Live Bogging the Opening Ceremonies

(From NBC's tape delayed presentation of the Opening Ceremony)

6:30pm CT: I love these poetic openings, and everyone’s in such great shape, that’s it, time to diet!

:04 Arg! 20 minutes to go before they even start?

:05 Oh! A commercial! I’m gonna go get some pretzels.

:14 Tom Brokaw, brought to you tonight by the Chinese Chamber of Commerce.

:15 There appears to be a giant blue Rice Krispie square across from the main Stadium…and it has lasers.

:21 Oh, it’s the “National Aquatics Center” aka “The Cube.” So I was half right.

:22 Kobe and LeBron, you know I’ve complained in the past that football (that’s football-football, not soccer-football) has never been included, but at least we don’t have to hear about Farve’s mid life crisis for 16 more days.

:27 This is on tape and still NBC can’t get back from commercials on time.

:31 Looks like LED strobes coming off those drums, hope no epileptics are watching…2,008 people counting down in unison like that using the light from the drums, pretty cool.

:41 I wasn’t going to comment on the ads, but come on, do you think any of the athletes actually eat at McDonalds? Maybe the shot putters.

:43 Ahhhhh! Rainbow Brites attack!

:46 Look at that little girl, the Chinese have perfected Cute Technology, our missile shield is useless against it! Although with the marching soldiers thing, they need work on their subtly subsystems.

:52 Calligraphy? Would it be insensitive to ask for a little Kung Fu? …although, where do I get some of those crayon socks? And that 250 foot long LED screen…football season is coming.

:56 That painting? If it shows up on eBay, someone’s getting gulag-ed

01:00 And now, the philosophy…of DANCE!

01:01 Look at all those letters, and that’s just a standard size keyboard in China.

01:06 Those blocks…are made out of people! PEOPLE!

01:12 This boat thing is making me urpy…shouldn’t of had those pretzels.

01:23 No sighing of General Tso so far…must be chicken.

01:30 Tai Chi! Ok we’re getting close to breaking boards with our faces now.

01:35 This is like those movies where there’s a hidden fortress full of people doing ninja training. Ninjas would be cool, China had ninjas, right? Pirates at least?

01:42 Time for a song, jeeze, 8 months of prep and they couldn't get this guy to tuck in his shirt?

01:50 Parade of Nations time! Get Comfy! Wow, no alphabetical order in China? How to they line up to go to the bathroom?

01:56 The world Tae Kwan Do champ is from Mali? Neat.

02:02 Are those Chinese girls going to dance in place for 200+ nations?

02:26 Cool, they have everyone walking through what looks like a rainbow of powered ink, and trailing it onto that “eBay” painting I mentioned earlier.

02:39 I know this isn’t Project Runway, but the dresses on the Hungarian women are bad, really bad. Like ”Monty Python in drag” bad.

03:00 Yep, those dancing girls are still going. FEEL THE BURN! Heh, I just noticed they all have water bottles attached to their belts, that’s thoughtful.

03:06 WHOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!! TEAM USA!!!!!!!!!!!!

03:18 The Dutch are again rocking the orange. Classic.

03:24 Kiribati? Are they just making counties up now?

03:36 The Swedish women look great in their teal Chinese dresses. Just thought I’d point that out.

03:59 China comes out, and the dancing girls get the fifth wind as the end nears.

04:06 Speech time! And evocative or not, that’s some nice marching. Hey, they have fans or something fluttering those flags…is that cheating?

04:20 Torch time! Whoa, some wire work. He’s running around the upper ring of the stadium, and it’s like he’s walking on air, a neat effect. And it’s lit, that was really cool.

11:04pm CT and it’s all over. Bedtime, woman’s volleyball starts in a couple hours :D .