A Live Coverage of the 2010 Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony in Vancouver

"Welcome to the Opening Ceremony of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games!"

This is going to be a long one, so bear with me.

I live in the most beautiful city in the whole world. They're showing a montage of all these amazing places in BC, and goddamn. I always knew I lived in an awesome place, but seeing it like this makes it look so freaking epic.

Oh cool! Now they're naming all the places where the Olympics have been since the 20s! Wow, this is cool, I didn't know that they did this.

"...1994, Lillehammer!
1998, Nagano!
2002, Salt Lake City!
2006, Torino!
2010, Vancouver!"

I got goosebumps. I'm such a dork, but I don't care. This is my city, and my country, and I am so proud and excited.

National Anthem! Who's singing it? Nikki Yanofsky. I wish they would just sing it the way it should be, without embellishing. Aw, and they just showed a clip of Canadian soldiers in Kandahar, all dressed up in Canadian jerseys. Poor buggers, so far away from home.
No, I am not tearing up as this girl sings our National anthem. I've just got something in my eye.

Now, the Four Host First Nations are coming on stage to welcome the world to their ancient lands: Lil'wat, Musqueam, Squamish, and Tseleil-Waututh. That's pretty cool that they're being involved. They have erected four huge totem poles with their arms raised in welcome to the world. One guy has an entire skinned wolf on. Then, they walk over to to what is made to look like a giant drum, and bang on it. As they do this, they're inviting all the Native peoples of Canada: The First Nations of the Northwest, the Metis Nation, the Inuit, the First Nations of the Prairies, and the First Nations of the East. That was so awesome, everyone was dressed in their costumes, and dancing.

Oh! Oh! Oh! the athletes are parading now! Greece leads the way in the parade, as is tradition, since they are the founders of the Olympics in 776 BC, I believe they said.
This is my favourite part. I really like seeing the outfits they everyone wears. This is going to take awhile.

Aw! Algeria has only one athelete! He's so cute, he can't be much older than me. Albania only has one athlete too. Man, they must love him back home.
Ooh, Austria looks nice. The men are all in navy blazers, and the women in purple blazers. Pretty daper.
Aw, what the hell? There's a commercial right now? You fuckers! What about the poor little countries who are being announced right now? What is this, Air Canada and Chevrolet?
Haha, the Bermuda athletes wore Bermuda shorts xD
Aw, the Cayman Islands are playing their first Games, and they only have one athlete, Dow Travers. He looks so nervous. Now there's Chile, only 3 ahtletes. I love these little countries! First winter games for Columbia too, with only one athlete, Cynthia Denzler.
China is next, and I bet all the Chinese people in Vancouver are stoked. Aw, they're waving Canadian flags and PRC flags.
Whoa, North Korea is here. I didn't think they would show up, for some reason.
Ethiopia has only one athlete!
"The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia". Wow. That is one long name for such a tiny county.
Haha, one of the athletes from France painted a moustache on his face using the french flag colours.
And now Georgia, wearing black arm bands. Poor little team, they lost one of their athletes today, a 21 year old luge athlete. So sad, this young man. He died within a couple hours of the Games starting, in Whistler. I can't remember is Georgia is staying to play the games. I hope they do, to honour the memory of their fallen athlete.
Ghana, another country with one athlete. Wow, Kwame, the athlete, is nicknamed "The Snow Leopard". That is bad ass.
Wtf?? Is Great Britain including Scotland? You assholes! Let Scotland march independently!
Ah, and of course Italy looks fantastic. They all have charcoal blazers on. So nice.
Jamaica, with only one athlete, Errol Kerr. He's got craaazy hair.
Wow, for Japan, Tomomi Okazaki is the first woman ever to lead her country into the ceremony.
Khazakstan had a guy decked out in cool costume carrying their flag.
Mongolia! The flag is being carried by a girl, because apparently Mongolia wants to encourage more women and girls to take pride in themselves and be involved.
Pakistan, with one athlete, is here for their first Olympic Games ever. And Peru, too, with only 3 athletes. Little Senegal only has one athlete as well.
Ooh, Slovenia looks very nice too. They're all wearing forest green blazers. Oh my, Slovenian men are rather handsome.
Whoa, small Switzerland has 146 athletes.
The Ukraine, the USA (with 216 athletes!), Uzbekistan, and finally...

CANADA!

Everybody's going nuts! The girl carrying the flag has the biggest smile on her face (I do too!). And damn, do we look good. Red parkas with a fur lined hood, black and red scarves and of course, toques. We are bad ass motherfuckers, and I am so proud to be Canadian right now. People all over the world right now are watching my country march in the stadium on their home turf, smiling big and looking dashing.

