the ocean

So my niece and nephew have gotten very into the Olympics, though they seem to have very little idea of what the Olympics actually are. They wanted to have a party for the opening ceremonies, which consisted largely of them doing things other than actually watching the opening ceremonies. They made us all compete in a bracelet-making contest, or as they kept unironically calling it, a "bead off." (The prize for winning the contest was for some reason being tasked with drawing a picture of Lebron James.) They also conducted an Olympics trivia contest, during which they read questions (and occasionally the answers, by accident) off the internet and heartily enjoyed telling us our answers were wrong. And there was also supposed to be a costume component of the evening, but I think we just ran out of time. There was also pizza to be eaten, after all.

The ceremonies themselves I thought were pretty interesting, even though I got almost none of the audio due to the aforementioned activities. It was nice that they really made use of the city, since it's not exactly hideous, and I liked the balloon torch, once I understood the likelihood of it exploding was actually pretty low. I saw the weirdness of, say, the table runway with drag queens, as a feature rather than a bug. And I am surprised to hear myself say this, but it was genuinely very nice to see Celine Dion performing again, particularly from a mighty perch atop the Eiffel Tower. She does a pretty good Edith Piaf impression, to the extent that's anything anyone should actually do.

All in all, it was a pretty grand affair. And I was still asleep by eleven, which is my new late-forties standard for Friday nights.