I pit the Olympics. This is the final straw.

[blondebear]

How about some Olympic Onion Rings instead?

[Fiendish_Astronaut]

@blondebear

How about some Olympic Onion Rings instead?

Ooh I’m going to suggest that to my local Indian restaurant. Though the IOC copyright thing is a consideration.

[SciFiSam]

@Fiendish_Astronaut

SciFiSam - why not try to throw an Olympic-themed house party? Encourage guests to come in Olympic fancy dress, put the opening ceremony on in the background (the kids will largely ignore it but will retain a memory of having seen a bit of it and the adults who care can sit and watch it), make an Olympic rings birthday cake. Embrace the event because trying to ignore it will probably ruin the day. I’m willing to bet large sums of money that the streets will be completely deserted during the opening ceremony, and fairly quiet either side of it.

Parties have always been awkward for her birthday anyway, since it’s the first week of the school holidays and loads of people go on holiday. we also don’t have family who’d come - it’d be the same five people who are here every weekend, plus their parents maybe.

I think I’ll just do the usual day trip on another day before thee olympics start and then see who we can get over here on the actual day. But she would hate an olympic-themed party - I just asked her and she was horrified. it’d be good maybe for a child or adult, but not a teenager.

[Fiendish_Astronaut]

Ah for some reason I was thinking she was a child rather than a teenager. Yeah, probably not as important to do something on the actual day itself then!

[SciFiSam]

@Fiendish_Astronaut

Ah for some reason I was thinking she was a child rather than a teenager. Yeah, probably not as important to do something on the actual day itself then!

I’ve been looking up travel times and TBH, TFL is making it all sound worse than I ever thought - waits of half an hour plus to get to the platform at our local tube station. And you know that’s going to be an underestimate. Half an hour to get to the platform. On the tube. In Bethnal Green. In late July. Fun, fun birthday!

The waits for subsequent days are worse. :smack:

Bring the water bottles lest you die of thirst! They actually put signs up on the tube in the Summer saying pretty much that, and that’s without the waits. Some stations have predicted *1 and a half hour waits *to get to the platform during the Olympics. Good Christ, I’m glad I work from home.

I’m hoping it will all be sunshine and roses and everything will be wonderful and then I can come here and say I was wrong. But I am not going to plan anything which requires travel for fun - for us or anyone visiting us - on a day that TFL says will be pure, pure hell, as anyone who’s ever travelled on the Central Line at rush hour in Summer will attest.

And like I said, all it means is one dull birthday, but it doesn’t exactly make me like the Olympics more.

The Olympic Park from the outside also still looks really unfinished. I mean, stuck in a traffic jam you can still see builders actually building, cement mixers mixing and stuff. That’s a little worrying. Since we’re stuck with the thing, I’d much rather it go well than be crap.

[BigAppleBucky]

Olympignorance

[BigAppleBucky]

http://lunaticoutpost.com/Topic-Israel-Fear-Olympic-Terror-Attack-VIP-panic-rooms-set-up-below-stadium

Nice to know the rich and famous are taken care of.

In preparation for an Olympic terror assault, panic rooms for VIPs and spectators have been set up beneath London’s Olympic Stadium to protect them from being taken hostage or killed, according to The Sunday Times.

The paper also claims that if an attack occurred on the stadium, security forces would “invacuate”** key people**, rushing them to safety inside the attack zone.

[Darth_Panda]

@Colophon

What’s really fucking stupid about the Olympics is that in every city they always seem to build a new stadium for every single event, even when there are perfectly good venues that could be used. Then they end up rusting away after the Games because nobody in Athens wants a 5,000-seat dedicated hockey arena, or Beijing has no call for a 500,000-capacity tiddlywinks dome, or whatever.

So insanely wasteful. I think it should be a prerequisite of an Olympic bid that only existing facilities can be used.

