The Point

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Sporno

Reason enough to watch the games? Tip of the hat to thesecretfee.

So, after having gone through all the trouble to reason out whether to watch the opening ceremonies for this year's Olympics or not, I slept through them, and woke up just in time to see the end of the athletes' march. And then I missed the repeats. Twice.

It just wasn't meant to be.

I blame it on the time difference... I'm back in Alberta visiting the fam for a few weeks, and got to fulfill my one aspiration in Calgary this summer: to watch the games with my grandpa in his authoritatively climate-controlled condo (he's way more serious about this than those officials in Beijing, I assure you) and eat cheese buns. My personal highlight, of course, has been the men's diving. Everything after this is just icing on the cake.

Hilariously, my grandpa actually bet that our-man-from-Laval Alexandre Despatie wouldn't even place because he did so poorly in the preliminaries. 'He got too fat,' he concluded. Well, Alex, I'll admit you've put on some muscle since you were *thirteen years old*, but I'd say you did pretty well for yourself. Thanks for a great show.

And it is all a show, of course... did anyone else read this headline? '77 applications, no protests at Beijing Games,' reports the always credible Xinhua news service from Beijing. Shockingly, they report that 74 of the applications to protest at the three Olympic venues pre-approved for demonstrations were 'withdrawn after amicable settlements between the parties and authorities.' Two others had some problem with their application, they say.

One, apparently, did not meet the proper criteria for government-sanctioned protest, for unexplained reasons. I wonder what they could be.

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posted by Christopher at 1:02 a.m.

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