Sunday 20 May 2012

Singapore: Chelsea win but Mrs M is not happy

It was not difficult to determine that Mrs M was unhappy with my phone alarm going off at 02.45. 

After recently finding the Champions League semi final on the Internet, my hopes were high of being able to watch the final in the same manner. Unfortunately the aforementioned ESPN stream was blocked for copyright infringements so most of the game was spent searching through hundreds of crappy websites purportedly offering live streams which either required credit card registration or made the virus software recoil in horror. Meanwhile, due to broadcasting rights limitations, the BBC website could only offer live text interspersed with individuals' moronic Twitter feeds. Sky News on Starhub was equally useless. 

During the first half of extra time, I located a site which displayed a couple of live feeds that were not synchronised. Choppy German commentary from one stream dominated muffled English on the other. After blocking advertisement frames, there were still problems with buffering, pixelation, whirling 'connecting....' icons and image freezing.  Robben’s penalty looked like a slow-moving jigsaw puzzle. Extra time ended. 

The first few penalties were just about discernible, but Bayern’s fluffed attempts and Drogba’s coup de grâce were savoured with much relish. Moments later, presumably freed from their broadcasting restrictions, Sky News showed the goals, penalties and celebrations. Technology has come a long way.

Later that morning, I hid from Mrs M for as long as possible.

2 comments:

Suburban said...

My Sympathies to Mrs.M...

You and Stone could compare notes on how long you need to hide from your wife, and roughly how much shiny shit needs to be purchased in order to be forgiven for attempting to "watch" a soccer / rugby match, through the night, via tweets and dodgy "live streaming" websites, and spending the subsequent day useless due to your "exhaustion".

Like, Couldn't you guys just watch the game streaming as a re-run later in the day? I"m dying to know why this behavior manifests itself so strongly in Expat Men.

Mr. Steve said...

Hang on a mo, allow me to turn this around. How many electrical items should be purchased for Expat Man to overlook time (and money) spent in hair salons, shoe and dress shops, nail parlours, swimming pools or coffee shops that render Expat Lady incapable of doing a modest amount of washing up at home due to ‘exhaustion’?

My sympathies to Mr Stone.