Canadian Results: Day Two

It felt like not much happened on Day 2, but I think that is mainly due to sleeping through the night on my part, the crashing of our PVR (so no overnight recording), and a tendency to see the same coverage over and over instead of something new.

Water polo is vicious... remind me not to play, I don't like punches to the back of my head or eating water continually. Canada lost to Spain. But it was our first time qualifying a men's team to the Olympics... or at least one without any boycotts.

Gymnast Elyse Hopfner-Hibbs made it into the all-round final. Team Canada did not. I am still not surprised by their failure to advance, since it seems every Olympics the women's team fields mediocre performers. I'm not an expert by any means, but even I can spot sloppy performances and lower difficulty levels. By far the low confidence level hurts their performance.

A Canadian lost in the early rounds of Epee. Tried to watch a match but I had no clue what was going on. I like my swordfighting to resemble The Princess Bride. Hello! My name is Inigo Montoya...

Still haven't seen any rowing, despite early heats being completed and apparently a couple Canadian teams advancing. The men's 8 race was supposed to be aired, but it has been delayed due to lightning. I don't think I've ever seen that as a reason for sport delays before. Zap!

Coverage could use some work

Considering CBC is running Olympic coverage 24hrs a day, you'd think you'd be able to watch entire events from start to finish occasionally. So far they are mainly showing Canadians in their portion of a competition instead of the other competitors or the whole event. Fine, they can't really miss showing Canadians compete, but it's extremely difficult to get a good picture of the competition if you only see a small portion.

The website indicates there are up to 8 CBC channels broadcasting simultaneously, but on tv I only have access to CBC1 and BOLD. The webcasts of the other channels are so small and low-res, you can't comfortably see the action on screen.

The most annoying thing thus far is the inaccuracy of the show descriptions. There was supposed to be live coverage of 3 events starting this evening, but instead they replayed shortened edited versions of Day 1 events. I'd already seen those events 'live', and had been waiting to finally see some Day 2 events begin. Grr.

Now the coverage appears to have ended for a few hours, so I get to nap. Unless I want to finish watching the sleepy slow quiet sailing race on BOLD. Zzzzz.

Repetitive

One thing about watching events live is you can't avoid the commercials. And since there is a crop of new commercials made specifically for Olympic coverage, you end up seeing the same ones over and over and over. But while I'm already sick of most of them, the Wonder Bread commercial with the little kids dressed as athletes in the same clothes the full-sized athletes wear is damned cute. Especially the bobsleighers and the wee curling boys holding the full sized brooms.

Canadian Results: Day One

The 245 km Cycling Men's Road Race ended last night, with Canadian Michael Barry in 9th place. Fellow teammate Ryder Hesjedal spent a good portion of the 6 hour race in the lead pack, but failed to maintain his lead on the grueling course, finishing in 56th place.

Gymnastics, Men's Team qualifying round: Team Canada, including medal hope Kyle Shewfelt, failed to qualify for the finals, only earning enough points to come in 9th overall. Only the top 8 teams move forward. Shewfelt also did not score high enough to qualify for the individual floor mat event, where he won gold at the Athens Olympics. Only Nathan Gafuik and Adam Wong will compete in the Men's All-Round event, each earning enough points to qualify individually.

Women's Football: Canada and China played a round robin game to a tie 1-1 score. Canada's goal was scored by team star & captain Christine Sinclair.

Women's 48kg Weightlifting: Canada's Marilou Dozois-Prevost lifted 166lbs to come in 10th. China's Xiexia Chen won the gold, making the clean and jerk portion look effortless, lifting a total 212lbs (more than twice her body weight) in her 2 lifts. These are tiny women, weighing in at 105lbs.

Opening Ceremony Highlights

• firework footprints 'walking' in the sky from Tienanmen Square to the Bird's Nest stadium
• 2008 drummers playing in perfect synchronicity, then in the complete darkness with only their drumsticks lit up to finish their performance
  
• Chinese flag bearer Yao Ming walking with a 9 year old Sichuan earthquake survivor during the parade of nations
• gymnast Li Ning running around the top of the stadium, suspended by wires, with the torch to light the Olympic flame to start the Games

Lowlight: Prime Minister Stephen Harper is one of the few governmental leaders to not appear at the opening ceremony, despite Canada being the next nation to host an Olympics.

Let the Games Begin

I am an Olympics fan. I watch every one, winter or summer. I volunteer at VANOC. I get giddy and teary-eyed at big emotion moments. I remember certain parts of my childhood solely because they revolved around the Olympics. So the Beijing Games started Friday, and my crazy viewing schedule began with the opening ceremonies.

There's a wee bit of a time difference to deal with this time around. The opening ceremonies started at 4am. (fine, the pre-show started then and the official start was 5am, but I've already mentioned I'm a fan). I woke up early, watched the ceremonies until 7am and only took a nap because I had somewhere to be Friday afternoon. It's now Saturday and I'm finally watching the end... of course I am recording everything too. I don't mess around.

I've got some catching up to do today, since I could only see part of the first competition day last night before crashing. The drunkeness of my party-going last night had everything to do it that. I saw the men's Urban Road race (very cool winding around the Great Wall) and most of the men's gymnastics team preliminary round. I'll get caught up on the remainder of Friday's events at about the time Saturday's events are being broadcast live. The plan is to be fully on the proper timeframe by tomorrow... assuming I can nap appropiately.

So I'm foggy and disoriented right now, but still very excited. w00t!!

Dusty No More

We survived Pemberton! It was utter unorganized craziness, but with good music, good vibes and a gorgeous setting -- in an unceasing cloud of hay dust. I did not find a Lips roadie on Saturday, so did not get to dance on stage as a Teletubby. But I did get mini donuts everyday, so it balances out.

Tonight: fireworks. Let the crazy crowds of summer continue!

Sit down, Pontiac Sunfire.

Witnessed a road rage incident on the way home today. The bus I was riding merged into the bridge on-ramp, annoying a woman in a Pontiac behind it. Much laying on the horn followed. Figured that was the end of it.

Until the lady sped around the other side of the bus, whipped her car into our lane in front of the bus and braked repeatedly just inches away from our bumper. And the other lane also contained a bus which she cut off in order to express her displeasure to our bus.

Um? Seriously?

If you're in a small car, it takes a lot of balls or a lot of crazy to try to muscle out a freaking massive bus. Apparently she was unaware of the "Yield. It's the Law." sticker on the back of the bus.

Bunny, Santa or Teletubby... I don't care which

On a related note, I'm likely to spend all day Saturday on a quest to find a Flaming Lips roadie/stage manager. I totally would love to be a dancer on stage this time around.

It's not Comicon, but...

I'm getting a wee bit excited about Pemberton this weekend. It'll be my first multi-day music festival. There're at least 2 bands per day I'm stoked about seeing, and at least 1 other daily I can possibly watch. The rest of the time I'll just be soaking up the atmosphere. Ever since they announced the (only recent!) inclusion of a shower trailer at the campsites, I'm hoping the atmosphere won't be too nasty and fragrant.

Camping will either be a shitload of fun, or unbearably hot. I'm hoping for fun. And bringing a misting bottle just in case.

And there'd better be mini donuts. I'm just sayin'.

Barbequed Taboo

Went to Chelsea & Charles' place for a BBQ yesterday. Tasty steaks, fresh fruit & veg, chips n' dips and all sorts of summery treats. The house and yard were abuzz with toddlers and almost toddlers, but in a good way. Finished the evening off with a big game of Taboo, which was quite fun after a long absence from the game. Kris' way of dancing while giving clues made the night. And I even played pool okay... or at least didn't embarrass myself.

Losing Track

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