2008 Olympic Games in Beijing

[Sirgin]

The Olympics are here! Hooray!

Opening ceremony is in 2,5 hours, who else will be watching?


(Of your country), who do you think has a chance of winning a medal?

For Belgium, it'll either be Tia Hellebout for High Jump or maybe our female team for the 4x100m.
Filip Meirhaege or Sven Nys might make a chance for winning a medal in mountainbike-cross country. Our hockey team isn't that bad either

Anyway, post your Olympic thoughts here

[Sirgin]

Saw the opening ceremony. It was spectacular. Lots of choreography and stuff; very nicely executed And each act had 2008 performers because *surprise* it's the year 2008

Then came all the different countries with their atlethes walking in the stadium which is fun at first but boring after like 30min (and it takes 2hours!), so I stopped watching

[The Metamorphosing Leon]

Some cool stuff, but it dragged on for awhile...

[shaggy]

It's on right now in the U.S.  You must have watched it already?!

[Sirgin]

It's on right now in the U.S.  You must have watched it already?!

Yes of course. The opening ceremony was at 8PM local (china) time. China is like 6-7 hours ahead of Belgium, we got the live broadcast but it started at 2PM here.
Belgium is like 6-7-8-9 hours ahead of the US (depending on what part of the US), so if you'd watch it live in New York it'd be like at 8AM and even earlier the more you go to the west.

It's logical they'd air it later in the day in the US, to get more viewers, don't you think

[The Metamorphosing Leon]

I was watching some Fencing and Weight Lifting last night. Fencing is crazy fast, I figured there was more swordplay, but it's more just hope your poke hits them before theirs hits you.

[TraderJake]

Fantasy Football hasn't even started

Get me when soccer finals show up. Also, 2010 has a much more interesting world spectacle.
(Go Deutschland!)

[Sirgin]

Get me when soccer finals show up. Also, 2010 has a much more interesting world spectacle.
(Go Deutschland!)

If you'd want to see Deutschland, you could've in the European Cup, just 2 months ago

[Hydrobond]

It's on right now in the U.S.  You must have watched it already?!

Yes of course. The opening ceremony was at 8PM local (china) time. China is like 6-7 hours ahead of Belgium, we got the live broadcast but it started at 2PM here.
Belgium is like 6-7-8-9 hours ahead of the US (depending on what part of the US), so if you'd watch it live in New York it'd be like at 8AM and even earlier the more you go to the west.

It's logical they'd air it later in the day in the US, to get more viewers, don't you think

It's actually 12 hours along the east coast, up to 15 hours along the west coast.  Worse for Alaska and Hawaii.

So far, we have been getting highlights of the afternoon's events from noon on, and then starting at about 8:00PM they have live stuff from the next day's morning events.

[Sirgin]

It's actually 12 hours along the east coast, up to 15 hours along the west coast.  Worse for Alaska and Hawaii.

So far, we have been getting highlights of the afternoon's events from noon on, and then starting at about 8:00PM they have live stuff from the next day's morning events.

Yes I know, but I (with the 6-9 hours) was referring to the difference with Belgium, you'd have to count the 6-7 hours for Belgium-China aswell, to get to a number like you said, for US-China

Hawaii has it pretty good, I think, they can watch alot of the events in the afternoon (while they're taking place in the morning in Beijing.

I've heard about how they put the swimming events in the morning (Beijing time) so the US can watch it in prime time at night. Typical for the US, wanting things their way    This is a bit odd because normally, swimmers are trained to swim in the evening.

Here in Belgium, we're 6 hours prior (would've been 8 if it wasn't for our summer-hour nonsense  ) to Beijing, so when events start at 10AM, we should get up at 4AM to watch them (pretty crazy )

[img width=700 height=403]http://www.physicalgeography.net/fundamentals/images/world_time2.gif[/img]

PS: It's pretty crazy that we (Belgium) are 2 hours off from our geographical time zone. We should be in the GMT zone (same hour as the UK) but for some stupid reason, we use the hour of the time zone to the east (Central European Time, like Germany)

BUT, during summer, we switch to our "summer-hour" where we move yet another time zone to the right and use the time of Eastern Europe, which is totally crazy because Belgium lies in Western Europe. Geographically we should be in "0" but we use "+2" right now. That's 2 time zones we're off!!! Oh well...

[TraderJake]

Get me when soccer finals show up. Also, 2010 has a much more interesting world spectacle.
(Go Deutschland!)

If you'd want to see Deutschland, you could've in the European Cup, just 2 months ago

They'll be back in 2010.

Pray tell, do Belgians hate Germany as much as Dutch people make their hatred out to be?

[Sirgin]

Pray tell, do Belgians hate Germany as much as Dutch people make their hatred out to be?

Hmmm, I'm not sure. They were the enemy in WWII, but that's a long time ago. From where did you get the impression we hate them so much?

In fact, there's a small region of the country which is German, in south-east Belgium.

One thing I can tell you though, if there's any nation that hates Germany, it's France. There's always been a sort of competion between them because they are two large European countries close to each other.

Back in the 19th century, there were people who predicted that the "balance of powers" (not too sure how to call it in English) would be disturbed once the Germans would get united. This happened in 1871 by Otto von Bismarck. In that same year, Germany dared France to a war, but because the Germans were sly, it was in fact France who declared war upon Germany first. The Germans won and that started alot of feelings of hatred and wanting to get revenge by the French. They got their revenge after WWI when Germany got defeated. The contracts which stated what parts of Germany got lost to what countries (a part went to Belgium too, the one I spoke about earlier) and the "war-payments" Germany had to make to the European countries.

These sanctions against Germany were very much pushed by the French wanting to take revenge, which (ironically) started alot of revenge feelings in Germany which ended up in WWII. In fact, you could say that WWII was bound to happen, once those contracts for WWI got signed in Versailles in 1919.

[Tondog]

The French getting totally smashed by the Americans in the 4x100 relay after talkin so much trash was the highlight of the whole games so far!

http://www.nbcolympics.co...eoid=0811_HD_SWB_HL_L0194

[TraderJake]

Pray tell, do Belgians hate Germany as much as Dutch people make their hatred out to be?

Hmmm, I'm not sure. They were the enemy in WWII, but that's a long time ago. From where did you get the impression we hate them so much?

I had Dutch people from Rotterdam work for me many moons ago when I worked at an amusement park. They did a major faux pas, telling a Jewish kid " Do it right or I'll kill you like a German." I've never seen someone so horrified when they found that out. Luckily, he didn't sue the park, and I later found out that something "German" is a slanderous term in Holland.

[Sirgin]

Pray tell, do Belgians hate Germany as much as Dutch people make their hatred out to be?

Hmmm, I'm not sure. They were the enemy in WWII, but that's a long time ago. From where did you get the impression we hate them so much?

I had Dutch people from Rotterdam work for me many moons ago when I worked at an amusement park. They did a major faux pas, telling a Jewish kid " Do it right or I'll kill you like a German." I've never seen someone so horrified when they found that out. Luckily, he didn't sue the park, and I later found out that something "German" is a slanderous term in Holland.

Maybe that was just those persons in particular. Also, I'm not sure about the Dutch attitude towards the German in Holland. I speak Dutch too, but I'm from Belgium