Poet was doing it to hide the chin. Worked for him, I guess.

We watched the opening ceremony from a bar (Deighton's Well) in Gastown. I have to think we had a much better time than if we'd actually spent $1000-plus per person to see it at BC Place. The place was fairly small, served good food and drinks and had a fun vibe. Afterwards we were able to get out in time to see the fireworks:


And then we walked down to Canada Centre to see the "real" Olympic Flame. Unfortunately, some genius at VANOC decided to surround the Flame with ugly chain-link construction fences to keep the peons out. I'm hoping this was just for tonight and the fences will be gone tomorrow, but I kind of doubt it. Here's what it looks like through the fence and the scene around the area: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-aEwk8KYX5U

Well, that was one long-ass ceremony, but it had some really wonderful moments. Nothing will EVER surpass Lillehammer for Openings, though. Abertville came close.

I dunno, I think spotting the dude was my favorite part

OK. I just got that.

You missed Vince Vaughn?

I fell asleep during the Canadian Indians' improvised jigs. Woke up briefly for some bad spoken word. Woke up again to listen to some old man mangle simple French words as he droned on. So I thought the whole thing was pretty awful. I am told, however, that much was cool.

I actually liked the opening ceremony. Sadly, I seemed to fall asleep for the last 20 minutes or so. For whatever random reason, I must've hit the record button on the remote (or maybe Markus did, he's notorious for dancing on the remote) and I had almost the whole last hour of it.

Torch fail was kind of funny, to me... Alas, after they moved forward without the fourth pillar, my DVR decided that was the end of the show.

I loved the WTF look on all their faces.

Haha.

Remind me about those openings, I don't remember which are which (and I'm not finding anything quickly by googling).

I found the projections on the floor to be the best ever. Even China's amazing show was given a run for it's money (and since it cost 10 times what this cost, it was quite the run).

The Lillihammer story involved lots of magical creatures from Norwegian myth. They used the music of classical composers to fit the mood - and it was perfect. And, there were reindeer! Nothing can beat reindeer in a ceremony.

The torch lighting sequence involved a ski jumper, which was pretty dramatic.

Here's a video of that.

Overall, it was the opening ceremony that really captured the culture and history of the host country in an incredibly entertaining way.

That was fun, with the magic TIVO fast forwarding.

I know some people are upset Gretzky was picked to light. But I think he's probably the most recognized Canadian athlete world wide (as in people aren't going who??).

My favorite line was about Canadian people being welcoming 'welcome to Canada, enjoy your stay, have fun, we're going to kick your butts'.