So the Olympics is all over with. It was quite a ride watching most of it. Yes, I did watch most of the Olympics this year. The games that I mostly watched were swimming, diving, gymnastics, freestyle wrestling, and weight lifting. I didn’t care for all the other games. I just watched the games that I liked.

For the swimming, a lot of history making moments. Dana Vollmer and Missy Franklin both won golds, and broke world records, and I was impressed with both of those young women. I still don’t care for Michael Phelps even if everyone believes that he’s the greatest Olympian, but in my humble opinion, he’s not the greatest Olympian in history. There are plenty of other great Olympian men that were overlooked, like Usain Bolt, for example. What Usain Bolt did in track and field was pretty impressive. Bolt should be getting all the recognition, but of course, he doesn’t ’cause he isn’t American. NBC tries to make American athletes look good, while they ignore talent from other countries.

What game was I most impressed with? Like I said, I was most impressed with the swimming races. I was more impressed with the women racing in swimming more than the men though. I was also most impressed with freestyle wrestling. That is real wrestling right there, not the fake bullshit you see in WWE. There were some great wrestling matches, I had fun watching them. Watching the weight lifting was fun too.

I did watch the final men’s basketball game yesterday morning with USA vs. Spain, which was a really great game by the way.

As for the Olympics Closing Ceremony last night. It was alright. Most of it was pretty silly and I didn’t care for most of the performances except for the Freddie Mercury tribute and Brian May performance which was pretty sick. The Queen tribute was the best thing that happened at the Closing Ceremony last night. The Eric Idle performance was cool too though. When the David Bowie tribute came on, I was hoping and praying that David Bowie himself would come out to perform a song, but of course, he never did. I guess, David is really retired from music? It would have been cool to see David perform, “Heroes” last night or something. I just wish Bowie would perform again. Not sure why he is staying away from music after all these years. He just quietly vanished from the music business.

I was looking forward to the Who performance but NBC didn’t show it ’cause the Olympics Closing Ceremony went overtime at the end and NBC ran out of air time. They couldn’t air the Who performance which is kind of disappointing, ’cause NBC promoted pretty heavily that the Who was going to main event the Closing Ceremony, but they ended up not showing the performance at all.

It was a good Olympics year. I wonder what country will get the Summer Olympics in the next 4 years? I hope they give it to the United States next, ’cause we haven’t hosted an Olympics in a long while, I believe.

Kev

Yes, I did watch the London Olympics opening ceremony from start to finish last night. The ceremony was directed by film maker, Danny Boyle. The director of movies such as “Trainspotting”, “The Beach”, “28 Days Later”, “Slumdog Millionaire”, and “127 Hours”. Last night was a pretty theatrical show. Almost felt like a musical throughout most of it. It was celebrating the United Kingdom and the history of it, over the years.

As for the title of this topic, I hope I’m not the only one who hated the James Bond and the Queen segment. Where the Queen goes on the plane with Daniel Craig and then she jumps off with a parachute. I thought it was the lamest thing I’ve ever seen, just my opinion. This was probably the only thing I didn’t like about the ceremony.

I thought the Mr. Bean appearance was pretty funny. I’ve always been a Mr. Bean fan, used to watch the show all the time. The Mr. Bean segment was pretty cool stuff.

What impressed me the most of the ceremony wasn’t the Queen Elizabeth arrival and wasn’t the Paul McCartney performance.

I was impressed with Mike Oldfield performing during the children’s bed segment, and then J.K. Rowling doing a little reading a little later. It was pretty cool seeing Mike Oldfield, an instrumental musician who is pretty underrated. Nice to see him get recognition, and I didn’t think he was still playing music. Remember, Mike Oldfield’s essential album, “Tubular Bells”? He was the one that composed the main theme for “The Exorcist” movie. I’m pretty sure most people don’t know that and I’m sure people don’t know who Mike Oldfield is anymore. The guy is a phenomenal guitar player, and he ripping some excellent guitar chops last night. I’m sure the U.K. would know who Mike Oldfield is pretty well, but the U.S. wouldn’t know who he is anymore.

I also loved the dance segment when they were celebrating 70’s rock n’ roll music. Danny Boyle certainly knows his shit with music ’cause they were playing a lot of 70’s British rock that I was surprised of. They were playing the Who, Led Zep, David Bowie, the Clash, Sex Pistols, the Stones, the Jam, etc. All the good stuff. As for them playing Led Zep, I was surprised they picked the song, “Trampled Underfoot”, which has always been a lesser known Zep song, you think they would play “Rock and Roll or “Black Dog” or something. As for David Bowie, he was played quite a lot last night. I was especially impressed they showed small scenes from David Bowie’s film, “The Man Who Fell to Earth” (which I watched on Netflix several weeks back, and it was a really good movie).

During the 70’s/80’s British music segments, all that reminded me of the movie, “Slumdog Millionaire”. They had a little storyline going, where the girl lost her Iphone or something and the guy found it for her, so they get together to kiss at the end, then they start dancing for the rest of it, just like the movie, “Slumdog”. It’s no surprise to me that Danny Boyle was going to make a lot of that theatrical stuff pretty similar to “Slumdog Millionaire”. Because that film is kind of like a musical, and I guess that’s why the Olympics gave him the job ’cause Danny is good with that stuff.

Last night was pretty entertaining. I was also impressed that at the end of the show, that fireworks were blowing up pretty much throughout the entire city of London. That was pretty crazy.

Glad the Summer Olympics is finally here. I’ll be watching it tonight for the swimming and gymnastics ’cause they are my favorite to sports to watch through the Olympics.

Kev