Epic

Ok, I'm at work and need to get back to work, so I'll try to keep this less than epic. Which, I suppose, makes the post title pretty stupid. Ah well.

The epic in the title would refer to the epic attempt of VANOC to stage an epic opening to their epic winter games, complete with epic music (which I kind of hate) and epic silliness weirdness artistic merit.

I did end up watching pretty much all of the opening, surprisingly enough. I wasn't intending to, but then the not-Toronto office started watching it with me and it got a lot more entertaining via running text-commentary. We're very good at amusing ourselves, I guess.

Anyway, my verdict? Ok, overall. And educational. I learned that Canadian identity involves First Nations dance marathons (seriously. Did they all manage to keep it up for the entire march of nations as well as their own segment?), tree-jellyfish-UFOs, lost and amazed people wandering around in indoor snowstorms, a fiddling Devil Elvis in a canoe, and Ashley MacIsaac in an off-kilter (the not-Toronto office takes credit for that one). I also learned that otherwise intelligent people can make INCREDIBLY INAPPROPRIATE SONG CHOICES in the name of Canadian content, and that Canada can now lay claim to the world's most embarrassing torch-lighting ceremony.

And yes, I'm including Whining Wayne's truck ride in that last statement.

What else? Well, the one time that I absolutely had to turn the channel was during my own national anthem, which is kind of sad. That poor song. It's a decent song, as anthems go, and yet it gets butchered sooo badly at sporting events. Sometimes it's a pop giggle. Sometimes it's opera bombast. Sometimes it's country twang. And last night it somehow became a ballad.

It takes talent to turn a march into a ballad. Unfortunately. If they had thought about it with a bit less talent it would have been a lot easier to stomach.

Ah well.

Back to work for me now. Will there be much more Olympic commentary/blather on the blog? Oh, probably. It's a topic, if nothing else.

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Wasn't going to bring this up in a post full of snark, but I thought that last night's crowd showed class in their response to the Georgian team, and that the team showed a lot of class and respect for their teammate. And I'm going to show my respect by not making any other comment about the whole thing, I think.