I never watch the opening or closing ceremonies. What can I say? I hate pageantry and bad pageantry is, obviously, much worse.
But I do enjoy watching sports unhindered by mrs. trapeze who, like most women, is inexplicably interested in them once every two years. I suppose she appreciates the human interest crap that is thrown into the mix at the Olympics. You would think that the NFL and other sports would pick up on this and somehow figure out a way to get women interested.
I mostly enjoy the Olympic coverage. One of my few complaints, though, is the politically correct network's (doesn't matter which one) dearth of shooting coverage. The USA almost always does quite well in the shooting competitions and yet most Americans probably don't even know that they exist. There is more coverage of table tennis, badminton and handball than there is of the shooting sports...which is zero.
Another small complaint is where gifted professional athletes (almost always Americans) are inexplicably found to have some vague and tenuous connection to another nationality and are given permission to compete on another team. This is most obvious in basketball. It wasn't very long ago that professionals couldn't compete at all unless they were communists. But now not only can they compete but if they aren't good enough to make an American team they can farm themselves out to some other country. For the life of me I can't imagine wanting to represent any country but the USA. Go figure.
But, getting back to watching the events...I guess one of the big draws is the unexpected defeat or upset. I have gotten several laughs at the expense of the ChiComm men's gymnastics team who have had several spectacular screw ups...I'll bet they can't wait to get back home to receive beatings or solitary confinement or some such totalitarian punishment.
I cheated today and checked on the NBC Sports site to see what happened. A female American gymnast breaks into tears when she fails to qualify for the all around competition so that will be fun interesting to watch. Oh, and there is a new Jamaican bobsled type person...some guy from Niger gets to compete in rowing (he won some kind of wild card thingy where he gets a pity pass) and the crowd goes nuts over his inevitable last place finish. He's just happy for a trip out of Africa for a couple of weeks.
The other big thing that would be fun to watch (but will NEVER be shown) is the ludicrous behavior and attitude of the muslims toward the Israelis. I would pay to see any of the Israeli vs. generic arab/muslim fighting sports competitions. Of course, the security at this year's games is notoriously poor and weak so there is always the possibility of a muslim attack on the Israeli team. I have to believe that the Mossad is there, ready and waiting, and it will be different than Munich...several dead muslims with their brains splattered all over the place. I'd pay to see that happen, too.
So...you never know. It could be an interesting couple of weeks.
And, after it's all over, the next big circus event starts up...the Democrat and Republican conventions.
