Olympics

The 2004 Summer Olympics kicked off yesterday with the opening ceremonies, and continues for the next two weeks. I'm not a huge Olympics buff, but I do appreciate that women's sports will get more coverage for the next two weeks than any other time during the year, and that we'll get to see some sports that we don't otherwise. We get coverage on six stations: NBC, CNBC, MSNBC,, Bravo, USA, and CBC; so there should be plenty of airtime to go around.

Here are some impressions from the Opening Ceremonies:

• It takes a long time to march 202 countries into the stadium--nearly two hours. That's too long, and listening to the incessant patter of Katie Couric & Bob Costas for that long is nearly enough to make your ears bleed (and I generally like Katie & Bob!)


• Speaking of their non-stop babbling, couldn't they shut up long enough to nnot talk over Bjork's song? You've been talking non-stop for two hours--give it a rest and let us listen to the music!


• For the first time, women's wrestling is an olympic sport. Yes, you can practically hear the snickering now


• The country with the best-looking female atheletes? Italy, followed closely by Greece, Canada, and Serbia.


• Why were all the kids in the children's choir singing the Olympic anthem wearing iPods?


• How cool was the giant robotic arm that leaned down to take the flame? It's like we're in the 21st century or something! Also cool were the flying statues, the laser DNA, and the floats of Greek history.

Okay, that's all for now.