Feasting at the Greek Festival

It's what you do. You feast. It's what the Greek Festival is all about.

Shaun and I went this afternoon.

Take a look at the picture. I have absolutely no idea how to pronounce that. But when you're there, order it. As long as it lasts. It's some kind of custard-cake-syrup-pastry thing. Oy. It's incredible!

The baklava is outstanding (as always). The gyros are enormous. Even the fries are Greek-seasoned to perfection.

Labor Day weekend is always a good time in the Short North thanks to the Greek Fest!

New Zealand Picks Up More Medals

By the end of the day on Tuesday (China time), the Kiwis had racked up a total of seven medals: two gold, one silver and four bronze. They've won for cycling, rowing, shot-put and triathlon. NZ is 21st in the total medal count.

NBC is keeping track of it all. Here's the chart of New Zealand's medals.

Go Kiwis!

Kiwis Winning Gold!

They're already calling it "Super Saturday." It was an incredible weekend for the New Zealand olympic contingent!

So far, the Kiwis have five medals: two gold, one silver and two bronze. That makes NZ 21st in the total medal count (so far).

Official Medal Standings

Olympic Coverage from the New Zealand Herald

Olympic Coverage from TVNZ

Why do we care? Because Kiwis rock! There's much more about New Zealand at nz.marshallmcpeek.com.

We Weren't Horrible... Much

Thank goodness for Brett.

Without some of his shots, we'd have been even farther behind.

The annual NBC 4 Golf Outing graced the links at the Blackhawk Golf Club in Galena this afternoon. Our foursome (Brett, Jodi, Ryan and Marshall) gave it our best effort.  But the slices, hooks, trees, sand traps... and the game... got the better of us.  We finished 6 over par.  In a scramble.  Yeah.  Sad.

There were some great tee shots... and some good short game shots... but we just couldn't pull it ALL together to make it a Michael-Phelps-style victory.  The gold medal just barely slipped through our fingers.

Ah, well. There's always next year!

Take the Credit Cards Away...

The master of the impulse-buy strikes again.  In a furniture-sized way.

Just yesterday, I was chastised, scolded, chided, guilted and ridiculed for the well-worn sofa in the living room.  So, today, when a new couch and love seat presented themselves, they simply had to be bought.

Oh, please.  They were on sale for nearly half-off.  Who could resist?

It's a nice, new, brown, rather-plain, faux leather.  It will replace the old, somewhat-dingy, off-white, cloth-upholstered set in the living room.  The old furniture will go upstairs.  It may still be useful in the bedroom and on the third floor.

Many, many, many thanks to Shaun for offering his help (and his truck) to make the transport happen!  The store was good enough to put the whole thing on "sold hold."  We're picking it up Monday morning!

Bratwurst and Browsing

New postings at travel.marshallmcpeek.com!

We've been to the Bratwurst festival... and checked out the copper kettle works at the historic D. Picking Company!

The Olympic Fireworks Were Fake!

A number of international news outlets are reporting (and even MSNBC is acknowledging) that some of the fireworks you saw on TV during the Opening Ceremony were faked.

It was one the largest Olympic events ever. More expensive. More flashy. More fake.

Some of the fireworks, specifically, the giant footprints walking across Beijing, were computer generated. Animated ahead of time. The artists even made the pretend camera shake so it would look like everything was being shot from a helicopter.

NBC's Matt Lauer and Bob Costas vaguely mentioned that some of the broadcast was pre-fabricated... but it wasn't very clear to the average viewer.

(Commentary) As a journalist, the whole thing is very scary. It raises legitimate questions about what you see on TV. What do you believe? What is real? How overly-clear do broadcasters need to be when they're showing something that's NOT real?

You've come to trust Lauer and Costas... and NBC... to tell you the truth. Their faces are the living, breathing brands for NBC News and NBC Sports. Their credibility is the most valuable commodity they have. Hosting the broadcast of the Opening Ceremony may not fall under the category of "news" as much as "entertainment," but you still expect the same journalistic rules to apply.

