Is there a thread for the 2008 Summer Olympics yet?

A preview of what the athletes will have to look forward to:

http://img120.imageshack.us/img120/9158/imageuploadimagedx5.jpg
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http://img120.imageshack.us/img120/7911/imageuploadimagesw1.jpg

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http://img120.imageshack.us/img120/7585/chinasmogjb7.jpg

When I was in Guangzhou, I thought the smog was pretty awful. Perhaps Beijing is worse.

there's rumour of a denial-of-service attack on the BBC this weekend by Chinese hackers upset with the coverage

There is a great television advertisement that reminds me the Olympics and all its benefits is coming.

Here is the scene: a young girl, dressed up in the Australian flag like her parents are right wing extremists, bounces into McDonalds after Australia has presumably won a gold medal (in bloody Swimming, of course).

Because when I think Australia...when I think sporting endeavor...when I think of athletic bodies...when I think of a healthy lifestyle...I think BIG MAC!

Oh, by the way, Australia is the only country that actually takes the Olympics seriously. And that means they show fucking swimming on fucking television all the time because they win a shitload of gold medal and therefore, we have to be convinced it's actually interesting. It fucking isn't.

ALSO: has everyone conveniently forgotten Atlanta '96 yet so we can have another great games of crass commercialism? I hope so and the Visa commercial with Jackie Chan and Yao Ming that I saw at the cinemas is a great sign of things to come.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EY7lYRneHc

PSYCHED UP ABOUT THE DEBUT OF BMX AT THE OLYMPICS HERE

HODAPP THEY DO MONDO BUNNY HOPS OVER THE JUMPS ON THE MONGOOSE

Wow @ those smog pictures, pity the poor marathon runners.

At least the cyclists could attach some small oxygen tanks to the bike.

michael phelps is insanely good

it's true.

anyone here care about basketball? and know more than i do about the international game?

Chambers loses Olympic ban case

Good. Twat.

That's brilliant news. Fuck you, cheat.

http://news.imagethief.com/blogs/china/archive/2008/07/30/ez-steps-for-making-your-own-beijing-air-at-home.aspx

Here is what you will need:

* A serving plate.
* Large bowl that can be used to cover the serving plate.
* A bucket of water.
* A Yorkshire terrier, Pekingese or similar small dog (at a pinch, a dog pelt can be used, but a whole dog is more reliable). Important: If the dog is wearing a metallic collar or tags, remove them.
* A packet of bad cigarettes. Ideally, Chinese Red Pagodas. But at a pinch, Gitanes or Parliaments will do.
* A non-metallic ashtray.
* A turd.
* A microwave oven.

Steps:

1. Soak the dog in the bucket until wet to the skin.
2. Place the wet dog on the serving plate with the turd and the ashtray.
3. Place three lit cigarettes in the ashtray.
4. Cover the serving plate and all ingredients with the bowl.
5. Microwave on "high" for sixty seconds.

Congratulations. What's under the bowl is a close recreation of typical August Beijing air. Use a fork or butter knife to carefully lift the edge of the bowl (it's hot!) and have a sniff. Now you'll have something to visualize (or "olfactorize") when you read the inevitable thousands of stories still to come on Beijing's Olympic air quality. If you're daring, you may want to get a garden hose, have a few of the frat brothers over and challenge each other to do "hits" of Beijing. You may need more than one dog**.

The 2008 Summer Olympic Games website is operational on the IPv6 Internet at http://ipv6.beijing2008.cn/en (IP address: 2001:252:0:1::2008:6 and 2001:252:0:1::2008:8) and all network operations of the Games will be conducted using IPv6. This event is expected to be the largest showcase of IPv6 technology since the inception of IPv6.[26][27]

Lighting and thermostats at the Olympic venues will also be taken care of by the network, and even the taxis in Beijing will be monitored by CNGI via IPv6 sensors so that traffic congestion can be quickly and effectively relieved.[citation needed]

hodapp u dont have elipesys wiv flasin lightz

Those drummers are FREAKY DUDES.

And why are they wearing Casual Spaceship Uniforms from the year 2170?

Hahaha - spot on description!

According to Rach that's a sheer LED curtain

I'd like her to wear one of those

Now that's a Chinese B1ndi Irwin

The drumming bit was awesome. This bit is not.

Well.

Oh look, here's the traditional little girl who sings. Maybe she'll grow up to be a "gay icon" like our Nikki Webster?

HURRY UP AND GET TO SHOOTING TIBETAN DUDES IN THE HEAD

Oh, the national anthem then.

"Hymn For My Country, sung by one typical Chinese schoolchild." Who, like all typical Chinese schoolchildren, does not have a name.

