August 11, 2008 11:58 AM
On: American Ingenuity
Sometime around 10:05 p.m. Beijing time, Tim Hilbert went into crisis lockdown mode. A packed house was on hand at Tim's Texas Bar-B-Q for the U.S.-China basketball game. People had started gathering long before, donning their LeBron and Yao jerseys and plowing through plates of ribs. The bar had a definite buzz with the opening tip less than 10 minutes away.There was just one problem: on the projection screen at Tim's, Hilbert couldn't find the game.
Upstairs, where the U.S. Chamber of Commerce was throwing a big party, there wasn't a problem. Those TV's were all hooked up to local Beijing channels, which meant the Chinese-language broadcast on CCTV. One of the TVs downstairs had a similar setup.
But the big screen is routed through a satellite with access to American channels. It doesn't get CCTV. So Hilbert scrolled through the on-screen guide over and over. He couldn't find the game.
People started getting restless and yelling across the bar. "Hey, you guys going to put the game on anytime soon?" more than a few patrons called out. The mood was suddenly tense. Some were talking about leaving to watch the game elsewhere.
Now, if there's one thing I love about the Olympics, it's this: it brings out the best in people. So Hilbert did the only thing sensible: he grabbed a few cables, hooked them between his computer and his projector, made a few clicks online and -- voila! -- live moving pictures appeared on the big screen. Wild applause ensued.
I'm not going to call the hook up illegal, but I should note that we were watching a Filipino TV feed of the game (but with English commentary). Strangely enough, the feed also included a "parental warning" logo in the bottom right corner of the screen the entire game (Insert obvious joke about China's half-court offense being potentially offensive to some here).
And technically, the projector was on about a three-second delay, which meant that half the patrons downstairs would start cheering at the CCTV feed, and the rest of the crowd would cheer a few moments later at the Filipino TV feed.
One thing stayed constant throughout, though: with the restaurant evenly divided between Americans and Chinese, someone was cheering just about the entire game.
So here's to you, Tim Hilbert, the man whose old-fashioned American ingenuity allowed hundreds of people to openly wear Yao Ming jerseys while eating barbecue and cheering for Dwayne Wade. You were the real American hero on this evening.
July 1, 2010
4:13 AM
urban clothing writes:
You should never wear anything just the heck for it, nor follow fashion trends blindly! Your clothes speak a lot about yourself so fill-up your wardrobe according to your personal taste and suitability.