Every day of the Olympics I will post a comment or two. I’m already a few days behind, but I’ve been keeping notes. It’s just a matter of uploading them. Enjoy. Go Estonia. (The cartoons you see in the header are Pheros and Athena, the mascots of the 2004 Summer Olympics… weird, but better than Izzy the Whatizit from the 96 olympics)
Friday August 13… Opening Ceremonies. It was a good show. Much better than the pickup trucks that made an appearance in Atlanta in 1996. Americans have no culture and they’re proud of it. Just sad, yet fun at the same time.
2004 is about Greece. Greek culture. And I’m not talking about sororities or fraternities. The opening ceremonies did a great job of capturing ancient Greek culture. The make-up jobs on all those people were great. They looked just like statues and ancient wall drawings. Well done. Though I’m not so sure about the lady with the ET-like glowing belly. That was plain freaky. Cube Man was my favorite. (dude walking around the giant floating cube). Did you see him slip and NBC quickly went to another shot? Katie Couric said that everyone in practice called him “Cube Man”. Go Cube Man!
The lighting of the Olympic flame was a bit lame. It looked like a giant cigarette being lit. Ho hum. Still can’t match the archery dude shooting the flaming arrow into the Olympic flame holder thing back in Barcelona 92.
They introduced each country according to the Greek alphabet. It was fun guessing which countries were still to come. Estonia was towards the beginning. NBC did not go to commercial break as they usually do! Katie Couric read the official Estonian statement on their wardrobe. It was something like, “Estonia is wearing light and cool outfits, yet still display a sense of fashion.” Those crazy Estonians. Final note: The man, Erki Nool, was carrying the flag. I tried finding a photo of the Estonians entering the Olympic nation during the Parad of Nations, but all I could find was a list of all the flag bearers.