It started off brilliantly didn't it William? But now it's all gone a bit Pete Wong.

Moley, did you see OUR NICOLE KIDMAN earlier wishing our BRONZED AUSSIE HEROES all the best? You could HEAR THE *BABY*!!

Now, if I know my Eurovision, this is going to be introducing Montenegro.

DAMN I did not. I like Nicole Kidman. She is proof that there is life after death.

Well this is pretty cool, this unrolling scroll thing.

Yves Klein should be seeing this.

How's your commentary in the UK? Ours is a bit naff.

When the rings went up it was wonderful. What was in the boxes they were all banging?

(x-post) eg: 'One of the most exciting things about this performance is that they've used contemporary dance.... this is the dance of the lost contact lense... they look like they're searching... for something...' Insightful stuff.

Ours is a bit naff.

A *BIT*?? I already want to bash Ric Birch's head in.

I'm worried that this is going to be a 2-hour interpretive dance about the history of paper.

magic

Oh, and printing.

Mate there is no end to the list of things the Chinese invented. This could go on a long time.

This is something else, this human digital 3D robot mindfuck thing

You couldn't get entertainment like this in a free country.

HEY WE HAD HILLS HOISTS OK

Hope they do something for the invention of sweet and sour sauce.

Ha! Our commentator is coming over a bit Wogan - 'For people who's watched a three hour Chinese opera, I'm sure you'll appreciate the Reader's Digest version we've just seen'.

I'm feeling a touch of the old grandiosity overdose. I'm craving something slightly smaller, more intimate, and less well organised - a BBQ with friends or something.

This just in: Chairman Mao is spinning very rapidly in his tomb right now.

London's 8 minute segment made me think that the 2012 opening ceremony will be a horrible, celebrity cameo fest and Beckham will probably be the one to light the torch, fuck that.

that dance troupe sucked

Come on, Beijing had Jackie Chan! International celebrity cameos are hardly a novel idea at Olympic ceremonies. There were way worse things than that about it.

i fear for 2012. i remembered last night how much shitter the english episodes of Jeux Sans Frontiers would always look compared the the foreign episodes. they'd have complex sets featuring huge Frankenstein monsters and england's would just be planks and big elastic and plastic buckets full of coloured water.

and the graphics team couldn't even get the CGI union flag behind the Freddie Mercury right in the Mall concert thing yesterday.

planks and big elastic and plastic buckets full of coloured water

Or, as Huw Edwards will put it, "a typical British countryside scene... the buckets, here, representing the importance of Britain's inland waterways... and the planks are symbolic of the traditional role of the construction industry at the heart of the British economy. The dancers are from the Sylvia Young Theatre School..."

Opening ceremony should be Frank Bruno, Jimmy Bullard and Stan Boardman, imo

(note I don't mind people confusing England & Britain on this thread - when the country is being made to look ridiculous, the less part people can blame on us, the better)

would love to get boring haters opinions of the chinese handover performance 4 years ago, or the greek one in 2000 etc.

I think London will go for the full diversity/global city thing in a big way at its opening ceremony. And then wheel out Macca/Elton John/Noel Gallagher at the end.

i think mark s has it right

London's 8 minute segment made me think that the 2012 opening ceremony will be a horrible, celebrity cameo fest and Beckham will probably be the one to light the torch, fuck that.

-- Mr Raif, Monday, 25 August 2008 11:19 (2 hours ago) Bookmark Link

I certainly hope not. People better qualified to light the torch:

Tanni Grey-Thompson
Ben Ainslie
Steve Redgrave
Chris Hoy
Mr Blobby

Dean Gaffney

Surely winner of "Celebrity Torch Lighter 2012"

^the contest will take the form of the krypton factor

(in fact why isn't the krypton factor an olympic sport)

In conjunction with a phone-in poll on Blue Peter that will be in no way rigged, obviously. And I didn't mean "celebrity" there either. "Light My Fire", a prime-time Saturday night show presented by Graham Norton and John Barrowman (who will then go on to mug his way through a selection of showtunes during the ceremony itself).

Man, the BBC is showing Cool Runnings right now. That'll fill the gap.

JAMAICA, WE HAVE A BOBSLED TEAM

matt don't hate, that move is sort of awesome.

beckham should light it with a flaming freekick

Talk about networking:

In mid-2005, Dick Ebersol, the chairman of NBC Sports, had secured the support of the International Olympic Committee for the critical move of the finals of the key television sports of swimming and gymnastics to morning hours in China so they could be shown live in prime time in the United States. But he had one more person he needed to consult: Michael Phelps.

