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2024 Paris Olympics opening ceremony
Sunday, August 18th, 2024 04:01 amI recorded both the opening and closing ceremonies from the Paris Olympics and finally got to watch most of the opening ceremony today. (Due to how it was recorded, I started off as the "L" teams were sailing by, and watched to the end. Now I've also watched from the beginning to the "E" teams. I hope to watch the rest tomorrow or rather later today.)
I've been quite enjoying it; it is so good!
Having started watching it in the middle, it was all quite suspenseful and surprising to me (I didn't know for sure that the boats meant there'd be no traditional parading of athletes into the stadium... nor even a traditional stadium).
The people in flowing dresses on top of long poles on the bridge, swaying back and forth and in circles! Very surreal yet familiar somehow. I can envision/feel myself doing that, despite my usual fear of heights.
In the library segment, I wished they'd translated the titles of the French books they showed. I reversed the video and paused it several times to write down the book titles. With help from a couple of other sites as well as Google translate, they are:
Paul Verlaine: Romances Sans Parole (Songs Without Words / Wordless Romances?)
Alfred Louis Charles de Musset: On Ne Badine Pas Avec L'Amour (Love is No Joke / You don't joke with love?)
Annie Ernaux: Pasion Simple (Simple Passion)
Guy de Maupassant: Bel-Ami (Good Friend)
Leïla Slimani: Sexe Et Mensonges (Sex and Lies)
Raymond Radiguet: Le Diable au Corps (The Devil Within)
Pierre Ambroise François Choderlos de Laclos: Les Liaisons Dangeureuses (Dangerous Liaisons)
Molière: Les Amants Magnifiques (The Magnificent Lovers)
Marivaux: Le Triomphe De L'Amour (The Triumph of Love)
That segment ended with a presumed threesome as the door closed!
The iPhone commercial where the security cams get wings and take off flying - those look cute to me, even with the single red "eye". It seems a mean thing for the iPhone to blow them up; they were just being curious!
I like the split-screen way the NBC broadcast showed some of the segments, so one could choose to continue watching the boats or other entertainment in the one window while the interviews took place in the 2nd window.
The boats going up and down in the waves! Is it normal for the Seine to have such high waves? Did any of the athletes get sea sick?
The singing decapitated Marie Antoinettes in the windows! With heavy metal and pink smoke!
The silvery mechanical horse running down the river (with silvery rider)! That was so cool!!!
The Eiffel tower light show at the end! The disco music! OMG SO AWESOME!!!
The giant floating fiery hot-air-balloon cauldron!
.
Some of the segments looked quite dangerous to me. I am glad no one got hurt. (I hope no one got hurt.)
.
I wish the American team weren't shown yelling "U.S.A! U.S.A!" most of the time. It gets so old. I half suspect (only half though) that NBC prompted them to yell it, too. You don't hear most other teams being so nationalistic. I don't watch the Olympics to see the American team in particular, or to cheer on the American team, as NBC seems to want to presume. Nothing against them (let the best athlete win), but American teams and American athletes are shown on American TV all year long.
.
I recorded the opening & closing ceremonies on my Tablo (4th generation) over-the-air digital video recorder (OTA DVR), which I guess I'm still learning to use.
I had scheduled the Tablo to also record the 08/10 Olympics breaking competition on the Telemundo Spanish-language channel. That was the only OTA channel I found which was listed to show the breaking competition. But I'm very disappointed that my Tablo ended up with no trace of that recording. I had recently been very impressed while watching online videos from some other break-dancing competition prior to the Olympics, and had been looking forward to it.
I didn't get to watch any of the other events except for a small amount of speed climbing which was in progress when I turned the TV on one day. I usually like to watch at least some of the gymnastics. But this year the breaking (ahh, can't I still call it break dancing?) sounded like it would be more interesting to me to watch!
I've been quite enjoying it; it is so good!
Having started watching it in the middle, it was all quite suspenseful and surprising to me (I didn't know for sure that the boats meant there'd be no traditional parading of athletes into the stadium... nor even a traditional stadium).
The people in flowing dresses on top of long poles on the bridge, swaying back and forth and in circles! Very surreal yet familiar somehow. I can envision/feel myself doing that, despite my usual fear of heights.
In the library segment, I wished they'd translated the titles of the French books they showed. I reversed the video and paused it several times to write down the book titles. With help from a couple of other sites as well as Google translate, they are:
Paul Verlaine: Romances Sans Parole (Songs Without Words / Wordless Romances?)
Alfred Louis Charles de Musset: On Ne Badine Pas Avec L'Amour (Love is No Joke / You don't joke with love?)
Annie Ernaux: Pasion Simple (Simple Passion)
Guy de Maupassant: Bel-Ami (Good Friend)
Leïla Slimani: Sexe Et Mensonges (Sex and Lies)
Raymond Radiguet: Le Diable au Corps (The Devil Within)
Pierre Ambroise François Choderlos de Laclos: Les Liaisons Dangeureuses (Dangerous Liaisons)
Molière: Les Amants Magnifiques (The Magnificent Lovers)
Marivaux: Le Triomphe De L'Amour (The Triumph of Love)
That segment ended with a presumed threesome as the door closed!
The iPhone commercial where the security cams get wings and take off flying - those look cute to me, even with the single red "eye". It seems a mean thing for the iPhone to blow them up; they were just being curious!
I like the split-screen way the NBC broadcast showed some of the segments, so one could choose to continue watching the boats or other entertainment in the one window while the interviews took place in the 2nd window.
The boats going up and down in the waves! Is it normal for the Seine to have such high waves? Did any of the athletes get sea sick?
The singing decapitated Marie Antoinettes in the windows! With heavy metal and pink smoke!
The silvery mechanical horse running down the river (with silvery rider)! That was so cool!!!
The Eiffel tower light show at the end! The disco music! OMG SO AWESOME!!!
The giant floating fiery hot-air-balloon cauldron!
.
Some of the segments looked quite dangerous to me. I am glad no one got hurt. (I hope no one got hurt.)
.
I wish the American team weren't shown yelling "U.S.A! U.S.A!" most of the time. It gets so old. I half suspect (only half though) that NBC prompted them to yell it, too. You don't hear most other teams being so nationalistic. I don't watch the Olympics to see the American team in particular, or to cheer on the American team, as NBC seems to want to presume. Nothing against them (let the best athlete win), but American teams and American athletes are shown on American TV all year long.
.
I recorded the opening & closing ceremonies on my Tablo (4th generation) over-the-air digital video recorder (OTA DVR), which I guess I'm still learning to use.
I had scheduled the Tablo to also record the 08/10 Olympics breaking competition on the Telemundo Spanish-language channel. That was the only OTA channel I found which was listed to show the breaking competition. But I'm very disappointed that my Tablo ended up with no trace of that recording. I had recently been very impressed while watching online videos from some other break-dancing competition prior to the Olympics, and had been looking forward to it.
I didn't get to watch any of the other events except for a small amount of speed climbing which was in progress when I turned the TV on one day. I usually like to watch at least some of the gymnastics. But this year the breaking (ahh, can't I still call it break dancing?) sounded like it would be more interesting to me to watch!