Official Thread of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games (August 8-24)...

[herkulease]

Originally posted by: Finalnight

Originally posted by: Jawo
Rather disappointing closing ceremonies. At least don't have to worry about a massive time delay for the next two olympics in Vancouver and London

Um, its actually worse in London.

8pm EST is 1 AM GMT.

At least in Beijing, we could play around with the 12 hr diff. Ie, 8 PM EDT is 8 AM BDT, etc.

Vancouver will be nice. Word is that most stuff will be aired live across all four time zones.

Also, another odd fact, the PDT/MDT (always tape delayed this year) ratings were higher than the EDT/CDT ratings...

I'll believe it when I see it. NBC puts out way too many lies about the Olympics. I wouldn't be surprised if they somehow screw the west coast out of a live shot.

I absolutely hated that they hyped these games to have live broadcasts but us west coast people are screwed. You couldn't even go to their website without being spoiled of the major events.

 

[chuckywang]

Has London's mayor buttoned up his jacket yet?

 

[LongCoolMother]

oh my god. im watching the closing ceremonies. its freakin' awesome! except for the london skit...wth was up with that?

anyway, the closing ceremonies is pretty sweet so far. especially the part with the big tower.

 

[sunzt]

Ok, so the single most important symbol of London culture, pride, and history is.....

A BUS!!?!?!?! WTF???

 

[Agentbolt]

VERY impressed with the closing ceremony. Too many commercials, of course, but it's less of a problem when you TiVo it and watch it a few hours later.

The men's V-Ball game was SPECTACULAR. The men's team played insanely good Volleyball.

I love the Olympics so much, this was a fantastic summer. My only issue is that I had, among other things, Phelps 4x100, 100M butterfly, The US women's volleyball final, the 100M sprint, and the 4x100 relay ruined for me due to the tape delay. It got to the point where I basically didn't go online or watch TV all day today to make sure the volleyball game wouldn't be spoiled to me. I really, really hope NBC got torn a new one for delaying it here.

I'm excited to begin preparing for the 2012 Olympics in earnest, mostly by making fun of the logo for the next 3 years

 

[sunzt]

OMG.... Jakie Chan needs to stop singing... forever

 

[Slew Foot]

Good thing the USSR broke up

"members of the former Soviet Union won a total of 173 medals in Beijing."

Add that to Russia's 70-something, and the former USSR had nearly 250 medals!

 

[manly]

Originally posted by: Dari

Originally posted by: chuckywang
Li Ning inked a deal with Shaq ... they are definitely trying to move up the ladder in the US.

How are they going to do that? What's their business model? If I was them, I would try to sell myself as the underdog, not hire some big time player. They should support underrated players. Americans love dark horses.

Who's the big time player?

Originally posted by: Slew Foot
Good thing the USSR broke up

"members of the former Soviet Union won a total of 173 medals in Beijing."

Add that to Russia's 70-something, and the former USSR had nearly 250 medals!

Are you double-counting Russia?

 

[Leon]

Good thing the USSR broke up

"members of the former Soviet Union won a total of 173 medals in Beijing."

Add that to Russia's 70-something, and the former USSR had nearly 250 medals!

You are forgetting that each country have hard limit of athletes they are allowed to bring.

 

[sunzt]

That ending tribute (before the credits) by Costas and the other guy (forgot his name), was right on and well said.

The ending credits right after was the absolute best ending I have ever seen for any TV show ever and probably forever. The landscape videos of China was very reminiscent of the ending credits from Mario 64 after winning 120 stars (yes very weird, but emotional for me ). The images playing as the credits scroll were very touching, and summarized the Olympics.

I loved the ending of the Olympics up to the very last ending credit and image.

 

[AnthroAndStargate]

The Beijing games are the coolest thing I've seen in all my life. China out did itself, wow.

I think London should just give up and maybe bring the games back to Beijing. Haha I kid I kid.

On a side note, I hate NBC so much. They cut to commercial every 6 minutes,did 5 min of commercial, then went back to crappy shots with an overlay of their smug commentators ranting during the best parts. And the tape delay is ridiculous.

Im glad that people are putting the stuff upon Usenet and torrent from other countries broadcasting stations. Did you know the BBC shows ZERO commercials during the Olympics? And WTF is up with making people install Silverlight to use the website. Uhm no thanks, torrent or ms browser?

Anyways congrats to China, wow.

 

[AnthroAndStargate]

Originally posted by: sunzt
That ending tribute (before the credits) by Costas and the other guy (forgot his name), was right on and well said.

The ending credits right after was the absolute best ending I have ever seen for any TV show ever and probably forever. The landscape videos of China was very reminiscent of the ending credits from Mario 64 after winning 120 stars (yes very weird, but emotional for me ). The images playing as the credits scroll were very touching, and summarized the Olympics.

I loved the ending of the Olympics up to the very last ending credit and image.

I do agree, the closing credits were good. I didn't like Bob Costas much but he seemed really heartfelt and eloquent then.

If only it hadn't been tape delayed

 

[LongCoolMother]

yeah, the ending credits was pretty sweet. especially the brief video clips of the different regions of China. and then the summation of the memorable moments of the games. good stuff!

 

[JC86]

Sorry if this had been asked and answered before but I have better things to do than sift through 125 pages of olympic posts to find the answer. How is it that teamusa only has 36 golds when between the men and women's basketball team and the women's soccer team . . . there are already more than 30 gold medals handed out? add in phelps' 8 and taht should be easily more than the 36. Does the tally only count those as one gold per event? If so, then why calculate the medals and the not the events?

