"Sports Mishaps"

I thought that the hardest part about moving across the world to a time zone 14 hours ahead of EST was missing American sports. As such, I took precautions both in the US (buying a slingbox) and here to make sure that I could see as much of it as possible without knowing the results. So far, I’ve been foiled a few times in my attempts.

NBA Finals: This season has made me an NBA fan again. The Hawks will be a legitimate contender and the Highlight Factory is just as exciting as the name implies. With the season ending in a classic Lakers-Celtics finals series, I was just as excited as everybody else for the match-up.

At first I thought I’d be able to watch the games live on channelsurfing.net at work. Unfortunately, the NBA is on to that site and blocks the broadcast in Australia. My next attempt was to slingbox the game (a sling-box is a device that hooks up to a cable-box and the internet and allows you to watch your TV from your computer on any internet connection). This time, the Bain firewall prevents access.

At this point my choices were listening live on the radio or personally orchestrating a “tape-delay” broadcast on the sling-box. I chose the latter. The tape delay strategy implied not checking any internet news or sports site after 11 am while working. Surprisingly, I had the discipline to do this up until the end of the day.

(To go on a brief tangent, the time delay does allow me to get the newspaper headlines at 7 pm. I kind of like this timing instead of 1st thing in the morning. Evening newspapers should make a comeback).

When I got my headlines email, I forgot that this would be a direct violation of my personal news quarantine. Alas, I found out on my blackberry while checking the headlines that the Lakers won game 3.

Thankfully, I was able to watch game 4 (the big Celtics comeback) without knowing the result. What a game – which only made me more excited for game 5. This time, the quarantine worked. I was my own Gestapo, and didn’t check anything all day. At about 4:00, I realized that if the Celtics had won, I would have got a “news alert” from the Washington Post saying that a new NBA championship was crowned. My logic proved right, and I then had little incentive to watch the game.

For game 6, I’ve unsubscribed from the news alerts. Here’s hoping I’m not on some NBA email list that sends me something for the first time tomorrow.

US Open: The US Open was on Australian TV, and the regular 4 rounds started at 6 am and ended around 11 or noon. The final round, unfortunately, started earlier in the day (and thus at about 2 am Sydney time). I woke up at 3:30 to watch the sudden death round until work today. When Tiger went up 3 shots, I decided to go to sleep because I was exhausted. AND I MISSED THE WHOLE END OF THE ROUND! I got up for the last round, and decided to go back to sleep and missed arguably the best round of golf in recent history. I’m a schmuck.