And now we have... Bryan Adams and Nelly Furtado? Why did I always think that Bryan Adams was an old man? "He'll never be an old man," my mom explains, "since all he wears are short sleeves and jeans." Huh. And Nelly Furtado, you sound silly. She just always sounds like she's whining when she sings. But great dress; a blue off the shoulder cocktail dress. The song is meh.

Now apparently is the "Cultural Component".

It consists of 4 parts. First, there was 'Hymn of the North'. People dressed in white traversed a snowy landscape as silver glitter flies. These are the people who came to Canada. Then, the ice splits (all of this was created by casting images onto the stadium floor) and the people are separated, as a pod of killer whales swims across the stadium floor. They even create the effect of the whales blowing water into the air as they breach the surface of the water.
'The Sacred Grove' is next, and it looks like a giant forest in the middle of the stadium. A Vancouver ballet troupe preformed beautifully prances through the green.
Next, I didn't catch the name, but they're paying tribute to fall in Canada. Fiddling and dancing. Oh, this is going to be so awesome, I love the fiddle. Their displaying the different fiddle styles from all over Canada. The dancing is great too! I think they just said there's a total of 80 fiddlers on the stage, and they'll be showcasing 6 fiddlers, all of whom are dressed so they look like celtic/faerie/punk hybrids. Oh man, now there's a tap dancing battle going on, for real. This is seriously the most epic thing I have ever seen. WHAT. They have like, sparklers on the ends of the fiddlers sticks and the bottoms of tap dancers shoes. Omg. Omg.
Then a preformance about the prairies, and now an 'electrical storm' is rolling in. Oh, they're showing the Rocky Mountains being born, as plates of rock push up against each other.

A slam poet is up next, Shane Koyczan, talking about what it is to be Canadian. It's called "We Are More". And this should be considered a second anthem for Canada, it was so amazing. My favourite line is: "WE are the True North strong and free. And whats more is we didn't just say it, we made it be."

And after two and a half hours, some VANOC officials say some fancy words to a restless crowd, and the Governor General, Michaelle Jean, opens the 21st Olympic Winter Games. So, is it Torch time yet? My god, tell me it's time for the Torch. What's this, soft piano music playing? No, now a lesbian (k.d. lang) serenades us with her beautiful rendition of "Hallelujah". Okay, this is very nice. But is it Torch time now?

Sigh, still no Torch. But, the Olympic flag is carried in by Betty Fox, Donald Sutherland, Jacques Vernieuw, Barabara Ann Scott, Ann Murray, Romeo Dallaire, Bobby Orr (holy shit!), and Julie Payette. And an opera sings delivers "The Olympic Hymn" and man, opera makes everything sound so epic. But is it Torch time yet?

Now, there is a one moment of standing silence in memory of slain Georgian athlete, Nodar Kumaritashvili...
Hayley Wickenheiser now takes the olympic oath on behalf of the Canadian athletes...

YES. YES, IT'S FINALLY TORCH TIME! Who is it? It's someone in a wheelchair. Oh man, it's Rick Hansen carrying it into the stadium! He's passing it to Catriona Lemay Doan. She passes it to Steve Nash! He passes it to Nancy Greene. She passes it to... Oh my god, yes. She passes it off the fucking Wayne Gretzky! Seriously hardcore.
Ahahaha, whoops, hydraulics fail. The cauldron that the flame is supposed to light up malfunctioned a little but. I was wondering why everyone was just standing around for so long. Damn, way to screw up at the last minute.

Aaaaand the ceremony is over. Wayne Gretzky is getting a police escort to go light the outside caulrdon at the waterfront, and he has like, hundreds of people running along side him, just freaking out. So epic, I almost wish it was there. But in typical Vancouver fashion, it's raining out, and I'm glad im home and warm and dry. The rest of my family is downtown though, and I wonder how they're faring. My sister went to go see the FREE Bedouin Soudclash concert, and my brother, dad and mom were there to just soak up the festivities and see the torch go by.

There you have it. The 2010 Olympic Winter Games are officially on, and in the spirit of camaraderie, I extend a 'good luck' to all of the countries participating...

...because Canada is totally going to kick everyone's ass.

Olympic Torch Relay and Radiolab

Today, I went and saw the Olympic Torch Relay as it went past my old high school!

While I was standing around in the cold, 45 minutes early, I was less than excited, I must say. It's a bit of a miserable day, all grey and drippy; typical Vancouver winter weather. Then, people started coming from everywhere! Mostly from the high school: Killarney Secondary School has the largest number of students in Vancouver ( at least 2300 students). Everyone was lining the streets and wearing red (except for Max, but we agreed that the red of his heart and blood are Canadian enough). Macey and Mom came along for the ride too, although Macey wasn't too enthused (she made some dog friends though!)

