Olympics wrap-up, part two:
Aug. 12th, 2012 07:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marinessThese are just random thoughts from the past few days:
1. Democrats, Republicans, WHY DO YOU HATE US SO MUCH? We are a SWING STATE! We could go for you EITHER WAY in this election? Woo us by STOPPING THESE HORRIBLE ADS.
(For those outside the state, this isn't so much the presidential ones, which whatever their myriad issues are at least not deliberately offensive to any thinking person. Yet. The ads for the Senate race, however, are disgusting, and need. to. stop. The congressional races are equally awful. Why not just go ahead and accuse one another of incest and serial killing while you're at it?)
2. The dressage ended up causing some controversy, with me saying that the horses were pretty, some people (not naming names) saying that the horses were silly, one cat saying that the horses were scary, one cat saying that the horses wanted me to scratch him (I must confess I find this dubious), and the fish quietly deciding to just float above it all, as it were.
3. But, ok, the dressage, alone, without music? Deadly dull. The dressage with music? SO WRONG AND ABSOLUTELY AWESOME. I mean, you have a horse dancing to White Wedding, and if this does not showcase everything completely wrong and completely right about humanity I don't know what does. It was beaten shortly after this when one of the horses danced to the Lion King, although I admit that I was saddened that this was not followed up by either a) a voiceover from Jeremy Irons or b) actual lions descending down and chasing everyone, which would have been fun.
4. Some people not naming names suggested that it would be more fun to do the pole vault without a mat on the other side. Or at least give more of an incentive.
5. Meanest sport: the modern pentathlon, where the athletes had to do horse jumping on a horse they met for the first time 20 minutes before riding the horse, and by "meanest" I mean "mean to the horse." I watched bits of this, and talk about unhappy horses with a general attitude of "what? Look, dude, we've just met. And let me demonstrate the problem by trying to buck and get you OUT OF MY SADDLE." Major contrast to the dancing horses.
And now, my favorite sports of the last part of the Olympics:
6. Mocking NBC on Twitter (what can I say? I have simple tastes.)
7. Synchronized swimming. The pairs were particularly impressive.
8. Rhythmic gymnastics! This consists of either one woman whirling and jumping around, or several women whirling and jumping around to the sound of music, with bonus occasional unexpected bits of juggling and jumping through hoops! I don't get it, but I like it. Hopefully this is going to end up on YouTube someplace, because the sight of the Bulgarian rhythmic gymnasts tossing golden balls around to the sound of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata is really something that should be shared.
9. Javelin! Men and women running, throwing sticks, and connecting to the ancient past! What's not to love? Other than NBC's rather pointless commentary on this one.
10. Pole vaulting! Thanks to the surprisingly decent pre-Olympics show from the local NBC affiliate, which essentially went around and found local athletes playing all of these sports, supplementing this with shots of athletes preparing to do various events, I learned a tiny bit about pole vaulting and about how the top pole vaulters have personalized poles designed precisely for their weight and ability. The poles are, to put it mildly, a pain in the neck to transport: the local news showed packing the poles (which takes hours); getting the poles on a truck; getting the truck to the airport; getting the poles checked into the airline; and then the real fun – picking up the poles at baggage claim and getting them through customs and security. And after all that you just hand your poles over to the Olympic people and hope the poles make it to the field. Erk.
Beyond this, I just liked the people flying through the air and then going THUMP.
Four years until Rio! I can't wait.
1. Democrats, Republicans, WHY DO YOU HATE US SO MUCH? We are a SWING STATE! We could go for you EITHER WAY in this election? Woo us by STOPPING THESE HORRIBLE ADS.
(For those outside the state, this isn't so much the presidential ones, which whatever their myriad issues are at least not deliberately offensive to any thinking person. Yet. The ads for the Senate race, however, are disgusting, and need. to. stop. The congressional races are equally awful. Why not just go ahead and accuse one another of incest and serial killing while you're at it?)
2. The dressage ended up causing some controversy, with me saying that the horses were pretty, some people (not naming names) saying that the horses were silly, one cat saying that the horses were scary, one cat saying that the horses wanted me to scratch him (I must confess I find this dubious), and the fish quietly deciding to just float above it all, as it were.
3. But, ok, the dressage, alone, without music? Deadly dull. The dressage with music? SO WRONG AND ABSOLUTELY AWESOME. I mean, you have a horse dancing to White Wedding, and if this does not showcase everything completely wrong and completely right about humanity I don't know what does. It was beaten shortly after this when one of the horses danced to the Lion King, although I admit that I was saddened that this was not followed up by either a) a voiceover from Jeremy Irons or b) actual lions descending down and chasing everyone, which would have been fun.
4. Some people not naming names suggested that it would be more fun to do the pole vault without a mat on the other side. Or at least give more of an incentive.
5. Meanest sport: the modern pentathlon, where the athletes had to do horse jumping on a horse they met for the first time 20 minutes before riding the horse, and by "meanest" I mean "mean to the horse." I watched bits of this, and talk about unhappy horses with a general attitude of "what? Look, dude, we've just met. And let me demonstrate the problem by trying to buck and get you OUT OF MY SADDLE." Major contrast to the dancing horses.
And now, my favorite sports of the last part of the Olympics:
6. Mocking NBC on Twitter (what can I say? I have simple tastes.)
7. Synchronized swimming. The pairs were particularly impressive.
8. Rhythmic gymnastics! This consists of either one woman whirling and jumping around, or several women whirling and jumping around to the sound of music, with bonus occasional unexpected bits of juggling and jumping through hoops! I don't get it, but I like it. Hopefully this is going to end up on YouTube someplace, because the sight of the Bulgarian rhythmic gymnasts tossing golden balls around to the sound of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata is really something that should be shared.
9. Javelin! Men and women running, throwing sticks, and connecting to the ancient past! What's not to love? Other than NBC's rather pointless commentary on this one.
10. Pole vaulting! Thanks to the surprisingly decent pre-Olympics show from the local NBC affiliate, which essentially went around and found local athletes playing all of these sports, supplementing this with shots of athletes preparing to do various events, I learned a tiny bit about pole vaulting and about how the top pole vaulters have personalized poles designed precisely for their weight and ability. The poles are, to put it mildly, a pain in the neck to transport: the local news showed packing the poles (which takes hours); getting the poles on a truck; getting the truck to the airport; getting the poles checked into the airline; and then the real fun – picking up the poles at baggage claim and getting them through customs and security. And after all that you just hand your poles over to the Olympic people and hope the poles make it to the field. Erk.
Beyond this, I just liked the people flying through the air and then going THUMP.
Four years until Rio! I can't wait.