Beijing Olympics 2008
 

These are some classy Olympics. I'm very impressed and excited for the rest. Great job China.

Haha, for some reason, I can see this be the validation of the East vs. the West for world superpowers in the near to distant future. Beijing is doing a great job and is showing off it's nation to the world.

Yes, they are doing a great job. The opening ceremony was bomb.

I REALLY REALLY hope and pray that the Olympics come to Chicago in 2016. I will actually be upset if we lose to Madrid or Tokyo. If they do come then I have no excuse as a Chicagoan not to go. Plus, we'll have our chance to prove we are the best city in the world ;)

Eight years, fresh? Who's to say you'll still be in Chicago by then? Don't forget to find a sitter for the kids. ;)

C'mon, Ms. Clodfobble. My major is Sports Management, it's my hometown....

I have no excuse not to go!!!!

All over the map:

This is what I bought the HDTV converters for. It's been a pleasure to watch the events.

The endlessly repeated and often incredibly stupid commercials annoy me to no end and remind me why we normally don't watch TV. The massive stupidity of the Subway commercial has convinced me to eat at Jimmie John's for a while.

I found the Chevy "gas pumps hate us" commercials amusing the first half-dozen times. Not that an amusing commercial would convince me to buy a Chevy.

McCain's commercial slams Obama. Obama's commercial doesn't mention McCain.

American advertisers are obviously convinced that appeal to thought and logic is not viable and the only valid approaches are appeal to emotion and humor.

It's been fun to watch Phelps rip through gold medals.

Beach volleyball has been entertaining.

I felt sorry for the US woman's gymnastics team last night. It's too bad they got rattled.

It's hard to believe that littlest Chinese female gymnast is sixteen. She looks about ten.

And the US men's soccer team sucks balls as usual. To be fair, while it is the players' fault for what they do/don't do with the ball it is the pathetic US infrastructure for coaching that is to blame. We are finally producing skilled players but refuse to admit that we need coaching from outside the US to become competitive.

My turn at the kitchen sink ...

The nine year old little girl that sang, "O China!" ("Ode to the Motherland", actually) or whatever the opening anthem was... Little girl has pipes; pipes of silver and crystal, just beautiful. Turns out, she was lip synching it. Her "beauty" lay in her smile, not in her singing talent. And the real singer got booted because her smile wasn't as pretty. A matter of "doing what's best for the nation". Hahahahahahahahahaha!!! Why didn't they add her to the women's gymnastics team roster while they were at it?

Second fakery: The "Giant footprints in fireworks" Did you hear the breathless NBC coverage: "almost animation" "cinematic". Bwahahahahahahah! And I fell for it! (kicks self again! Sucka!) Turns out the NBC people *knew* it wasn't real, *knew* it was animation but hedged their commentary with that little "almost". I'm pissed at that. "Oh, we were just accepting the feed from the Chinese". "Chust followink ORDERS!" is not an acceptable defense. FFS, even Bob Costas irritated the President and then said "You're dismissed!" ( :eek ). You can't call a chinese 钗车/铲车 a spade?

And what's up with the "women's" gymnastic team from China. I use quotes because I don't consider 11 year old girls "women". wtf?

i thought they all had to be at least 16 for this olympic cycle?

yes.

The rule is they have to turn 16 the year of the games. So, if the DOB is in 1992, they're golden.

But did you see them? My god, man... Some of them don't have all their teeth yet. And the average weight? 77 pounds. A few of them look like fifth graders.

yes, but was it a pirate copy?

i know they look really young BigV but you aren't suggesting our olympic hosts might have doctored the birth certificates for some of the children they took from their families at age three, are you? What kind of country would do that? Certainly not... just kidding, I think they did too.

Gutted. I watched it with a room full of artists but none of our pyro-technicians were there. Mike - a theatrical engineering sculpter (for want of a better word) who has been around pyro for years did actually swear at how tight it was. I replied - from the depths of my worldly wisdom - "Well if anyone's going to get fireworks right it's the Chinese!"

I am completely gutted. That part of it blew me away. The visual idea was still good, but it's cheating. Bad Chinese. To be fooled is one thing. To be fooled about the thing that impressed me the most is another. I may never but another cheaply manufactured item again.

Mike also said that our commentators were reading from a script supplied by the hosts. I was willing to be more benevolent and suggested that they simply had production notes. Now I wonder. Gah.

They aren't allowing banners in the stands at events for fear that a protest or political statement will pop up.

This is the last olympics for softball and baseball and the US team's supporters flew over in pretty good numbers but they've been repeatedly reprimanded for banners displaying player names.

I wonder how many of our US residents realize that China was forced to change their schedule for finals from China's (and incidentally of course Australia and NZ) evening prime time to US evening prime time. The same was done during the Sydney Olympics.

Personally I think it sucks. I'm sure everyone in the US thinks it's great though.

About the kid doing the lip syncing, who really cares? Madonna does it. So does Kylie, and who could forget Milli Vanilli?

I don't see what the big fuss is, considering it's not just China that thinks only beautiful people should be on tv.