2008 Beijing Olympics

Today the 2008 Olympic Summer Games officially opened in Beijing, China. I would have loved to watch the opening ceremonies but I don't have access to a television. So for the moment I have to content myself with what the spectacle must have looked like. CBC tells me four billion people tuned in to watch and would that I could have been one of them.

I can tell that the Olympics are big news on the net because yesterday my blog had 94 hits, all looking for info on the games. My humble little piece of the internet usually doesn't receive such traffic.

Of course, this Olympics only brings to mind the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. We have less than two years now to the final countdown. My worries include the Sea-to-Sky highway and how it will hold up during the games. There were problems with transportation during the first annual Pemberton Music Festival and there was a recent rock slide that shut down the highway for several days. There are also issues of homelessness, Aboriginal Land Claims and the Downtown Eastside to contend with.

I worry about the fact the province is spending so much money that will have to come out of taxpayer's pockets. I worry that the games should have gone to Alberta where they already have Olympics facilities built thanks to the 1988 Olympics. I worry that our opening ceremony will be as disgusting and stereotypical as the disaster at the 2006 Torino Olympics. I won't go into details because you can see it for yourself.

I put my hand over my face after seeing this, embarrassed at how whomever put this together shamed my country. I do not want to see it happen again with four billion people watching. If you're Canadian you'll understand what I mean.



But this post isn't about Vancouver 2010. I hope Canada does well and in honour of the games I will be posting a running total of medals won by Canada in the sidebar. As of this moment Uzbekistan has more medals than we do, so here's hoping. *fingers crossed*