The Supreme Tradition of Spelling Bees

Somewhat related to symphonies based on computer-game music, recently discussed here. (The link leads to a short video clip.)

It's well done, but it doesn't sound very good. (Off key, for one thing.)

Ontario, like a zillion other US cities, was named for a place in another country. In this case, "It takes its name from the Ontario Model Colony development established in 1882 by Canadian engineers George Chaffey and William Chaffey, who named the settlement after their home province of Ontario, Canada."

The "CA" thing is always confusing, Back in the heyday of usenet, the group ca.general (California) always confused people who were looking for can.general (Canada).

Is anyone planning to watch the opening ceremony of the Olympics? It's directed by Zhang Yimou (Hero, House of Flying Daggers), so there's bound to be spectacular wushu.

USAnians can watch it online for free on nbc.com. (They say it's closed outside of the US. They probably check your IP.)

Most definitely. Starts at 10 pm our time, so eminently watchable. Most events will be at good times for our live TV coverage this time, which makes a change.

But Loscar, I hope your soccer team will take pity on us when we play Argentina on the weekend - soccer is not our strong point.

What's "wushu", Shilgia?

I am not planning to watch since I don't have a TV, and even if I had one, don't think I would bother with opening ceremonies. For the past few days, both my daily paper and the BBC website have featured photographs of zillions of identically dressed volunteers preparing for the big day. A front-page picture today was of hundreds or thousands of people in yellow raincoats on the Great Wall in the fog. I've overdosed already.

Here, Vinny, if you can stand commentary in (I think) Croatian. (It was an Austrian commentator before, so they may switch back to German at some point.)

Must be nearly the end, though.

Couldn't manage on nbc.com. Running firefox they kept asking me to install some program, even after I had installed in. So I tried with Internet Explorer and they asked me for the name of my TV cable company. I don't have one and I couldn't get past that page.

bjd, wushu is a collective name for Chinese martial arts and martial-arts-like sports (Qigong etc.)

They just started the parade of the participating countries. That's more boring. The Chinese organized part was fantastic. Not all that much wushu and Chinese opera (a little of each), but we now know, if we'd ever forgotten, that the Chinese invented paper, the printing press, the compass, and calligraphy. (And built the Great Wall and the Terracotta Army.) Enormous moving sculptures made up of thousands of people moving in sync. Very spectacular.

(And sorry for the multipost, but nbc in the end didn't work, Vinny, so it doesn't matter that you didn't get it to work. I got past the cable-provider question by just choosing one, although I don't have cable either, but they are broadcasting actual sports this morning rather than the opening ceremony. And as for you, Firefox wasn't working for some reason. Dumb)