Oh, Olympics

I am a total Olympic nerd. I pretty much love everything about it. The "we never met a heartwarming story we didn't like" coverage, the tearjerker commercials-I love it all. I'm especially fond of the Parade of Nations. I like bearing witness to these athletes' Olympic experience knowing that for most of them this is their Olympic experience. I also like the parade because I get surprised every time by some new country I never heard of. (Timor-Leste anyone? Gabon? Tuvalu?) It makes the world seem smaller in the best possible way.

Other first impressions:

-Love the Morgan Freeman Visa commercials. And the "If you've bought a Coke in the last 80 years" one was a good one too.

-Yeah, the fireworks were awesome but they ARE the Chinese-they invented them after all. They better be good.

-Judging by the number of participants in the artistic part of Opening Ceromonies I think we can safely say in the world's most populous nation manpower is not an issue.

-The National Stadium is stunning and yes, I totally see how it got the Bird's Nest nickname but am I the only one who thinks it also looks kinda like a toilet seat or a really fancy bedpan? I'm just saying.

-Torchlighting? Wow. Yeah.


Go USA! Go World!