spoiler!! :/

All us Eastern Time folks aren't there yet!

Neither are the Pacific Time folks :| Pretty cool so far though and quite the English history lesson :)

. :| wow :| .

good point! *blush

I was too! I still remember that animated/lit up runner dude in the air from the Beijing Olympics and literally shrieked out loud a few times while watching it!

Bed time!
 

I became impatient and dozed off


:|

I missed the Bejing ceremony...I'll be watching that later. For all interested, you can subscribe to see live streaming of events via NBC if you have a participating cable/satellite provider where you can receive the MSNBC channel.

Agree!! I'm a big fan of British humor and music so loving this aspect :) Bean cracks me up every time.

I loved what Danny Boyle created. It was beautiful, touching, fun and clever.

CIJS: please Meridith Viera and Matt Lauer shut the F up.

When Meredith started to sing, I almost lost it. Well, I did yell @ the TV screen, she just couldn't hear me.

I only saw a half an hour, mostly the sixties and seventies stuff. I agree that the commentators needed to shut up.

But even without that, it was dull, dull, dull.

I think using TV/Film clips is cheating. There was too much close up stuff. The trick of this as theatre is to make it big and original. The parts I saw were neither.

The complicated projections on the audience part of the stadium were impressive. But that was technology. On the ground, it was like dinner theatre with glow in the dark stickies.

I am too tired to continue. Beckham driving that boat was hot. Hell, the boat alone was hot.

I adore british humor , esp old Benny Hill shows , Bean . i think they took Benny Hill off the air or quite a few years now .

I thought that the Opening Ceremony was rather disjointed and chaotic. I'm sure that's part of what Danny Boyle was intending to create but, for me, it meant that I found myself losing interest in large sequences. Some humourous moments, some parts that I thought worked well and some that didn't.


On the very positive side, I was very pleased to see Northern Ireland feature so strongly in the event, right from the start when the Phil Kids' Choir was featured in a video clip of the Giant's Gauseway singing Danny Boy, through to actor Kenneth Branagh's role as Isambard Kingdom Brunel and concluding with Dame Mary Peters (first Northern Ireland athlete to win an Olympic gold medal in Munich 1972) symbolically passing an Olympic torch to Katie Kirk, a young girl from Belfast who was one of 8 chosen to light the Olympic cauldron.


The mood in London is reasonably upbeat at this stage although it will be the early part of next week when we see if the public transport network holds up (this is the biggest concern of many of us who live and work in London). I met up with a friend for a coffee in Picadilly this morning and there was an air of excitement and anticipation, that after seven years of planning the time has finally come.


The first event I'm going to is UK versus Italy in women's volleyball next Wednesday afternoon. Looking forward to this if the sunny weather continues and the public transport network holds up.

I never quits got it about the opening....But...there are countries in this year I never herd of competeing.

Someone on the internet snarked that under the Queen's dour expression, there should be a caption reading, "Let the Hunger Games begin!"

NBC diced and sliced A LOT of the ceremony opting to keep more of the cinematic close ups rather than the large stadium staging. It was a poor choice for many reasons - the production became more disjointed, and it really didn't do justice to the set design and choreography.

But then they think American audiences are dull, easily bored and require constant play-by-play explanations, that they won't sit still and take it in if they don't "get it" immediately.

They think we're an ADD small bite, small screen viewing audience and not capable of grasping and appreciating conceptual art or theatre production values.

Someone posted her pic on facebook with the caption, "Look at all of the countries I used to own."

Edited: oops, I see someone posted it on this thread too!

Women's Basketball
 

The Croatia team (last ranked) are really playing a good game against the first ranked USA team. It's the fourth quarter, and I'm pretty sure USA will win, but the close score at times kept my interest up.

Croatia got there by knocking out the Canadians!

I wish there hadn't been the long commercial breaks during the Parade of Nations. I missed seeing some of the countries.

