watch, but then I thought that many people (the HyWy being first in line for this list) would likely see to it that I do something more practical and safe.  So what other goals should I set for my 30th birthday?  Learn to play a song on the guitar?  How about averaging one post a week on the blog?  That goal brings to mind another thought.  The purpose of this blog was initially to tell people about interesting things I heard about or interesting articles I read.  I doubt many people read the blog regularly save for a few who have it on an RSS feed, but then I realized the real benefit of blogging: learning to love to write again.  I haven't enjoyed writing ever.  When I say ever I mean ever.  In that way I'm a true engineer.  I enjoy math and science and I have never enjoyed my English classes (sorry to the Beav if she ever reads this).  Through the blog I have found a new interest and excitement in writing.  So there are two goals.  I also have a third, but I'm so excited to do it right now I'm just going to end the post. 

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