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jawnbcI know you're just as excited as I am to know that the 51st annual Eurovision Song Contest is a mere one month from today! *squee*
For those out of the loop, Eurovision has 30+ countries "in Europe" (including, this year, Israel, Armenia and Turkey) competing. Each sends a 3 minute (or less) song, has to perform it live with live singing (no lyp synching). Then people in Europe televote to select a winner. There are brilliant, banal, daggy, and sometimes downright disturbing entries. But the challenge of making an impact in 3 minutes- with only a 1 minute break between songs - makes for a very entertaining event. It's become so huge that there's now a semi-final (23 countries vying for 10 slots in the final), and a final (with the 4 richest countries and next 10 best finishers from 2005) on 18 and 20 May.
I'll assume most folks work on Thursday afternoons, so I won't organize anything major for that. But for the final, scheduled to start at 12 noon on Saturday 20 May (that's Vancouver time), I know some of you will want to watch it together. Unlike Australia and Asia, no Canadian network carries the show anymore (TV5 used to). So we'll be streaming it live over the net. I watched it this way last year from Oz and it worked very well.
[Poll #713845]
For those out of the loop, Eurovision has 30+ countries "in Europe" (including, this year, Israel, Armenia and Turkey) competing. Each sends a 3 minute (or less) song, has to perform it live with live singing (no lyp synching). Then people in Europe televote to select a winner. There are brilliant, banal, daggy, and sometimes downright disturbing entries. But the challenge of making an impact in 3 minutes- with only a 1 minute break between songs - makes for a very entertaining event. It's become so huge that there's now a semi-final (23 countries vying for 10 slots in the final), and a final (with the 4 richest countries and next 10 best finishers from 2005) on 18 and 20 May.
I'll assume most folks work on Thursday afternoons, so I won't organize anything major for that. But for the final, scheduled to start at 12 noon on Saturday 20 May (that's Vancouver time), I know some of you will want to watch it together. Unlike Australia and Asia, no Canadian network carries the show anymore (TV5 used to). So we'll be streaming it live over the net. I watched it this way last year from Oz and it worked very well.
[Poll #713845]