It is very disturbing to me that NBC would allow faked video to be in its broadcast without making it exceedingly clear that it was provided by a Chinese animation firm. Viewers have been led to believe that the entire broadcast is being produced by NBC and that the network has control over what shows up on the screen. As it turns out, that's not the case.

From MSNBC.com:
Because the only organization in control of all Olympics footage is Beijing Olympic Broadcasting, the feed went out to everyone broadcasting the event, including NBC, which has exclusive rights in the United States to show the games.

It would seem that NBC is walking a very fine, ethical line. In this case, they may have stepped over it for the sake of maintaining the illusion that the network is in control of the broadcast.

As a viewer and a colleague, I'm very disappointed in the ruse and the new blemish in NBC's reputation.

More articles about the fake fireworks:

nzherald.co.nz
The New Zealand Herald
Opening Ceremony's firework footprints faked

Telegraph.co.uk
Beijing Olympic 2008 Opening Ceremony Giant Firework Footprints 'Faked'

MSNBC.com
Part of Olympic Display Altered in Broadcast

Another Trip to the Fair... More Fried Stuff!

Today was the last day of the Ohio State Fair. So we had to have at least one more go at it.

This time, we actually had the fried cookie dough... and the fried Captain Crunch. It is just wrong on every level you can think of... but it's really yummy! It's fried for crying out loud!



We checked out the Cox Fine Arts Center on the grounds. Some really good stuff in there... and some really odd stuff in there... and some really crappy stuff in there. Some of it we just couldn't figure out at all. Or why someone would pay $10,000 for some sticks wrapped in burlap mesh. (???)

The Crafts building had a huge display from the LEGO aficionados. They actually built some of Columbus' skyscrapers and downtown buildings... including the Ohio Statehouse... out of LEGOs. Pretty cool, actually!



Added some more photos to the original State Fair album. Check it out here!

The Sky Is Falling!

Want to see the Perseid Meteor Shower? It peaks this week.

New article at blog.mcweather.com!

The Evil One Has Arrived

It landed on my desk this morning.

It is small. And evil.

It... is a Blackberry.

There is no other device in the world that could make me more appreciate the beauty, simplicity and brilliance of the iPhone.

The Blackberry is carpal tunnel waiting to happen. The keys are WAY too small. I have to use the edge of a fingernail to press the buttons. It's terrible. The software is completely non-intuitive. And the trackball is so flimsy, I don't expect it to last very long.

The internet browsing is worthless. It only loads the "mobile version" of any particilar website... if a mobile version even exists.

Oh, and did I mention that it didn't come with a User Manual? No. You have to use the crappy Blackberry help site to get any kind of info. For example... why would it occur to me that to use "CAPS LOCK," you have to use the "alt" button and the "right shift key?" Using the left shift key won't work. What kind of stupid system is that? How about just hitting the caps key twice? Nope. Gotta make it more complicated. It's as bad as using a Windows-based machine. Always making things more difficult than they need to be.

The iPhone just makes sense. It's an elegant design. The software is user friendly... intuitive... and doesn't take a pHD to figure out.

Aaaaaaargh!

Joining the Facebook Nation

It is with much reluctance and a certain amount of annoyance that I now have a Facebook page. I'm one of them.



Really, I was just after some info about the softball league. And to get at it, you have to have a Facebook account. So, here we are. A Facebooker.

Kewl.

Facebook me!

Although... in a small amount of techie homage, I have to give the folks at Facebook some props for the interactive portion of the site/system/network.  They have created an involuntary search engine that automatically searches for people with similar profile attributes to your own.  I'm really surprised how many actual friends showed up in the suggestion box on the first day.  It's really kind of incredible.

Fried at the Fair

Brand new posting about our trip to the Ohio State Fair... at the Travel Blog: travel.marshallmcpeek.com.