The Rockwood 2004 Olympic Watch--Friday, August 13, 2004

Friday, August 13, 2004

Just so you'll know, in the true spirit of the Greek Olympics, I didn't finish the design aspect of this web page until today. But it works, just like everything in Athens will! Right? Right? Ooooo.... was that tacky?

Anyway, on with comments on "My Big Fat Greek Opening Ceremonies."

I'll be honest with you right up front. Although I am an admitted Olympic-watching geek, even I think that watching all of NBC's prime-time coverage just to do it is a little nuts. In fact, I was even thinking about calling the whole thing off. Maybe I didn't really want to watch the Olympics this year. Maybe it won't grab a hold of me like it usually does.
And then, I heard James Earl Jones reading poetry about the Olympics over the "Jurassic Park" theme music. Oh... I'm such a sucker. They hit me with nine minutes of fluff right at the beginning and I'm hooked. Welcome back, you beautiful Olympics, you!
Three minutes of Tom Brokaw talking about the security measures the Greeks are implementing for the games. Is this fluff? Well, it's not events, but it's not dramatically produced either. Since nothing on the first day is really about events, I'm going to call this relevant.
It took NBC 14 minutes to drop in their first ad about "Joey." Honestly, that's more restraint than I expected. I was thinking it would be a continuous Fox-News-like crawl.
The ceremony starts with a little drummer thing. Hmm.... isn't that the start "One Of These Days," by Pink Floyd? Nah...
Oooo... burning Olympic rings on the top of the water. Huh-hunh, huh-hunh...fire is COOL.
More ads. That Mazda commercial with the "Zoom zoom zoom" cellphone ringtone? I predict it's just a matter of weeks before someone's irritating me with that in a movie theater somewhere.
A laser light show on a giant head? Isn't that from "A Momentary Lapse of Reason," by Pink Floyd? What's going on here?
Commentator Katie Couric says that the breaking apart of the giant head represents the many islands of Greece. I'll buy that, but I have a question. Does everyone in the stands have a program that's explaining all of this freaky imagery? I swear, this is looking more like a Pink Floyd show by the minute.
A float celebrating math?! THIS is the best...Olympics...EVER. However, Bob Costas slightly misquoted Archimedes. Bob said the quote was, "Give me a lever and I can move the world," when really it was "Give me a place to stand and I will move the Earth." I mean really, Bob. A lever without a place to stand is really quite useless because you wouldn't be able to place any opposing force on...

Oh...I am such a geek.
The last woman in the parade is pregnant! She's been preparing for these Opening Ceremonies for nine months! That's dedication to your craft, right there. Oh, it's a prop. Never mind.
More ads. You know, I'd really like one of those Sony HDTV systems right now. My TV is old, and what I've seen so far looks really cool, or at least, it would if my TV didn't get wavy sometimes.
The two Nike "speed" ads I've seen so far feature a sprinting Marion Jones and a cycling Lance Armstrong. Neither is in the Olympics in such a capacity. Whoops.
Everyone stand for THE PARADE OF NATIONS! You know, in any other event besides the Olympics, I would think this is the stupidest thing ever. It just goes to show what those five little rings can do to me, I guess. Anyway, I like NBC's graphics, which show which nations are coming up. I almost like the globe that shows the location of each country, except it's too small to be really useful. I don't know how to make it better, though, so I'll at least give NBC credit for trying it.
Moments after the U.S. team paraded in, they were followed by an ad from Roots, telling us how they could buy their Team U.S.A. merchandise. Why would we want to buy an outfit that, as Dr. Zira of Rasternation told us, makes us look like Samuel L. Jackson? Although, I suppose he is Shaft, so he's one bad--

Shut your mouth!
Costas throws out some Humphrey Bogart references, joking that Malta still hasn't found the Maltese Falcon after all of these years, and that Morocco makes us pine for Casablanca. But he missed the trifecta by not mentioning that Mexico was trying to bring home some gold to the Sierra Madre.
And then there's Monaco, featuring Olympian Prince Albert. And in what sport did Prince Albert compete? Well, just check the 2002 Rockwood Olympic Watch for your answer!
Costas pulls out an obscure John Stockton reference and Katie says "no wonder they call you SpongeBob." You know, maybe it's just me, but Katie Couric seems a little out of her league here. She's doing a serviceable job, but she sounds like she's reading all of her info on the parading countries. I'm sure Bob is reading his, too, but he at least sounds conversational.
I'm not sure what to think, here. Sudan, Israel, Palestine...let's just say the Middle East... all are countries that have had controversial political things happen to them recently. Well, not just recently, but you know what I mean. Anyway, Katie and Bob have brought up these controversies when said countries parade through. They've done a good job not making it biased, I think, but I still wonder if bringing up the controversial positions of these states is relevant to the athletes representing those countries. My gut feeling is that we should be focusing more on the athletes than on the atrocities in Dafur, for example. I dunno. Maybe that's just me.
Now that all the athletes are in, Bjork is singing and covering up all of the athletes with her 30,000 square foot dress. So, 5,000 athletes are shooting video underneath Bjork's dress? Yeah, this is going to end up on the internet somewhere.
Official Olympic muckety-mucks give important speeches in front of an olive tree. Is that part of the torch ceremony? Are they going to set that tree on fire? Huh-hunh huh-hunh...that would be cool!
A thousand or so kids sing the Olympic hymn. You know, I'm generally against choirs of kids singing anything (usually because it's something horrible like "I believe the children are the future..."), but this was actually pretty good.
And now we get down to the lighting of the flame. First of all, this segment of the Olympic Games has officially been ruined by Spain, who set the bar so high in 1992 by shooting a flaming arrow over their cauldron to light it that future games have no shot of being anywhere near as cool. Still, the spirit of the Olympics is to try, so here's Greece's chance. They hand off the torch several times to several famous Greek Olympians, and finally, the last man runs up the steps to meet the cauldron, which is bending down within its supports and...

Oh. My. God. Would you look at that? The Greek cauldron is a giant joint! This IS a Pink Floyd concert! In an age where suspected drug abuse by athletes is a big problem, you've got to wonder, what were they thinking? Probably something along the lines of "duuuuuuuude."
Melissa Stark is covering the Olympics for NBC? Awesome! A better question might be why wasn't she in the booth with Bob instead of Katie? Okay, that's mean. Katie did a good job, and after a night where NBC did a good job with their coverage, I shouldn't really complain about something as trivial as that. Good start, NBC! You've left me optimistic!

Finally, NBC closes out the night with a preview of what's coming up tomorrow on their 234 other cable networks. And no, I'm not watching all of those, too (although I'm sure I'll watch some of it). Simon and Garfunkle sing us out of the broadcast.

So, we're underway. It's nothing but athletes and events from now on, and I mean that in the most literal sense. You'll notice I didn't say "athletes, events, and sleep." Why do I do this to myself?

>> On to Saturday, August 14, 2004>>