London 2012 Olympics Thread

[Supersonic]

Wow, the Opening Ceremony surpassed all my expectations! Congratulations to Danny Boyle who organised it!

I don't know if it was just me but the lighting of the flame was rather emotional..

[HagridOfTheDeep]

The flame was beautiful.

I have no idea what happened with the audio of Paul McCartney's closing bit, but that was really unfortunate. The bit with the house and the text messaging threw my entire family off, and I can't say I really got the point of it.

All in all, it was very impressive.

Vancouver's was better.

[Supersonic]

Yeah the texting thing was admittedly odd. Everything Paul McCartney does nowadays though is rather, um, rubbish. I guess I'm used to it after we had him at the Jubilee.

P.S. Seeing the Queen and 007 together, fo' realz, was just epic.

[HagridOfTheDeep]

I FORGOT ABOUT THAT!

And the leap from the helicopter! Man... for all the strangeness, there were definitely some real cool bits. Struck a good balance of poignant moments and humourous moments (like when the Americans walked in wearing, lol, Chinese berets).

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

I missed up until about 7:45 due to work (which never should've happened, but that's a long story), but that through now was fantastic.

[Landslide Lyndon]

That was the worst opening ceremony I've ever seen. Sure, nobody expected the Brits to surpass 2004 and 2008. But this was a celebration of (british) bad taste about which nobody out of the isles could care less.

Mary Poppins? Seriously?

Also, on a more personal note, not playing the Greek national anthem for the first time was a serious faux pas.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

What a pretentious ceremony thingy.

[Redalgo]

I haven't started watching but the opening ceremony is about halfway finished recording on my DVR so I still ought to have plenty of time to watch it tonight. I don't really know what to expect at this point and have been doing my best to avoid spoilers. Still, I'm almost sure to enjoy the show.

[King]

I thought this was pretty terrible.  This was the first ceremony I ever saw which had no Olympic spirit in it at all.  Britain was patting itself for... sulfur smokestacks?  It had nothing to do with sports or any sort of message.  It was loud and annoying.

The only fun part was Atkinson and Chariots of Fire.  The rest was an ordeal to sit through.

Beijing, Athens and Sydney were all far better.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

It's... Strange. Then again, I don't watch these things, so I don't know how it compares to other ones. Just know that cynical bastards like me look at it and go "what...?"

[MaxQue]

Strange.

American hated, Canadians, British and Australians liked.

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

The one Sri Lankan girl was pretty hot.

Also, HOLY sh**t QUEEN ELIZABETH AND JAMES BOND

My family liked it better than Beijing; it was light-hard and cultural instead of raw manpower.

[patrick1]

The one Sri Lankan girl was pretty hot.

Also, HOLY sh**t QUEEN ELIZABETH AND JAMES BOND

My family liked it better than Beijing; it was light-hard and cultural instead of raw manpower.

Well as King pointed out it did celebrate what many would consider low culture.

I thought the very beginning was quite good but it got progressively worse.

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

The bit with the texting utterly confused me. Other than that it was pretty good, especially the bit with Bond and the queen.

[Lief 🗽]

I thought the first performance, with the industrial revolution and forging of the rings, was pretty amazing. The performances after that weren't as good, but they were kind of entertaining (Rowan Atkinson is always lovable).

[© tweed]

is Cuba there?

[Kaine for Senate '18]

I much preferred this year to 2008.  Everything just seemed more interesting and entertaining than the show China put on.

[Joe Biden 2020]

This year, I have two nations to root for.  The United States of America and The Republic of Kenya.  I'm interested to see the track and field competitions for the Kenyans, especially.  I guess Soccer is going to be primarily aired on Telemundo, correct?  I haven't decided if I want to go to bed (which I should) or if I want to stay up until 4:00 and watch the competitions begin.

[© tweed]

This year, I have two nations to root for.  The United States of America and The Republic of Kenya.  I'm interested to see the track and field competitions for the Kenyans, especially.  I guess Soccer is going to be primarily aired on Telemundo, correct?  I haven't decided if I want to go to bed (which I should) or if I want to stay up until 4:00 and watch the competitions begin.

go to bed

[MaxQue]

is Cuba there?

Yes. Their uniforms are a acceptable yellow.

[Joe Biden 2020]

This year, I have two nations to root for.  The United States of America and The Republic of Kenya.  I'm interested to see the track and field competitions for the Kenyans, especially.  I guess Soccer is going to be primarily aired on Telemundo, correct?  I haven't decided if I want to go to bed (which I should) or if I want to stay up until 4:00 and watch the competitions begin.

go to bed

That's what I'll probably do.  I've got a couple more loads of laundry to finish up and then I'll be hitting the sack, hopefully by 2:00.

[Free Palestine]

Is it just me or did the NBC presenters totally ignore the Palestinian team?

[Simfan34]

No one cares about Palestine. (in this context, at least)

[Free Palestine]

No one cares about Palestine. (in this context, at least)

I bet all the non-American stations covering this (except for the ones in America's butt-buddies like South Korea) at least used the word "Palestine" on the air.

[MaxQue]

No one cares about Palestine. (in this context, at least)

I bet all the non-American stations covering this (except for the ones in America's butt-buddies like South Korea) at least used the word "Palestine" on the air.

Canada said it. They skipped one country, Bahrain, here.