(Insert stupid Blog name here) - The Olympics revisited

RSS Bot · February 13, 2010

Wow... it's been four years already since I last blogged about the Winter Olympics!

I guess though, that's because it's been four years since the last Winter Olympics.

Anyway... I watched (actually recorded, then watched) the opening ceremonies tonight. I thought they were nicely done. The use of the floor with the video projectors was pretty cool, especially the parts where it "broke apart" into an ice floe, and then some whales swam through, shooting off their blowholes.

Actually, that last part sounds kind-of like an afternoon of watching CSPAN.

But I really liked it. It felt a bit more intimate than the over-the-top (and computer-enhanced) Beijing opening ceremonies. But that's appropriate, because Canada's a bit more intimate than China, eh? (Growing up in Seattle, we used to visit Victoria and Vancouver semi-regularly, and could also pick up Canadian commercials from a TV station in Bellingham. So I feel a certain neighborly connection to them. I even dated a Canadian once. Although I never quite understood the whole gravy and cheese on french fries thing.)

I thought the moment of silence for the luge athlete was very moving. They broke out of it a little abruptly with a music cue though (someone saying "thank you" would have worked better). That was one scary accident. NBC showed the whole thing. I always thought luge (and even more so - skeleton) was a terrifying sport. But it was more the sheer, solid ice-covered concrete track, insane speeds, and razor-sharp sleds that seemed dangerous. Not steel girder beams off the track.

Back to the opening ceremonies...

Although simple, the "clouds" worked very well when they projected different things on them. Similarly, I liked the totem poles/trees rising up out of the floor, and how they extended the range of the video projections from the entire floor up into the crowds. And mad props to the guy flying around in the wire harness. You'd never get me up in one of those things. Not without a whole lot of barfing.

That said, there were a few things I was disappointed with:

No William Shatner. I mean c'mon, if you're going to have a fat Canadian reading poetry...
I was hoping Geddy Lee would sing
. Or a version of
featuring Rush doing an extended jam session. Or maybe "YYZ". That would've been cool. (Although
now. Sheesh.)
Commercials. Okay NBC... this is how you do it: Picture in Picture. Some networks have already been doing this for auto racing. Run the opening ceremonies full-screen, and stick the commercials in a corner. Then people wouldn't zap through them on their DVR, like I did. Or just overlay a graphic saying, "This portion of the opening ceremonies is brought to you by Toyota. Toyota - we're really, really sorry about the brakes thing. That is so not us." Seriously. Interrupting Ice Dancing is fine. Opening ceremonies? Not so much.
Announcers. They need to shut up. The only time they should talk is when they are telling you who is on screen carrying flags around. They should not talk during the music, or the dancing, or any of that stuff.
The Olympic Cauldron malfuntion. Whoops. Well, 3 out of 4 ain't bad, and they eventually got it up. A commercial for Viagra right about then would have been priceless. I'm sure they'll have it fixed by tomorrow.

So for the next couple of weeks, at least there will be something to watch on TV. U-Verse has a special channel set up so you can watch up to four events at once, check out schedules, results, and get on-demand Olympic programming.

I myself am looking forward to watching Women's Curling.

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