Five-Ring Rant

I'm not ashamed to admit that, every two years, one of my favorite things to do is watch the opening ceremonies of the Olympics, specifically the Parade of Nations.

As an aside, I love the Winter Olympics more than the Summer in general, in part because of the higher prevalence of Nordic types, more stunning locales (mountains, snow, etc.) and crazier sports (how and why running developed into a sport I understand... but the ski jump?!), but also because the costumes at the PoN tend to be wilder, too.

Without a tv at the moment, I thought no problem, I'll just watch it online. I watched a few fuzzy "Free Tibet" videos at YouTube masquerading as PoN coverage, but the only "official" and actual PoN video I found demanded that I register with my tv subscription number before I could view it. Yes, as in cable or satellite tv.

If I had a cable or satellite tv subscription, that would suggest that I had a tv, in which case I wouldn't need to watch coverage via my laptop.

I mean, really.

So I tried to settle for reading a "best and worst" review of the PoN outfits at the official NBC site. About half a sentence into the dreadfully dull and forced story, it was clear to me that some editor had told this guy to review the PoN fashions on deadline and to be funny about it, and the guy, gritting his teeth over having to do a "girl" story when he could have been writing about something manly like wrestling, banged out some copy whilst all the while muttering "I could have been the next Bob Costas."

I finally found a slideshow titled "Parade of Nations" on the NBC site and foolishly, I clicked on it.

Here's a photo of the American contingent!

Here's a close-up of that American Tae Kwon Do family!

Here's a shot of some random American athletes, and we don't know who the hell they are, but we're going to show it to you!

Here's a shot of President Bush clapping! Yay President Bush!

Excuse me... uhm... but doesn't "Parade of Nations" imply more than one goddamned nation parading????

I want to see the Kazakh team, the Cambodian runner who had to train in rush hour traffic and smog, all those brave little breakaway republics that Russia is bombing right now* because Putin figures we're all too enthralled with rhythmic gymnastics to bother with anything going on outside of Beijing.

(*and I don't care who started it. I'm rooting against the Russians.)

Ugh.

Ugh!

That's another reason I love the Winter Olympics so much more than the Summer. Because the US isn't so obnoxiously over-represented, and because one can only do so many "gosh isn't curling quirky?" stories, commentators have to cover, you know, the actual games, and not just fawn over various American athletes or those who make their living as professional athletes in America.

I mean, really, if you're limited to 20 shots in a slideshow, do you have to use up more than half on NBA players?

Okay, I'll stop now. And if anyone by any chance taped the PoN or recorded it on disc, I'm willing to trade chocolate products for a copy. Jus' sayin'.