I had to stand a bench to actually see, my Mom and I shared a bench with some thugs that used to go to Killarney too. They were really nice actually, and loved Macey. It was more parade-ish than I thought it would be. There were two big Coca Cola platforms, with dancing people and music, and then an RBC moving platform with some scene dancers. Max looked into one of the guy's eyes and saw nothing but an empty vessle, as he'd sold his soul long ago.

And suddenly! "I see a flame!" One thug kid, Kyle, hopped down from the bench and sprinted to the front of the crowd with camera phone in hand. It was actually really exciting, I have to say. Then we saw the torchbearer (I believe his name was Paul, because we saw people holding signs saying "You make us proud, Paul!") light another torchbearers, er, torch, and then she took off running! The actual torch sighting lasted maybe 5 minutes, but it was super cool.

Like, this was a once in a lifetime chance for everyone there. I am never going to see an Olympic torch relay again; the Olympics will never be in Vancouver again, at least not in my lifetime. And to all you Olympic naysayers, I just want to say: Take a seat. Just sit back, and fucking enjoy what's going on. Right now, the entire world is looking at us! I can remember when (on forums and such) no one even knew where Vancouver, BC was. Hell, no one knew where Britich Columbia was. My uncle tried wiring money from Utah to BC, and they sent it to Columbia, their honest reason being that they thought that 'British Columbia' was some kind of English faction of Columbia. Huh.

Let's just stop yelling and being a bitch for once, all you hippies, and sit back and be proud of our city.

Also! Radiolab!

What? You have never heard of WNYC's Radiolab? Shame on you!



Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich, aside from having the best radio-voices ever, host Radiolab, and always manage to talk about the most awesome things. Stochasticity, parasites, animal minds, numbers, the afterlife, laughter, blinking, etc. I have heard such amazing stories from them, and am constantly downloading new shows and listening in. I really recommend giving them a try and listening in.

In other news, I have gravely injured my left shoulder. How? Who knows. All I know is that it hurts like a MOTHERFUCKEROMGFUCK whenever I pull on a shirt/jacket, lean on it, lift it, move it in any way or form. Will I ever go to a doctor, or at least a massage therapist? Probably not, although this seems to be one of the things you go see a doctor about. Hm...

So please, wish me a speedy recovery and less pigheadedness!

Olympic Cry-Babies and Homemade Hot Chocolate

ATTENTION PUSS-WADS OF VANCOUVER: SACK THE FUCK UP

Seriously.

If you don't live in Vancouver, you're probably excited about the coming Winter Olympics.
If you DO live in Vancouver, seriously, shut the fuck up about it already.

Since my fair city seems to be populated entirely by cry-baby communists and hippies, there is a fair amount of bitching about the Olympics.

But what's the point of bitching if the Olympics is inevitably going to happen?

I have honestly been saying that since the beginning, people. There is no point in complaining if it's not going to change anything. It's too late, everybody, the Olympics start on Friday, and there's nothing you can do to change it.

What are Vancouverites complaining about?

Shit, what aren't they complaining about? Road closures, trucks moving snow from Manning Park to Cypress Mountain, the thousands more people that will be packed into the city, and the money. Oh, the money. People of Vancouver, here's my advice:

GET THE FUCK OVER IT.

For god's sake, just shut up. But especially, shut up about it when you come into Famous Foods. If I hear one more person complain to me about the Olympics at work, I'm going to snap. Mostly because their jokes are TERRIBLE. You middle-aged yuppie losers, get a sense of humour.

One woman said "Are you ready for the Big O?"
The what? Has she never heard of orgasms being referred to as "the Big O"? Was she sexually harassing me? I just laughed nervously.

Another woman, upon seeing a baby crying, remarked "He must be thinking about the Olympics. Oops, did I say that out loud? LOLOLOLOL" Stop. Just stop it. That was awful. Who the fuck told you you were funny?

Personally, I think the Olympics are going to be kind of fun. There's going to be cool, free stuff downtown like, every night. Admittance to the Vancouver Art Gallery is going to be FREE for the entire time that the Olympics are going to be in town, and they have a Da Vinci exhibit. This is the first time Da Vinci's stuff has been in Vancouver, and anyone can go see it. I've heard there are going to be dances and parties practically every night. What the hell! So cool! Don't you butts like having fun? Christ.

Well, I'm done griping for the night, because really, who can stay mad when you're making HOMEMADE HOT CHOCOLATE??

Yes. I found a recipe for homemade hot chocolate on Simply Recipes, and it's ridiculously easy to boot. As for the variations on the recipe, that you'll learn about if you click the link on 'homemade hot chocolate', I steeped a vanilla bean and a cinnamon stick in the milk. Could have used more cinnamon, so I'll use two sticks next time, but oh my god. Oh my god. I will never make hot chocolate with that powdered mix garbage again.