Loved the colorful attire of many of the nations. Not so happy with the US dress. And what is with the US wearing hats anyway?

I love the pomp and I love the competitions but mostly I watch to learn about the competitors and the countries they come from. Give me info! :flowers:

Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales...Still

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/27/op...pagewanted=all

http://debatewise.org/debates/346-un...land-yes-or-no

http://m.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/feb/...k&type=article

Gawker:
 

Spoilt (for me) by the fact that during the Opening Ceremony the Germans put their male athletes in blue and their female ones in pink.

Really?

I know....I was sitting here shaking my head.

I totally get (and like to see) native dress from a nation. If there isn't one that makes sense, then what's wrong with nice khaki slacks and a zip up sweatshirt like the Canadians wore?

These are athletes....not executives or models. What the heck is wrong with them looking like athletes???

Our berets looked ridiculous. :(

Romney in London: Never Mind The Olympics, Here’s the Embarrassment

:blink:

lesbian kiss!
 

Shock horror. Actually I haven't watched any of it. YOutube, here I come. Meanwhile, this popped up on my fb:

http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/l...ise-fury280712

A government enquiry is underway due to considerable numbers of empty seats at some of yesterday's events, despite these events being fully sold-out and many people very disappointed that they were unable to secure tickets.

No doubt it's, at least in part, a consequence of the ticketing ballot system that has attracted controversy throughout with many people encouraged to apply for multiple tickets across all events and all days in the hope of getting some tickets but with these being on the "luck of the draw".


Not a great start for the UK team so far - in particular, we had hoped for Gold in the 250km cycling but ended up in 29th position. In addition, Andy Murray and his brother were knocked out in the first round of the Men's Tennis Double's tournament.

Hopeful of some medals for the UK today ....

The British Gymnastics team seems to be doing well. That Louis Smith is something special.

Regarding the opening ceremony, obviously, Americans aren't going to get all the humor and references, unless they watch the BBC or are very familiar with British culture. When the orchestra started "Chariots of Fire", I was all ready for one of my favorite songs, and my favorite part of an otherwise long movie, but thought the comedian ruined it :(. I understand it was deliberate, and the conductor was in on it, but I didn't like him. Maybe an acquired taste?

The baby thing was a little strange as well. And the winged people on bicycles, so help me, reminded me of the monkey soldiers on Oz.

But the parade of nations, and everything forward from that except the bicyclists, was amazing. I loved the cauldron. And hey, it's the Olympics; it's allowed to be over the top and all kinds of effects.

I actually really enjoyed the opening ceremonies (although the giant baby was a little creepy instead of cute to me). It was very British....which is only right. I love to see the host company use that as a chance to celebrate themselves a bit and share who they are and where they come from with the rest of the world.

Of course, I've always loved British humor, and was delighted with all the references to children's literature. :)

Ooh, thank you for posting this! I noticed this morning when watching some of the stuff I recorded last night that there seemed to be a ton of empty seats at several of the events. It made me wonder what had happened because I thought that people would be clamoring to get a seat.

I LOVED the copper-tubed "Eye of Sauron" thing they did with the torches!

Actual demand for tickets has been very significant with all initial tickets fully allocated in a ballot and almost all further tickets selling out within seconds / minutes of being released on public sale.


It turns out that the vast swathes of empty seats are those in sections that were not available for sale but, rather, are allocated to Olympic dignataries, officials, other athletes and corporate sponsors. Each event has to allocate a minimum of 25% of available tickets for this purpose with the "blue ribbon" events having to allocate 50% of tickets for this (i.e. such events as the Opening Ceremony, Closing Ceremony and men's 100m final).


Apparently, the morning after the Opening Ceremony (which goes on into the wee small hours in after-parties attended by the various delegations and officials), those who get these free tickets are often not in attendance as they are still in bed. Rather sad given the really strong demand for tickets from the public - especially for events such as swimming and gymnastics where the stadia has limited capacity.