olympics so far...

[dwenius]

I missed the opening ceremonies. Oh darn.

Dear China: It's called a CD player. It will conveniently allow you to play a single track from beginning to end. Mine says "Made in China" on it. Perhaps you could buy one? I bet there really, really cheap there. What, you didn't think he would win, and you might need to have that part of the program debugged? Tsk tsk, poor quality control!

Dear My-man-crush-on-Phelps: Easy now, there's 12 days to go.

Dear France: You don't tug on Superman's cape, you don't spit into the wind, you don't pull the mask off the old Lone Ranger, and you don't get away with trash-talking Slim. Nuh-Uh.

Dear Jason Lezak: that was awesome.

Dear Brendan Hansen: bad time to have an off year.

Dear Katie Hoff: Please don't catch a case of the Hansens.

Dear China, again: mighty fast pool y'all built there.

Dear female gymnasts, all nations: Would it be possible for one of you to actually, you know, stick a landing? Or at least manage NOT to fall off your apparatus? This is the Olympics? Or in your cases, the Uhhhhh-lympics?

Dear Olympic advertisers: You suck. Except for the Allstate ad where Joan Rivers makes fun of her heinous facelift.

Dear McCain campaign: extra suck for you, those ads are terrible? like your whole campaign so far? See apple, tree, far from which you will not fall?

Comments

[stori-lundi.livejournal.com]

The opening ceremonies were pretty darned A-MAZ-ING. Even if you aren't into the pagentry, seeing 2000 people smack drums in sychronization is impressive.

Did you watch the gymnastics last night? Some great landings there esp. by the US team and that 31 year-old from Germany.

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

I just saw Hoff's finish, and it was a swimming violation as bad as looking at your opponents in the 100m track. at the last nano-second she took her hand out of the point and hit the finish flat-handed. if she's left it pointed, she'd have had it. clue-by-four: until you've touched the wall, you have no idea where the wall is so don't try to guess.

[megasus4.livejournal.com]

I've got to agree with stori_lundi. The opening ceremonies were jaw-droppingly impressive.

Two thousand and eight perfectly synchronized tai-chi masters, for example, was one of the *less* impressive parts of the ceremony.

[wisn.livejournal.com]

> Dear McCain campaign: extra suck for you, those ads are terrible? like your whole campaign so far? See apple, tree, far from which you will not fall?

You know, the Obama camp must be secretly thrilled that their man's looking photogenic in twice the screen time that they're paying for.

[crisper.livejournal.com]

Dear Bob Costas and all other announcer-casters involved: Sometimes, you should just shut the fuck up and let us watch the athletes in appropriately-awed silence.

[dwenius.livejournal.com]

I am sure that the opening ceremonies perfectly captured the oppressive conformity of Chinese culture :) and yeah, I'll watch it at some point, or what's the web for?

And sure there were some great routines and a few good landings last night, but they were in the minority, and the drops and falls were AWFUL.

[dwenius.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I saw that too. I never touched on one of those Omega timers; I wonder if you have to hit it "so hard" to trigger it, and if that can be the kind of thing that gets into a swimmer's head after a few close losses? But she blew the touch, for sure.

[dwenius.livejournal.com]

The gymnastics playcallers were quite good at shutting up, which is funny, since the arena itself is filled with the music from other people's floor routine, simultaneous cheering for 4 different events, and so forth. You know how gymnasts sometimes say, "I never blow that routine in practice". Maybe it's not the pressure of competition, it's the horn fanfare from the mat next door.

[wisn.livejournal.com]

NBC's cable channels (CNBC, USA, and wots'ernames) are generally better than the network broadcasts. Particularly since they're not as hung up about keeping Americans on the screen at all time or using American announcers to call the games.

[stori-lundi.livejournal.com]

But those semi-circles were *perfect*. Damn. Just impressive.

[stori-lundi.livejournal.com]

Actually, the opening ceremonies were surprisingly free of oppressive Chinese government crap. Sure it takes a hell of a lot of control and discipline to have done what they did but that isn't necessarily a bad thing and that mentality has been around far longer than the current government. The Athens opening ceremonies are by far my favorite but the Beijing ones win for the impressiveness factor.

[stori-lundi.livejournal.com]

Plus the performers were getting too serious and they were told and smile and lighten up. :)

Ha

[memepunk.livejournal.com]

I swear I had not seen this post when I started my own letter-writing campaign the following day. :)

PSYCHIC MEMEZ
WE HAZ DEM

I, too, am astonished by all the falls. I'm not following anything closely--mostly just glancing in at the TV from the other room while I fix dinner and so forth. But, man, it seems like every time I look and it's gymnastics, someone is on their ass.