What no comments on the fact that they lit a fucking giant doobie for all the world to see? What does that have to do with Greek history?
You can’t blame that one on NBC.
I liked the lighting of the gigantic doobie myself.
Wait a second. Bob Costas is still alive? I thought he was old when he did Monday Night Football in the 70s.
Looked like a prop for a scene in a Big Lebowski dream. 
I read that the cauldron looked like a joint here and thought it would have to be a bit of a stretch. Then I watched the replay and was stunned. Jesus! It DOES look like a joint!
But then it stands upright and just looks like a fanny.
Why the HELL did they have to tape delay the damn thing that late?!? For fucks sake 4 hours of pomp and flash to light a giant doobie?!!?? My dear sweet hubby had to get up at 4 this morning to go to work and is REEEEEALLLYY pissed that he missed that :rolleyes:
I do have to say tho… I LOVED the gazillion yards of material they draped over the athletes. THAT was cool!!
HAH!
I thought the Greeks did a great job with everthing, but Bob Fucking Costas is such an overblown bag of hot air.
All his fucking comments about Bjork’s dress and how it had to beat the swan dress…Costas you are an ASSHOLE. I wouldn’t know Bjork’s music if it were playing, but I thought she looked pretty cool up there and I liked the dress covering the field and turning into a view of the world. I admire her more now than ever.
SHUT THE FUCK UP YOU TALKING DILDO.
God Bless CBC.
THANK YOU Shirley Ujest I had no clue who it was wearing that dress because Bob wouldn’t shut the fuck up (that and the baby was crying. I think he was getting pissed because Bob wouldn’t shut up!!) I personally think that was the best part of the whole ceremony
The best lighting ceremony, in my opinion, is still Barcelona in '92. Yeah, I know that the lighting of the flame was actually independent of what the archer did, but that whole thing was so nobly human. A lone athlete, carrying upon his shoulders the weight of the world, raises his bow and fires a flaming arrow heavenward in a long arc across the blackness of the night sky. It appears to fall into the cauldron, and presently, there is a billowing plume of fire! It was simply majestic.
I’m screwed this time around, not having cable. The only channel I get that’s showing the Olympics is plain ol’ vanilla NBC. But, since they’re showing all the cool sports on cable, I’m going to get nothing but swimming, track and field, and gymnastics. And gymnastics. And more gymnastics. And then a little more gymnastics.
I don’t really like gymnastics.
I recommend an altered state of consciousness. The events improve immeasurably once you’ve convinced yourself that the competitors are all shaved ocelots.
You mean they aren’t?!
Except NBC showing are re-running the opening ceremony. I don’t think things can get worse. :rolleyes: Maybe I’ll see the Spanish guy parading with his cell phone. That was a class act.
Joke, right?
One of the floats replicated the Parthenon frieze (the Elgin Marbles), above which floated the roof of the Parthenon. Katie said that looked like the tornado scene from The Wizard Of Oz.
At the beginning of the AV presentation, when they show the stylized shape of a head from the very early pre-Bronze-Age origins of representational sculpture, Bob says “they obviously did not have 3-D graphics at the time” or something like that.
My review: Still annoying as all Hades, but yet not as bad as SLC, to be fair.
Y’know, I would guess that after EVERY Olympic games, every one of the American networks must get a truckload of hate-mail (paper and e- ) telling them how much we detest the inane talking and ignorant commentary of their on-air talent. Yet obviously said truckload doesn’t even approach the threshold at which any of them feels it may behoove them to do something different… such as get someone from the actual ceremony’s production team to sit down with one of their people to write a good, unobtrusive narrative script for the “show” part of the ceremony, and have the talkingheads stick to it.
Oh, shut up. EVERYBODY would rather watch preliminary swimming heats and gymnastics rounds than any of those boring sports where people are actually winning medals. Hell, those winners probably aren’t even Americans, so why would anyone care?
(Yes, I’m being more than a bit sarcastic. I’m probably not going to see any of the sports I like, either. And if NBC would stop showing all those preliminary rounds for the supposedly “popular” sports, they might actually have time to show the medal rounds for lots of other sports. Give us some variety, NBC!)
Well, I can understand showing swimming even if it’s not a medal round because of the amount of hype going into Phelps this year. To be honest, I’m glad they’re showing so much of it because that’s what I really want to see.
What’s driving me up the fucking wall is not having a genuine list of what’s being shown at what time. I just happened to stumble on the men’s coxless fours on CNBC or BRAVO or whatever and was glad because that’s one of the four sports I actually take time out to watch. Of course, they cut out after GB, Slovenia and Italy beat the crap out of the US. Bah.
You guys gotta get CBC. Get whatever satellite service you have to. I caught about twenty minutes of coverage this afternoon while I was having lunch at a local eatery, and in those twenty minutes they showed five different sports, zipping back and forth to catch as much action as possible.
It’s not perfect, but you can get an overview here, and a decent listing by clicking on “TV Listings” on that page. I used those listings to figure out that they were showing badminton on Bravo today. Of course, they showed only about one and a third games (which you couldn’t tell from the listings), but at least it was the right sport.
I had managed to block that one out. Thanks for reminding me… :rolleyes:
Better yet, move down here to Australia and enjoy the shared network coverage between the commercial “Seven Network” (which is very similar to NBC in it’s one eyed parochialism) and the publicly owned SBS (which has a charter to specifically appeal to Australia’s multi-ethnic communities).
Man, the SBS coverage is simply mannah from heaven. They are choosing to focus on all the sports which would normally get scant airtime - and they’re playing them from beginning to finish, without commercials or interruptions. Yesterday, I was able to sink my teeth into a women’s volleyball match between Cuba and Germany which went into a 5th set. Really great coverage.
And of course, last night I was in bliss. I was able to watch the ENTIRE men’s Cycling Road Race, from beginning to finish, without advertisements, or cutaways, or background stories blah blah blah. Just fucking brilliant. Not even any biased Australian commentators. More of Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwin picking up from where they left Paris 3 weeks ago. As good as it gets.
When you’re allowed to watch top shelf coverage of Olympic sports without the parochial “Rah Rah Rah our country just won another Gold” kinda commentary, you get the chance to remember what the Olympic ideals are all about. It gets to a point where you want to congratulate every contestant simply for putting on such a wonderful show.
Unfortunately, the propensity for commerical TV networks (the world over I might add) to turn their Olympic coverage into just another form of tribalism just plain ruins the Olympic experience for mine.