Braised Lambchop
a nurse trying to work while suffering with chronic pain - she rambles a bit

I know I haven't posted in a while, and I have no real excuse other than simply spending my uptime doing other stuff, like editing Wikipedia. If you know something about respirators -- not ventilators that breathe for people who are ill, but respirators that protect people from breathing bad stuff at work -- come on over and help me rescue the English respirator entry from somebody who couldn't tell the difference between the two. They are not the same thing, despite what some TV newsperson says. I'm having a rough time convincing the Wikipedia language bots -- they go through the site linking English entries with their counterparts in the Wikipedias in other languages -- that they should stop until I can get the thing rewritten.

I'm excited now, though, because my son and I are really into watching the broadcasts of the Winter Olympics, especially the very early broadcasts on USA Network (242 on DirecTV -- on other systems USA can be found... at some other number). The USA Olympic shows start between 0200 and 0500 CST, and typically the curling matches are shown live, along with biathlon. All four of us really liked curling as it was shown in 2002, and NBC has obliged curling fans with several hours each day of curling coverage.

You see, in 2002 we didn't have a TiVo, so we watched everything as it was broadcast and as it was intended to be seen. The DVR, however, has a fast-forward button with three settings - press once for fast, twice for faster (with lots of skips), and thrice for as fast as it can go (losing most of the data along the way. By recording the curling matches overnight for viewing later, we can enjoy the latest Olympic viewing sensation in a new and special way, and I'll show you how.

If you have a DVR or TiVo, record one of the early morning curling matches - USA Network blocks out 5 or 6 hours, but the matches usually take about 3 hours. Then start to watch the match at the regular speed.

Soon you'll be itching to just make that match go by a bit faster -- not to skip to the end, just to move the thing along. It could be the speed at which the stones seem to crawl across the ice sheet, or it could be listening to the Canadian accent of the curling expert, or it could be that you have a life to live and it moves pretty fast.

Whatever it is that gives you the need for speed, take your TiVo remote, and just as the sweepers start to sweep as one team launches a stone across the ice, put your DVR into the first fast-forward position and watch.

Wow! It's the fastest growing Olympic sensation -- Speed Curling!

You can't listen because there's no sound as you're fast-forwarding, so every once in a while you have to go back to the regular speed just to see what's really going on. It's really fun, though, to watch those sweepers running across the ice. Somebody should put it to music or in a podcast or something.

This could be hockey's secret weapon -- hockey is so much more fun to watch in person than it is to watch on TV and this could change the NHL forever. On second thought, they had enough trouble agreeing to put their skates on at all so it's probably best not to screw that up.

I must go now, to set my TiVo. Happy curling!