The Olympics: Vancouver 2010

I figured I might as well be the one to start this year's Olympics thread, since I'm living right in the middle of Olympic madness right now. (Seriously, it's insane....everywhere I go, there are hordes of people wearing their national colours, more than a few wearing flags as capes, and every public TV set must be tuned in to the live coverage of the games).

So, any athletes you're cheering for? Games that you plan to watch for sure? Predictions of who is going to win events or come away with the most medals?

Did any of you watch the opening ceremonies? My coworker went to the final dress rehearsal on the day before, and said it was pretty spectacular. It's a shame though that the Georgian luger died that morning. Not the best note on which to start the Olympics. Props to the opening ceremonies people for last-minute including tributes to him. Check out clips of the opening ceremonies here.

Edit:
I also just came across this story of anti-Olympics rioters smashing store windows. Really protesters, give it a rest. The time to protest against the Olympics is when a city is making a bid to host it. Now that it's here, there's nothing that's going to stop it, and all that's going to happen is that the rest of the country is going to get annoyed. Heck, I bet all the visiting countries will be annoyed too. But the games are not going to be stopped. I think they should just give it a rest, and focus on changing things that are in their power to change rather than being a nuisance.

I watched the opening ceremonies last night. Had no idea that Canada had such a rich history of fiddling and funny dancing. Or that Donald Sutherland was Canadian.

The show they put on had some boring parts, but I loved the stage and all the special effects, which were really creative and fun. Too bad the torch lighting didn't go as planned :(.

Wow I wasn't even aware the Olympics had started. It's the way of our society I suppose. Large scale global events like this don't bring the world together like they once did.

I never really cared for the winter games. It seems like all the good events are at the summer Olympics.

I live in richmond, bc the olympics really made everything pretty crazy over here.

Who knew that curling would get so much publicity? It's all thanks to the Norwegian Curling Team's Pants. Awesome.

Also, the US is so far in the lead for medal standings, but Germany is not too far behind. My home country of Canada is doing very decently so far. It's pretty surreal actually, because I'm at UBC campus every day, and whenever there's a hockey game at the arena, the street fills up with this massive stream of people, all wearing flags, emblazoned with their national colours, faces painted, holding signs, cheering loudly. Then it's empty again until the next hockey game.

I totally forgot you were on the west side KitKat...must be an interesting experience. And pretty damn lucky too. Most people have to make travel plans and go through a hassle if they wanna check out the Olympics, but you happen to be at the right place at the right time :p.

Btw, have you seen Stephen Colbert yet?