NBC is getting me annoyed, as I can't watch videos because:
1. This feature requires Microsoft Silverlight (?!)
2. Your television service provider does not participate as a NBC Olympic sponsor. (?!)

I installed Silverlight, then was confronted with a dialog requiring me to enter my postal code and TV service provider. I was honest about it, but then got another dialog saying my provider wasn't a sponsor (?!). So then I lied and said I had another provider, but got another dialog saying "That provider does not service your area, You have exceeded the number of attempts allowed to access Olympic video and will be blocked for 24 hours."

WTF?

Are you implying that Honda has picked up it's pace? :D

I'm just hoping they can get more teams interested in racing, this 10 team field is a bit stale. Oh well, I'll watch it anyway...

Oh, and, uh...go USA, with the Olympics and stuff, yeah... Don't want to hijack the thread eh?

There is one unofficial contest at each Olympics that's more important than all the official contests combined.... it's the "doping without getting caught" event. Apparently, doping (performance enhancing substances of any kind) is here to stay. My guess is steroids and such have become widespread throughout sports everywhere. If they aren't drugged while competing, they took them years earlier to build muscle mass, then quit just in time to pass the drug tests at the Olympics. Build a tougher drug screen, and someone will build a tougher drug to detect.

In my totally uninformed, humble opinion the cause is money being inserted into the mix. We now let professional athletes compete (hasn't always been that way). Lucrative product endorsements often await the winners. Again in my humble opinion, we went over the top when nations started paying athletes for medals won.

For the record, if there were an event for beer drinking and drunken fighting, my money would be on the US. If you've ever seen a Saturday night at a red neck bubba honkey tonk, then you know what I'm saying.

Absolutely right on! Aside from the spectacular opening ceremony (where China certainly put on a show to remember), my wife's view kinda summarizes it: "The Olympics are past their best-by date", a view that started with several of Canada's olympians being defrocked of their medals, continued with the judging collusion scandals in the Winter Olympics, and left us totally uninterested in the events this summer.

I can't watch specific events on the web either. CBC does not have streaming video of events because their license for coverage doesn't permit broadcasting anywhere but in Canada, and they can't control that easily on the internet.

So, what on earth are London going to do to beat that spectacular opening ceremony?

I watched it all through and there were some absolutely amazing parts (movable type, the drummers, etc.)...although the commentators did seem to get bored and running out of things to say, such as...'Tai-che can be seen practiced by old people and also young people :-)!!!!

I struggle to imagine...

lets hope the Olympic village goes smoother than the Wembley Stadium fiasco :D

yeah, especially when I saw a report this morning that the deal is being done with an Australian developer (the same as Wembley!)

ps. before I get slated, I have nothing against Australians, I'm only commenting on the coincidence

just have gordon brown fight a kangaroo..that'll be fun enough :)

Here's the Olympic medal score so far, if anyone's interested :p
http://results.beijing2008.cn/WRM/EN...L0000000.shtml
China seems to be in the lead so far.

UK Diving Medal ?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UBLnDXiFRM

:D

loool thats a classic

Opening Ceremonies BSOD

In other news, China Olympics IT has a job opening today...

hahahahahaha... Bill Gates must be so proud!

the opening ceremony was insane... i like watching phelps swimming. I would watch basketball... but it's boring when it's still prelims.

On the news yesterday they were saying how a lot of the fireworks were cg. And you know that little girl they had singing, she was lipsyncing right? But not even too her own voice, she was doing it another 7 year old, who was deemed to "not be the right image to represent China" ie she wasnt as flawless as the girl who did "sing"

My skepticism about the games was substantially enhanced watching the "womens" gymnastics last night where all of the competitors are supposed to be over 16. The winning Chinese team didn't, in my view, have a single competitor who had reached that age -- they were all little girls, not young women. An American color commentator said "Well, China gives them their birth certificates and passports, right?; how can you test for that?"

Edit: A link to follow

Yeah, we were talking about that as well. As I recall the commentator (who use to be the couch of the US womens team) said that half the team had not reached the official age. But he also mentioned that they were the best in the world anyway, so why shouldn't they win in the olympics? An interesting thought...

Anyway, we had a very long and exciting discussion about the age of olympic gymnasts. We all agree that it's a bit of a tragedy that so many children lose their life to gymnastics and I'm not talking about any specific country, most olympic gymnasts start at three no matter what nation they hail from. And if it's not the government making you do it, it's your parents... No matter how you look at it, they don't have a choice.

I don't know that having the "you must be 16" rule really helps with stopping this problem. Sure they can't compete on the international level until 16, but they can still start very young and completely destroy their bodies as a result (they mentioned that one of the girls had already had two leg surgeries.:( ) I wish they would come up with a minimum age for these girls to do events, period. Meaning, you can't start training until 5, and you can't do anything too strenuous until at least 10 (though I should note, my numbers are arbitrary). It won't get the government/parents off these gymnasts backs, but at least it will help preserve their bodies...

Anyway, I don't want to start a debate on this thread (I think according to international policy we are not allowed to have any conflicts during the olympic period, right? :D). I'm just passing along some of the thoughts we were having last night, just so you can chew on them.

I agree, Z, but there's another point prevalent in this thread: Cheating. Now that the Olympics are so heavily monetized, cheating by contestants with millions in endorsements riding on their performances, cheating and collusion by judges for geopolitical reasons, and cheating by national olympic committees to collect sponsorships at home and medals at the games is rampant in my view.

There seems to be a disconnect here between the US and other countries broadcasts. In the US, NBC did point out that the sky shots of the "footsteps" fireworks sequence was prerecorded CGI due to the difficulty of covering it by helicopter given the weather conditions (haze) and sheer distance covered in a short time. I remember hearing them say that. But my understanding is that the fireworks themselves actually did go off.

Other countries' broadcasters did not necessarily make this notice and so citizens of non-US areas have felt more betrayed because they never got the disclosure.

so what your saying is, you cant handle the truth? :p