I’ve seen some compelling TV in my life, but wow, this whole Chilean miner rescue has to be at the top. The whole thing seems like it’s straight out of the 1960s with the first landing on the moon. I wasn’t alive but just seeing the video and watching things on History channel over the years, it was captivating. This was too.

Last night, I just happened to remember that I had seen a story about the rescue effort the day day before, which I had mentioned here. You everyday six-7 offsuiters will remember.

Anyway, sugar-mama had to get up for work early today so she went upstairs to sleep a little earlier than normal, and I was flipping around the channels around 10:30 p.m. I got stuck on CNN.

From the minute I turned it on, it was like the Berlin Wall coming down in 1989 or the whole Jessica McClure falling in the well story two years earlier. You couldn’t stop watching and were waiting, wondering what would happen next. It didn’t seem real, didn’t seem like it was possible to be watching this.

That was the 1980s. Last night was even more unbelievable because we were seeing a mine, some 2,000 feet (not meters like some dickhead reported in a place like this blog before) below the surface of the Earth.

It was like YouTube’s creator was the groundhog from Caddyshack and was giving us a tour.

Even 18 hours later after seeing like 23 of the miners rescued–including the one with the wife and mistress; he was No. 21 and there’s conflicting stories right now on CNN.com and television stations over whether it was his wife or mistress that greeted him; holy shnikees–this just doesn’t seem possible.

But a big congrats to all of them, including the people who came out of nowhere from around the world to help drill the tunnel and all the workers there. Hell, a big kudo goes to the government for doing this so transparently. It would never work here because of all the bureaucractic bullshit and someone being worried about how they’d look if it didn’t work. These guys put it on the line and got it done. Nice work.

While it did not have the same level of mortality on the line, I watched something else last night that was nearly as compelling with its own version of risk for personal injury. It was the 30for30 series on ESPN called Four Days in October.

One word can describe it: A-fucking-mazing.

The footage was tremendous and way they weaved the story couldn’t be scripted any better if it was completely fake. I highly recommend it and heard that the 30for30 that debuted last night about Vlade Divac and Drazen Petrovic was incredible as well. I don’t read Bill Simmons much–sugar-mama on the other hand is a fiend about reading him and always fills me, so I don’t feel like I’m missing much–but the dude hit a home run with that series.

I also saw a Tweet today that the Bartman 30for30 is being pushed back to 2011 because the director “needs more time.” I can’t wait. And if you don’t have a computer that flashes that little light and turns on the audio recording saying, “This is fucking sarcasm.” then I’ll just tell you know, this is fucking sarcasm. But since I still have the 2003 NLCS on VHS in a box, even though I don’t own a VHS player, it tells you I’ll probably watch the damn show. Fuck.

Anyway, watch Four Days in October. You can see it on YouTube here:
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6