After work, though, Carrie & I went over to Cat's place, where Heather was already there making guacamole. Cat made fixin's for turkey tacos, and we four sat around and enjoyed them while Cat & Carrie filled out invitations for their respective showers—Cat for a wedding shower for her friend Erin, and Carrie for Linnea's baby shower.
The real star of the night, though, was the opening ceremonies of the 2006 Turin Olympics. Man-o-man. That was some futzed up shiznit.
It started out pretty cool, with a guy bashing a gigantic hammer into an even more gigantic anvil, with 30-foot flames shooting out of it with each hit. But then there were weirdly choreographed dancers who at one point formed a giant, beating heart. That was weird. And then there were inline skaters with fire shooting out the backs of their heads. Again, kinda weird, but a little more cool.
But then came the bubbleheads—people wearing six-foot balloons on their heads (supposed to represent snow). It was weird, but it was really cool. They looked like Kodama.
Then there was the strange occurrance of statues of cows being wheeled around as people dressed as cows waltzed. That was very, very strange. Also, throughout most of this, there were people doing synchronized swimming moves but not in a pool. They were in a recessed area (where the athletes ended up sitting).
Then came the best part of the whole danged show: the ski jumper. A whole mess of people came out and formed the shape of a skier (when seen from above). Then the skier actually reached its arm up and pulled down its visor. The formation movement was flawless. Then the skier went down a ski ramp and up over a jump, landing perfectly. It was flawlessly done, and it was absolutely spectacular. Probably the best crowd-of-people-forming-something I've ever seen (unless you count the ad for Super Mario Bros 3), because the something that they formed actually moved around and was animated. Really cool. I can't find a picture of it, unfortunately.
The parade of nations was the parade of nations, the same thing it is every Olympics.
After that, though, was some cool stuff, including a gigantic book of Dante's Divine Comedy, from which someone read a passage. That was pretty cool. But then there was a weird, long sequence that involved people dressed up in renaissance/baroque outfits having a sumptuous banquet, which ended when a half-dozen gigantic Madame Bon-Bons started circling them and laughing maniacally.
It was getting really late by this point, so Carrie & I went home and turned on the Opening Ceremonies in the bedroom. We were witness to people in crazy red-and-white outfits with giant mohawks riding around in motorcycle/chariots.
Woo! Then a Ferrari was assembled and did doughnuts on the stadium floor. That was pretty funny.
Then there wer boring speeches, so I went bathwoom. After that, though, was the lighting of the torch. That was actually pretty cool; there have been some cool torch lightings in the last decade or so; there was the one where the person lit a big ball on fire, and it flew up a line and into the cauldron to light it; there was Muhammed Ali lighting it; there was the one where the torch light an arrowhead on fire, and an archer shot it into the cauldron to light it. In this one an Italian ski legend lady brought the torch to the center of the arena where she lit this little archway, and then firepots shot off all over the place, leading up into the cauldron (which is a really cool series of four twisted pipes). I liked it.
The balloon heads were cool, and the giant book was cool, and all the fire was cool. And there were giant alps-style horns at one point, even! But I coulda done without the dancing cows and the giant laughing baroque women.