“Michael was the first outsider I talked to about it,” Mr. Ebersol said in an interview from Beijing, where he wrapped up NBC’s coverage of the Games Sunday. He said he wanted to make sure that competing in the morning would not harm the performance of the likely American star of the Games.

Mr. Ebersol had already developed a close relationship with the swimmer, so much so that Mr. Phelps and his mother had attended the funeral of his young son Teddy after a plane crash that also seriously injured Mr. Ebersol. Competing in the morning, Mr. Phelps said, was no problem.

“He told me: ‘My only real goal is to leave the sport bigger and better than I found it,’ ” Mr. Ebersol said.

Tza no don't worry, I'm totally with you on Cool Runnings.

it was my favorite movie in 1994

i heard barack obama consulted with phelps before he chose biden

(in fact why isn't the krypton factor an olympic sport)

i was saying the other day they should def have a giant assault course

Castro about the one guy who kicked the judge.

siguimos real

lo siguimos real

i think i got it

Too bad Ken Russell's dead, now there's someone who could put on a completely over the top spectacle.

does everyone know the true story about cool runnings? this group of jamaican dudes got really high & were like hey wouldnt it be cool to be in the olympics but we all suck at running & they were like shit we'll make a fucking bobsled team & we'll be automatically in the olympics

its a way cooler story than in the movie

I was in DECA, a marketing club, in high school and went to the international competition in Salt Lake City (right after the Winter Olympics, actually) and one of the original members of the Jamaican bobsled team was the keynote speaker and I remember we could not understand a word he said and the entire stadium did the wave. good times.

Ken Russell's not dead.

Neither's Eva Cassidy, I reckons.

She's pencilled in for a duet with Ant and Dec as Jay and Silent Bob in 2012.

Good idea to have Jimmy Page representing the UK: satanist, sadist, smackhead (retd)

from the bbc
"A phone poll of 1,000 adults during the closing weekend of the Beijing Games suggested that 32% would attend the London event, up from 25% in February. "

well of course it'll rise whilst olympic fans are hyped, ask them again in a year or so and everyone will have lost interest again.

http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00025/phelps_header_0102_25557a.jpg

http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00025/phelps_516_0102_25518a.jpg

Our source said: “You could tell Michael had smoked before. He grabbed the bong and a lighter and knew exactly what to do.

“He looked just as natural with a bong in his hands as he does swimming in the pool. He was the gold medal winner of bong hits. Michael ended up getting a little paranoid, though, because before too long he looked like he was nervous and ran out of the place.”

Those Kenyan half brothers of Obama get around.

winning gold medals and...winning gold medals and...winning gold medals and...

http://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/olympics/bal-phelps201,0,7744816.story

Phelps acknowledges authenticity of photo showing him smoking pot

Swimmer apologizes for 'regrettable' behavior after British tabloid publishes party picture

By Paul Newberry | The Associated Press
12:47 PM EST, February 1, 2009

TAMPA, Fla. - Olympic great Michael Phelps has acknowledged "regrettable" behavior and "bad judgment" after a photo in a British newspaper showed him smoking marijuana.

In a statement released to The Associated Press, the swimmer who won a record eight gold medals at the Beijing Games conceded the authenticity of the exclusive picture published Sunday by the tabloid News of the World.

Phelps said: "I engaged in behavior which was regrettable and demonstrated bad judgment. I'm 23 years old and despite the successes I've had in the pool, I acted in a youthful and inappropriate way, not in a manner people have come to expect from me. For this, I am sorry. I promise my fans and the public it will not happen again."

DUDE'S GOT ADHD SURELY BONGHITS COUNTS AS MEDICINE???

no phelps thread apparently but lol

i can only imagine how retarded he sounds when he's high

http://verca.files.wordpress.com/2007/09/michael-phelps.jpg

no phelps thread apparently but lol

― k3vin k., Monday, February 2, 2009 12:42 AM

already posted

http://i1.tinypic.com/2m3mgbd.jpghttp://i1.tinypic.com/2m3mgbd.jpghttp://i1.tinypic.com/2m3mgbd.jpgsux that nowadays a 23 year old's gotta apologize for getting high http://i1.tinypic.com/2m3mgbd.jpghttp://i1.tinypic.com/2m3mgbd.jpghttp://i1.tinypic.com/2m3mgbd.jpg

^ ;_;

http://media-files.gather.com/images/d602/d479/d745/d224/d96/f3/inter.jpghttp://media-files.gather.com/images/d602/d479/d745/d224/d96/f3/inter.jpghttp://media-files.gather.com/images/d602/d479/d745/d224/d96/f3/inter.jpg
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lol, funny

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/more/02/12/phelps.arrests.ap/index.html