Atlanta made out really, really well:

Beyond international recognition, the Games resulted in many modern infrastructure improvements. The mid-rise dormitories built for the Olympic Village, which became the first residential housing for Georgia State University (Georgia State Village), and is now used by the Georgia Institute of Technology (North Avenue Apartments). Centennial Olympic Stadium was converted into Turner Field, which became home of the Atlanta Braves baseball team for the 1997 season. Once the Braves moved, Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium was demolished, and the site became a parking lot for Turner Field; the Omni was demolished that same year to make way for Philips Arena. Centennial Olympic Park, which was built for the events, is the city’s lasting memorial of the games. The park initiated a revitalization of the surrounding area, and now serves as the hub for Atlanta’s tourism district.

1996 Summer Olympics

Good article: The Economic Legacy Of Atlanta's Olympics : NPR

[6ImpossibleThingsB4Breakfast]

12 years on, from my memory of a 16-day event that I’d rather forget, the Sydney Olympic Games cost about $AU6.5 billion - about a third of which was paid by the government.

Greed ruled, everything became basically ‘tourist prices’; and visitor generated revenue finished at around $AU6.5 million.

Overall, the big fucking hole in the pocket was almost $AU1.5 billion.

So yeah. Fuck that.

My sympathies, London; you’ll probably be looking forward to something comparable. Durex should be handing out condoms to the residents, not the athletes…

[Darth_Panda]

If it makes you (the OP) feel any better, I have to flee Charlotte when the DNC comes to town in a few weeks, as I live inside the secure area and have no inclination to put up with all of the bullshit that that entails.

[jabiru]

@mhendo

…And yet most of them who were in Sydney for the Olympics said the same sort of thing that JohnT said about Atlanta: that it was actually not a problem at all.

The traffic was fine (in part because people were encouraged to take their annual leave and go elsewhere and the school holidays were also moved for the convenience of the Games. The traffic wasn’t a huge problem but NSW has been broke ever since (not completely down to the Olympics but that little circus certainly added to our debt.)

[6ImpossibleThingsB4Breakfast]

Oh!
Like
You
Predict
Injected
Cash?
SUCKO!!

[mhendo]

@6ImpossibleThingsB4Breakfast

12 years on, from my memory of a 16-day event that I’d rather forget, the Sydney Olympic Games cost about $AU6.5 billion - about a third of which was paid by the government.

Greed ruled, everything became basically ‘tourist prices’; and visitor generated revenue finished at around $AU6.5 million.

While i have no doubt that the state ended up in a financial hole, i have a LOT of trouble believing that visitor-generated revenue was only $6.5 million.

According to this story, Sydney received almost 100,000 foreign visitors during the Games. If your figures are correct, that means that each of those visitors spent a total of $65 in the city.

Seems rather unlikely.

[Really_Not_All_That_Bright]

@6ImpossibleThingsB4Breakfast

Oh!
Like
You
Predict
Injected
Cash?
SUCKO!!

What happened to the M?

[Darth_Panda]

@Really_Not_All_That_Bright

What happened to the M?

Something special I’m sure.

[6ImpossibleThingsB4Breakfast]

@Really_Not_All_That_Bright

What happened to the M?

..you don’t know of the Olympic Brand Police..?

[FoieGrasIsEvil]

@John_Mace

Sick [sic] semper tyrannus!

I didn’t know Gloria was sick.

[6ImpossibleThingsB4Breakfast]

@mhendo

While i have no doubt that the state ended up in a financial hole, i have a LOT of trouble believing that visitor-generated revenue was only $6.5 million.

According to this story, Sydney received almost 100,000 foreign visitors during the Games. If your figures are correct, that means that each of those visitors spent a total of $65 in the city.

Seems rather unlikely.

Apologies mhendo - you’re quite right (it was late over here!)

That should have been $AU653 million :smack:

[johnpost]

@6ImpossibleThingsB4Breakfast

Oh!
Like
You
Predict
Injected
Cash?
SUCKO!!

@Really_Not_All_That_Bright

What happened to the M?

Might

[BigAppleBucky]

@Darth_Panda

If it makes you (the OP) feel any better, I have to flee Charlotte when the DNC comes to town in a few weeks, as I live inside the secure area and have no inclination to put up with all of the bullshit that that entails.

During the 2004 RNC held at Madison Square Garden, I had to commute through Penn Station which is located under the Garden. Walking to the station I felt like I was entering Mordor with helmeted Orcs along every approach. It added about 15 minutes to my Wednesday and Thursday evening commutes.