Official Beijing Olympics Thread

Anyone else catch the Opening Ceremonies tonight?

Absolutely breathtaking.

I LOVED the giant footsteps to start it all off too. VERY COOL.

The human-powered blocks were awesome, The Human model of the Birds Nest (Stadium), the 2008 tai-chi masters choreography and the lighting of the torch were pretty rad too.

I'd love to see the first part again.

Some AMAZING pics from the opening Ceremony...

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2008/08/2008_olympics_opening_ceremony.html

Damn I can't find the vid anywhere....... all taken down from Youtube

It was certainly over the top. Incredible.

If I was planning the next Olympics, I think I'd concede and not try to top China. A couple of cardboard signs that say "Welcome" in a couple of different languages would have to suffice.

they were on at the bar last night.

NBC did an incredibly distasteful thing by cutting to the president and his wife smiling and clapping when Iraq's team walked into the stadium.

Best part was when they cut to Bush, who was checking his watch.

Seriously though, my least favorite thing has to be the three jokers they put together for the "playful banter" that NBC seems to think it needs to keep us interested. And all the stupid explanations for everything ruined much of the early stuff, such as...

"This Character means Harmony"

"Harmony again"

"Now they are going to use this as a canvas and paint mountains and sea and sky"

"Harmony, for the third time."

Thanks for ruining a beautiful ceremony, Costas.

everytime they moved the camera to bush......... It was like he was looking for a the beer guy.

i thought they were incredibly boring. my own opinion, but we (new woman and I) went out to eat and had a tv right in our booth at the restaurant. I turned it to the little league world series instead.

China has certainly set a new bar for opening ceremonies. From the incredible drum display through the flying rings to the unbelievable precision of the human typesets and two thousand tai chi forms in unison... wow... and then to top it off with the fantastic lighting of the cauldron and the city-wide spectacle of fireworks... just plain awesome.

I was mildly disturbed by both of the flag ceremonies; shades of the Berlin games of 1936. I was left with a subtle but distinct message that China's military still has that final say in what happens in China.

Meanwhile, NBC went par for the course on actual coverage of the opening festivities. I appreciated the athletes being introduced in the stroke order of the Chinese character used for each country. With a twelve hour delay and an obviously pre-set ordered list of Roman names for the countries, could NBC -not- also -show- us the Chinese characters that had determined the order? It is this attention to detail that NBC never seems to bring to the Games.

I am terribly happy though that all of the events are available to me in hi-def (so far at least). I am also very happy to have been introduced to a new sport; Olympic handball is not what I thought it was. Instead of individual athletes whacking a rubber ball like squash or racketball, I was captive to a very fast, high scoring team game that struck me as a good mix of basketball and soccer... with a little hockey thrown in. If you guys haven't seen this sport yet, check it out!

I am hopeful there will be no further violence of any kind. Waking up to the story of the tourist' murder had me thinking the worst. While I may agree that China owes the world some explanations if not some revolution, I wholeheartedly disagree that further violence is the answer.

One American Dead. His wife suffers life threatening injuries.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/oly_china_american_killed

That was a terrible thing. Todd Bachman is very well known here in Minnesota:

Bachman’s was founded in 1885 and remains family-owned, with fourth- and fifth-generation Bachman family members leading the company today. Based in Minneapolis, Bachman’s operates 29 retail stores in the Twin Cities and St. Cloud, including six full-service Floral, Gift and Garden centers, 22 smaller retail floral stores and Cedar Acres Garden and Landscape Center. The company also operates indoor and outdoor landscaping divisions, a nursery wholesale division, eight acres of greenhouses, and a 629-acre growing range near Lakeville, Minn., which produces many of the plants, flowers and landscaping products sold at Bachman’s locations. Bachman’s employs 1,600 people during its peak spring/summer season and approximately 1,100 people during the winter season.