 

[Locut0s]

Originally posted by: JC86
Sorry if this had been asked and answered before but I have better things to do than sift through 125 pages of olympic posts to find the answer. How is it that teamusa only has 36 golds when between the men and women's basketball team and the women's soccer team . . . there are already more than 30 gold medals handed out? add in phelps' 8 and taht should be easily more than the 36. Does the tally only count those as one gold per event? If so, then why calculate the medals and the not the events?

Umm yeah it's one gold/silver/bronze per Olympic event irrespective of how many people are in said event. And that is exactly how they are measuring it, the mens basketball win counts as 1 gold towards the 36, the other 35 are in other events. It wouldn't make any sense to count it any other way.

 

[lupi]

WTF were you guys watching, that closing ceremony was horrid. I'm not even sure I was give it a passing rating for having the TV on while doing something else.

 

[Anubis]

Originally posted by: lupi
WTF were you guys watching, that closing ceremony was horrid. I'm not even sure I was give it a passing rating for having the TV on while doing something else.

lol
glad i didnt watch it

 

[sdifox]

Originally posted by: Slew Foot
Good thing the USSR broke up

"members of the former Soviet Union won a total of 173 medals in Beijing."

Add that to Russia's 70-something, and the former USSR had nearly 250 medals!

I think USSR would get less since they would not have so many people competing.

 

[sdifox]

Originally posted by: JC86
Sorry if this had been asked and answered before but I have better things to do than sift through 125 pages of olympic posts to find the answer. How is it that teamusa only has 36 golds when between the men and women's basketball team and the women's soccer team . . . there are already more than 30 gold medals handed out? add in phelps' 8 and taht should be easily more than the 36. Does the tally only count those as one gold per event? If so, then why calculate the medals and the not the events?

You fail. The basketball team got gold. The team members got duplicate medals.

 

[Feldenak]

Originally posted by: lupi
WTF were you guys watching, that closing ceremony was horrid. I'm not even sure I was give it a passing rating for having the TV on while doing something else.

Seriously. It was like watching a balding, middle aged guy with an expanding waistline pulling up in a Porsche. It was like they were compensating for something.

 

[Jawo]

Originally posted by: Feldenak

Originally posted by: lupi
WTF were you guys watching, that closing ceremony was horrid. I'm not even sure I was give it a passing rating for having the TV on while doing something else.

Seriously. It was like watching a balding, middle aged guy with an expanding waistline pulling up in a Porsche. It was like they were compensating for something.

Well London's Mayor was about as dorky as you can get....didn't even button his suit when on stage!

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: Jawo

Originally posted by: Feldenak

Originally posted by: lupi
WTF were you guys watching, that closing ceremony was horrid. I'm not even sure I was give it a passing rating for having the TV on while doing something else.

Seriously. It was like watching a balding, middle aged guy with an expanding waistline pulling up in a Porsche. It was like they were compensating for something.

Well London's Mayor was about as dorky as you can get....didn't even button his suit when on stage!

My wife and I were laughing at both mayors attempting to wave the flag. Both got it caught up in their arms and couldn't get it to hang right. :laugh:

 

[abaez]

Originally posted by: AnthroAndStargate
The Beijing games are the coolest thing I've seen in all my life. China out did itself, wow.

I think London should just give up and maybe bring the games back to Beijing. Haha I kid I kid.

On a side note, I hate NBC so much. They cut to commercial every 6 minutes,did 5 min of commercial, then went back to crappy shots with an overlay of their smug commentators ranting during the best parts. And the tape delay is ridiculous.

Im glad that people are putting the stuff upon Usenet and torrent from other countries broadcasting stations. Did you know the BBC shows ZERO commercials during the Olympics? And WTF is up with making people install Silverlight to use the website. Uhm no thanks, torrent or ms browser?

Anyways congrats to China, wow.

I agree with you on the Beijing olympics. China surprised me.

Also, You don't have to install silverlight, I just skipped passed it and was able to watch it fine.

And the reason the BBC has no commercials is because everyone in the country has to pay for TV.

 

[BeauJangles]

Originally posted by: abaez

Originally posted by: AnthroAndStargate
The Beijing games are the coolest thing I've seen in all my life. China out did itself, wow.

I think London should just give up and maybe bring the games back to Beijing. Haha I kid I kid.

On a side note, I hate NBC so much. They cut to commercial every 6 minutes,did 5 min of commercial, then went back to crappy shots with an overlay of their smug commentators ranting during the best parts. And the tape delay is ridiculous.

Im glad that people are putting the stuff upon Usenet and torrent from other countries broadcasting stations. Did you know the BBC shows ZERO commercials during the Olympics? And WTF is up with making people install Silverlight to use the website. Uhm no thanks, torrent or ms browser?

Anyways congrats to China, wow.

I agree with you on the Beijing olympics. China surprised me.

Also, You don't have to install silverlight, I just skipped passed it and was able to watch it fine.

And the reason the BBC has no commercials is because everyone in the country has to pay for TV.

:thumbsup:

It was definitely one of the most compelling Olympics I can remember. The venues were beautiful and the competition was fantastic. China really pulled it off.

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: sunzt
Ok, so the single most important symbol of London culture, pride, and history is.....

A BUS!!?!?!?! WTF???

They were going to bring a model of Hyde Park's Speakers' Corner, but the Chinese government didn't want their people getting any ideas.

Seriously, the double decker bus is an instantly recognizable symbol of London, and it's more portable than Big Ben, the Tower of London, Trafalgar Square, the Tower Bridge, Westminster Abbey or Buckingham Palace.