Saturday, June 07, 2008

Internet channel surfing

I had a comically entertaining experience while watching live streaming video of the tennis matches last night. As the Federer-Monfils match was coming to a close, the video suddenly froze, puzzling many in the chat room. When it became clear that this particular channel had really stopped broadcasting, many started asking for another link to another live streaming channel. In the meantime I looked up the live channel directory and jumped to another channel broadcasting the same match. There I was highly amused to see the same people in the chat room of the previous channel pop up and announce themselves to the current chat crowd by saying "Hello. We're here from the Spanish broadcast." Then a few minutes later, the broadcast stopped inexplicably as well. Complaints once again abounded on the chat window including "Somebody give me another link!" We all finally ended up in yet a third channel where the quality was rather bad--but of course that was better than nothing and nobody left apparently until the match was over.