Olympics

It's been an... interesting (and kind of rough) time here.  Over the past week and a half, I probably could have used a happiness list but writing one didn't even make it on my radar.  I'm not sure I could have done it if I tried.  Sometimes you need to let yourself feel the emotions you feel without forcing yourself to be happy.  Happiness lists are good when you're having an annoying or frustrating day and need to appreciate the little things in life.  But when there are big things that aren't good, sometimes you just need to let it out, feel what you feel, cry if you need to cry, and just take it one day at a time.

But I'm not going to talk about that.  Instead, the Olympics opening ceremony was today and I'm going to talk about that.

I love the opening ceremony of the Olympics (generally).  It's full of hope.  Everyone still has an opportunity to win and take home a medal for their country.  Everyone is together, in the same place, watching the same ceremony, soaking in the same spirit of the Olympics.  A spirit of togetherness, of sports transcending the everyday barriers that exist between nations, a tournament that unites the world.  As a geography nerd, it's probably no surprise that the Parade of Nations is one of my favorite parts.  I love watching all the countries parade around.

Since I like lists, here's what I liked about the opening ceremony:

1.  The video with James Bond, the Queen and the royal corgis.  I think this is my favorite segment of the entire ceremony.  It mixed pop culture, British culture and royalty, and adorable corgis.  It had humor and lightness.  And who wouldn't smile seeing those little dogs waddle around?

2.  Parade of Nations.  I love looking at the outfits but there were too many business suits.

3.  The Hey Jude singalong.

4.  Mr. Bean!  That was funny.

5.  The Frankie and June segment (mostly).  I liked the look back at pop culture of the 20th and 21st centuries.  The music, the TV, the film, the dancing.  That was all good, but the segment was a little long.

6.  The fact that they paid tribute to their national public health care system.  I didn't love the actual segment but I like the idea of it.

7.  The attention to literature (although that prompted a terrible Matt Lauer comment that Harry Potter made reading cool (or fun or whatever he said)) and JK Rowling reading to us.

8.  The corgis!  There were 2 of them, so they get 2 slots.

And stuff I didn't like:

1.  The NBC commentators.  People on Twitter had it right.  It's like watching the Thanksgiving Day parade.  It's fine if you're giving useful information, but there was so much useless chatter (and bad jokes) when we would have rather just watched (and listened to) what they were showing on screen.

2.  The NBC commentators pretending the Queen was really jumping from the helicopter.  Do you think we're that dumb?

3.  The opening video to the ceremony.  I don't know if it was supposed to be a bird's eye view or a bug's eye view or what, but it was kind of frantic and it gave me motion sickness.  I kept closing my eyes as it jerked back and forth like a bad ride.  Not a good start.

4.  The Industrial Revolution segment was depressing.  I realize it's a walk through history but it was just so bleak.  It reminded me that work sucks.  Industry destroying the previous pastoral way of life made people miserable.  Whenever they did the top view of the stadium it just looked like a wasteland.  A reminder that we destroyed the earth.

5.  NBC gave Mitt Romney camera time during the Parade of Nations that was equivalent to the world leaders from other countries.  He is not our leader.  He is a candidate to be our leader, but he is not our leader.  I didn't think that was appropriate.

6.  NBC allegedly chose not to show the memorial, and then complained that there was no moment of silence for other tragedies.  If you're taking that stance, you should show whatever moment of silence there was instead of ignoring it for an interview that you could have played on any other day and was completely irrelevant to the opening ceremony.

7.  NBC ignored most of the countries around the U.S., showing just seconds of them to keep going back to the U.S. athletes (coughUruguaycough).  Why not split the screen?  Or just show the US for awhile and then show the other countries?  It's not like we're watching live.

8.  We're not watching it live.

9.  The outfits didn't have that much variety this year.  Business suits and warm-up suits.  A smaller percentage of countries who went for something not in those 2 categories.  I appreciated those.  Still not a fan of the U.S. team looking like Team France in berets.

10.  Poor David Beckham.  I realize he got to play a part in the torch thing but otherwise the video makes it seem like he's not even allowed in the stadium.  Stuck outside on the boat.  Poor guy.  Does all this work to help London get the Olympics, doesn't get on the soccer team, and stuck outside on the boat.

11.  The NBC commentary.  I know it's the common theme here but it was just that terrible.  We yelled shut up at the TV so many times.

I guess there were more annoying things than good things but I still like the Olympics and opening ceremonies.  And there were corgis, which makes everything better.  I just wish I could watch a clip of that segment again because it was so, so awesome.