Monthly Archives August 2008

T+12 – Opening Ceremonies

8:00 – Liveblogging ACTIVATE. Set phasers to MAXIMUM SNARK!
Boy, Jiang Zemin looks old.
Sweet-ass fireworks at the beginning.
Flying apsaras escorting an Olympic logo. Well, that’s tacky, but if that’s the worst of it then –
Hey, time for the singing minority children gathered around the Chinese flag. For fuck’s sake.
And now it’s time for the friendly soldiers [...]

T-Minus 2 Hours: Holy Shit

People are twittering online (via retweets through @gvoolympics) that:

Chaoyang Park and the small parks around Tian’anmen Square are closed for viewing.
There’s heavy security in Ditan Park.
No food (i.e. beer, as @AdrianeQ notes) or sitting on the grass will be permitted at Ditan.
There are SWAT teams in the subway. (Not sure whether or not this is [...]

T-Minus 5 Hours: Crowded and Grey

CCTV 5 — sorry, ‘CCTV Olympic’ or whatever they’re calling themselves — is broadcasting a succession of reporters standing in front of the Bird’s Nest stadium and pontificating into the camera about the Olympic Green, which registers behind them as a murky, greenish grey color, sort of like a cowpat that’s been out in the [...]

1 Day: Crowds at Tian'anmen

Thoughts on the Olympics and the ways in which I’ve collided with it will come in later posts, I’m sure. For now, here’s some footage I shot around Qianmen and [Unnamable?] Square north of there this evening. Sound quality is lousy and transitions are jumpy because I edited in iMovie, which is the worst Apple [...]