#939 Captain Caption

A while back I had the pleasure of witnessing the inauguration of the 44th President of the United States, Barack Hussein Obama.
But since I was at work, I couldn’t watch it on one of the regular TV or Cable channels.
We have no TVs at the radio station.
But we do have computers, and lots of them, and we have a relatively robust data pipe. So we were able to watch the inauguration via streaming. How far we’ve come at inaugurations—from just being there, to radio, to TV, and finally to desktops and WiFi and laptops across the land. The inauguration of a digital inauguration.
I just know there was one job at the inauguration I wouldn’t have wanted to have. The closed captioning guy. Talk about pressure. He was probably some naval communications officer pressed into service for the occasion—Captain Caption perhaps.
I salute him.
I can’t type anyhow, but to try to type what was happening as it was happening and know that millions of people were watching your letters flash up on the screen—I’da hada infarction for sure.
We were watching closed captioning as part of the stream and it was interesting some of the mistakes that cropped up. At one point in President Obama’s speech he very clearly said something about “America having a new spirit.” But instead of “spirit” the closed captioning guy accidentally typed in “snert.” I feel sorry for the deaf folks and people on the health club treadmills watching the broadcast.
There’s something both mystifying and troubling about America having a new snert.
Then Captain Caption had the challenging task of describing what was happening when people weren’t talking. Like the trumpet blasts announcing dignitaries. He wrote “Herald Trumpet followed by Ruffles and Flourishes.”
Ruffles and flourishes, what, is he describing The First Lady’s dress?
But my favorite was when he obviously was getting exhausted from the pressure. Instead of typing "Cheers and Applause," he typed "Cheese and Applause."
Oops.
So to all the unsung Captain Captions out there. Thank you. You have our silent applause. And it’s not cheesy at all.
Because we’re with you in snert.
America, ya gotta love it.