It Begins...

So the Olympic opening ceremonies were pretty fun to watch. They didn't go perfectly but that seems to be the motif for the games this year. First the death of a luger, Nodar Kumaritashvili went off the track and hit a pole. It's terribly sad, the kid was 21 and was relatively new to the sport. TSN showed the accident last night, perhaps the second most horrific thing I've ever seen. The video begged two questions, why is TSN showing it and why are those steel polls right there are the fastest turn on the fastest course ever made? Two other people had already been injured on that track. It's a sad start the the games.

Back to the ceremonies, I love that Gretzky was the guy to light the torch. The actual ceremony was great, the floor screen, the mountains and clouds, it looked great to me. The performances were hit and miss. The song Nelly Furtado and Adams sang was crappy and many francophones have one word to say about the francophone singer Garou, 'who'? NBC didn't show the song, deciding that no one wanted to hear French. I'm beginning to understand why the French get so pissed off. John Furlong, the Chair of the Vancouver Organizing Committee delivered some opening remarks. His French was possibly the worst I've ever heard. He only had two of three things to say in French, get a language coach you dumb a-hole! It only takes a minute to learn how to pronounce a few words properly. It embarrassed me as an anglophone.

Then of course the fourth arm of the torch thingy didn't go up. Technical malfunction I guess, it happens but some poor sap will lose their awesome Olympic gig over it.

k.d. lang sounded incredible and McLachlan always sounds good too. Then to my great surprise Shane Koyczan read his poem We Are More. It was a surprise because I actually know the guy and I didn't know he was going to be preforming. Actually he's Kate's friend from the poetry circuit but I figure once I've been out drinking with someone they're my friend too, and there's a slight chance he would recognize me if he saw me. It's a good poem and I'm pleased that they included him and the piece, it should be great for slam poetry in Vancouver and across Canada.

In other news, I did not win the 30 million in the Quebec loto last night.

So good luck to all our Canadian athletes, I will unfortunately miss the first hockey game, Canada/Slovakia today, I have a football game at 8. And of course they won 51-6 last week, the game I missed because I was in Quebec. If we lose today then I suppose we know where the team's weak link is. Just kidding, I'm a solid player, and if you don't believe me here's a link to my stats. http://www.flagplusfootball.com/player.php?league_id=1&division_id=6&season_id=W10&competition_id=&member_id=1684&group=receiving
And not one dropped pass.