John's moaning about Olympics spoilers led me to this highly entertaining & thought provoking read: Cocktail Crossfire: Do Olympics Spoilers Ruin Everything? http://news.yahoo.com/cocktail-crossfire-olympics-spoilers-ruin-everything-210753811.html
Excerpts: "Yet so many of us other humans are falling victim to the alleged crimes of the spoiler, enough that The Wall Street Journal published a piece on how to avoid spoilers (pro tip: Stay off the Internet) and CNN published a piece written by Justin Peters, who's covering the Olympics for Slate, called "Confessions of an Olympic Spoiler." He too gives tips, like STAY OFF THE INTERNET. And here you are, on the Internet. Is it any wonder you're being spoiled? But, actually, where we're all spoiled is in expecting this world of no spoilers. We created the Internet so that we could know what was going on at all times. We expect people to tweet and say things. We expect news. Really, we're going to get all upset when that actually happens, when we see something we didn't want to? There's another factor at work here, and it is that complaining about spoilers means that you've put undue importance on one teensy element of the athletic events and the talent of those participating. Even if you do know who ultimately wins, don't you still want to watch that tiny person do backflips across a room to the theme of Phantom of the Opera? Don't you still want to watch the human whippets of the world, the sprinters, edge each other out breathlessly, so that you're breathless too, watching? Or to see the powerful, perfect strokes in the water from the perfectly muscled swimmers? Saying that knowing who wins and who loses ruins the whole shebang for you is like saying you don't want to look at art because you know what the painting sold for, or that Van Gogh eventually cut his ear off and died. Are you really the type of person who never reads a book twice, or more than twice, or who never repeats a movie or TV show to see it more fully the second time, or just because you enjoyed it so much the first? If you are, well, you probably like surprise parties too. Let me tell you: Conclusions are a dime a dozen; what really counts is the overall quality of the entire story." Of course, I'm someone who hasn't seen a lick of Olympics and probably won't before all is said and done. And that includes television/news highlights. So my viewpoint might be a tiny bit different than John's. : ) -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
