Sunday, August 10, 2008

Late Look At Opening Ceremonies

The incredibly confusing time difference makes a late recap of the Opening Ceremonies acceptable. I am a huge fan of the Olympics. During the Olympics I hate every competitor that is not American. I realize having outrageous American pride is not cool these days but I do very few things that are cool. A sappy story from NBC does nothing to change my opinion. If you are not wearing the Stars and Stripes then I am rooting for you to lose, get hurt, quit or all of the above. To top it all off I strongly dislike China at all times so I am really getting into these Olympics. I stayed up what seemed like all night to watch the Opening Ceremonies and noticed some things. It started at 7:30pm and ended at midnight. Since becoming a new dad midnight now seems like 4:00am but I battled through and made it to the end. I commend myself on getting the Games off to a very strong start and setting the tone for the rest of the team. Now the in-depth analysis:

China is stupid - They spent $300M on the Opening Ceremony, which is nothing short of ridiculous. I could care less if Bob Costas wants to blow hot air about how beautiful and miraculous it is. China is a pathetic Communist country that should be spending its money in better ways. We are only two days into these Games and I am sick of the American media spending all of its time talking about how great Beijing is. Costas and all of the others are scared to say anything truthful about China so I hope they stick to talking about the competition and leave commentary on the actual country to people that aren't sell-outs. Okay, I'm done ranting on China. There are not enough fireworks in the world to make me change my mind.

China is really stupid - A country that appears to be larger than the United States has one timezone! Please don't let any person that loves bashing Americans (this includes pretentious Americans) tell you Chinese people are smarter than we are.

Attractive athletes - You know some of the South American athletes are very attractive when I find myself appreciating their presence at the Games and could find myself rooting for them. Did anyone else notice the only athlete they showed from Paraguay?

Random countries - Since all countries, for the most part, are a part of the Olympics I shouldn't be surprised to see a country competing but I was. I would expect to see Palastine if suicide car bombing were an event or Nicaragua if drug cartel efficiency were a factor in gymnastics judging.

Familiar face - The gentleman holding the flag for Belarus looked eerily familiar to an ophthamologist I know in Eugene, OR. Not too many mustached men with gray hair holding flags in Beijing.

Fashion police - I am famous for having an impeccable sense of style. Recently I asked my wife if a black polo would look good with brown pants and was laughed out of the bedroom. (Please no jokes about being laughed out of the bedroom. I have thought of them on my own so it wouldn't be orginal.) Come on, I thought black went with everything. With that being said the Hungarian women were wearing white dresses with large red flowers. They looked an awful lot like a dress my mom wore in the late 80s for one of our Easter family pictures. Hungary was not the worst dressed folks though. Someone in Denmark thought it would be a good idea to wear jort capris. Maybe appropriate at an SEC football game but certainly not the Olympics.

No Borat - I scoured the Kazakhstan team for Borat and could not find him. A few of them could pass as his cousin but that is about it.

W is proud - My coolness is going way down because I thought it was awesome that Bush was there and that he was fired up when the US team came into the stadium. Most people probably dislike him enough to never read my blog again because I said that but I could care less. My American pride is at an all-time high right now.

Jason Kidd - People should be more offended by Jason Kidd's presence in Beijing than Bush's. Kidd is terrible and old. Not a good combination when we are trying to reclaim our rightful place at the top of the basketball world.

Chinese Taipei or Taiwan - Would someone explain this to me? I went to school with a girl from Taiwan but whenever a team from that country is competing at a world event (Olympics, Little League World Series, etc.) it is listed as Chinese Taipei. If they want to be called Taiwan why do we bother to call it by a name China would prefer?

Torch lighting - I heard so much about the torch lighting that I had no other option but to stay up to watch it. It was kind of cool to see an old gymnast look a little awkward trying to run around the top of the stadium but it took forever. I took two naps while the torch was going around the stadium and the lighting ended up being okay. The HD made it look cool but China should have spent $350M so the actual lighting was more spectacular. They couldn't displace another million poor people to use a panda bear for the torch lighting?

Medal count - There was talk at the Opening Ceremonies that China had a chance to overtake the US in the medal count. Over my dead body. If China ends up with more medals than the US then you can be guaranteed Olympic drug testing is a joke. I have nothing more to say about that. The US will dominate the Games and I am going to love it.

5 comments:

Allison said...

I'm glad you brought up the George Bush thing. It is cool. No, I am not a huge Bush fan, but the second-best part of last night's festivities was when Costas asked Bush if he was going to go watch swimming and Bush responded, "Yeah. If you ever let me get off this set, I'm going to go watch swimming."

Unknown said...

Two things. 1. Why do you hate Chinese people? 2. What the heck is a jort?

Also, was the Paraguay-an (?) athlete the girl with the long brown hair?

J Smith said...

As always I get myself into trouble by not being specific. I do not hate Chinese people. I do hate the Chinese government. The way that country is run, common people are treated and the rest of the world's greedy love affair with the place bothers me. My sister ventured over there a few years ago and her experiences did not always paint the pretty picture NBC wants me to see. I will leave it at that.

Jorts are jean shorts. I wore them to work a couple of summers ago and one of the students that worked for me ripped on me for wearing them. A couple of days later I saw that someone was making fun of Florida Gator fans (weird coincidence I know) for wearing jorts and I have loved the name ever since.

The athlete from Paraguay did have long brown hair. She was quite beautiful. Pretty enough that my father-in-law and I both looked at each other after she was shown and were happy we had stayed up long enough to see her country circle the stadium.

Anonymous said...

I would just like to point out that the girl from Paraguay that you all love is a JAVELIN thrower!

http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/beijing/blog/fourth_place_medal/post/The-mystery-of-the-hot-Paraguayan-solved-?urn=oly,99910

J Smith said...

Needless to say I was not the only one to notice her during the Opening Ceremonies. She appears to be quite popular among the prominent sports bloggers. I love the javelin!