Beijing Ceremonies

Someone ought to hire me to be a consultant because I sure have a lot of cents I want to put in about a whole lot of stuff. That's probably why I started this blog. As my idea piggy bank, my steam catcher...hmm that's catchy.

I watched our recording of the Beijing Opening Ceremonies last night. We went to the last bon dance on Friday so we had to record it. The ceremonies were spectacular! How did they do that performance of the printer that formed characters? It was mind-boggling when you consider all that detailed planning was so brilliantly executed, but still I had--to the slight annoyance of my husband--some cents to put in:

First of all, why oh why, didn't President Bush have an advisor on his left? So ok, he doesn't want to look left (haha), then put Laura on his left and the advisor on his RIGHT. What is with Laura Bush anyway? What kind of wife is she? If my hub were prez, I would've nudged him and said "Eh, the other Presidents still have their coats on! Sit up! Sit still! Have some class!" Maybe she was thinking, "Oh heck, he's on his way out, who cares if he looks as dopey as usual?" I mean please, someone should've told him to keep his coat on or at least to look more presidential . It seems he was the only head-of-state to take off his jacket and look all slouchy. The camera even caught him checking his watch during the parade of athletes!! Oooooh shame!! And so ok, he had his jacket off. He had ample time to put it on just before the U.S. team arrived. But noooooo he's over there putting on his jacket while they were coming in. Why why why must we look so disorganized? Imagine the Chinese had all those details to worry about: 2008 performers at a time on the floor, for example. And all Mr. Bush had to worry about was his one jacket and he couldn't put it on in a timely manner?

While I'm on the subject of sweaty presidents, if the Chinese could spend 300 million dollars or whatever on that one night, couldn't they have at least given each dignitary one of those little handheld battery-run fans? Jordan brought one home from Special Olympics. It was made in China and REALLY effective. President Bush would've loved one I'm sure!

I feel sorry for those athletes who have to miss the opening ceremonies because they have events the following day. Why don't they start the events on the third day instead? What's one more day? Ok, don't tell me another hundred million dollars. But gee, did they really need all those fireworks? Surely they could have saved a few bucks by cutting back on them, not to mention less smoke would've been added to their already choking smog problem. DUH!

Sweden is the coolest country EVER!! I love Swedes!! In my chatting days I met a lot of Swedes online and the first person I met from the internet REALTIME was a Swede who visited Hawaii. They are nice people, good-looking, intelligent, POLITE, and they make Volvos (which reportedly do not crumple easily). And the reason I'm writing all this is because the female team members were wearing Chinese cheongsam-inspired uniforms! I tell you, we should all be Swedish. They are awesome!

And please, why wasn't I consulted when they tossed out the name "Zaire"? That was one of my favorite country names. The country is now named the Democratic Republic of Congo. There were so many countries we'd never heard of before, but I've decided not to get too attached to any country names because who knows when they'll change it.

I found out that there are 56 "officially recognized" ethnic groups living in China (NOT counting residents who were born in other countries), while the United States has 7. On the other hand, the U.S. has 6 time zones, China has 1. I guess it only shows the mindset of China's governing system. Keeping everyone in line with one timezone, identifying every "minority" to possibly keep better track of them? It's pretty amazing since the majority of Chinese are Han (92%). Can you imagine 56 choices on those application forms--they'd take up one whole page!

I think it'd be pretty cool if the United States, democratic pioneers that we are, would simply do away with race labeling and on those applications we fill out, there'd be just one choice "human". Why not? Are we going to leave it to the British to be the first to do this? Or the cool Swedes? It will come to this sooner or later. I know a lot of people who don't know what box to check already and that is a GOOD thing. Come next year our own President will likely be the first U.S. president who does not have a box to check!