Why Did I Watch This?!

So the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics have officially begun, eh?

And of course, as is tradition with this, the grandest athletic stage of them all... not counting Wrestlemania... it all began with the majestic opening ceremony.

This is the opportunity for the host city to show the world what makes them great. A chance to expose their art, their culture, their very soul to the millions of people around the world tuning in.

It's also their opportunity to bore us to death.

I don't know why I subjected myself to this awful "extravaganza". I mean, I watched parts of the opening ceremony during the Beijing Olympics. It was entertaining. There were crazy dudes running on walls and banging gongs and being all dynamic, and shit. It wasn't great, but it managed to hold my interest.

But this... this was just bad.

After all the athletes walked in a big circle around the arena, waving their flags and smiling like fools, Canadian Teenage Jazz Sensation Nikki Yanofsky came out to sing "O Canada".

Pardon me, Canadian Teenage Jazz Sensation Nikki Yanofsky came out to lip synch "O Canada".

I don't know what makes this young lady a "Jazz Sensation". Every article I've read about young Miss Yanofsky refers to her as some derivation of the term. Based on her performance last night, I don't see it.

She was quite lame. This set the tone for the evening.

Next, Nelly Furtado and Bryan Adams came out, hand in hand, to lip synch some boring fucking song that made me forget how to blink for about two minutes. I don't know what the song is called, and I don't want to know.

And Bryan Adams? What the hell for? Didn't the Canadian Prime Minister officially apologize to the world for Bryan Adams in 1991? Is this the best our neighbors to the North have to offer?

Don't get me wrong, I think Bryan Adams has his moments... well, moment. That moment being the release of his hit single "Summer of '69" in 1984. But that's it. So why did Canada decide to punish us all once again with this man's dubious talents?

After that delightful little diversion, I tuned in and out. Not literally. The television remained on NBC throughout the duration of the Opening Ceremony. My consciousness repeatedly retreated into the depths of my mind, reliving happier moments in my life as a defense mechanism, to keep me from going insane as this tedious madness unfolded.

When the booming voice of Donald Sutherland began reciting poetry as cloth totem poles rose from the arena floor, becoming trees before my very eyes, I was sure I was hallucinating.

Surely, this wasn't really happening.

Solid ground became a rapidly deteriorating ice floe, as oddly dressed dancers leaped around the chaotic scene.

Then it was the ocean, and a pod of whales were traveling through the arena, water spouting from their blowholes.

Now it's a rolling, golden field of wheat, and a young Peter Brady was awkwardly flying around it all, with his windswept hair and empty expression filling me with dread.

But wait, now there's some dude in a floating boat, playing a fiddle above the stage, dueling his own shadow projected over the harvest moon.

There were constellations gleaming on massive projected LED sheets suspended over the audience.

And then a giant bear ascended from the Underworld, glowing like a UFO, arms outstretched as if to embrace us all in peace and brotherhood, gently floating away like some kind of LSD-induced apparition.

Clearly I was losing my mind. But I eventually realized that I was still quite sane. Because although this imagery sounds rather interesting and perhaps "trippy", it was all so completely fucking tedious.

Not exciting. Not awe-inspiring. Dull.

Just like the razor blade I used in a vain attempt to slit my wrists after I endured this nightmare.

Sarah Mclachlan showed up to lip synch some song while pretending to play the piano, grinning like a lunatic during her entire "performance". At one point, she glanced into the camera and I thought she wanted to eat me.

Suddenly, it was Autumn, and a gaggle of folks with shitty hairstyles and shittier fashion sense jumped around, pretending to play their fiddles while a crowd of what I assume were mentally infirm residents of some local psych ward undulated in circles, in some sick parody of what the normals call "dancing".

Then out come the tapdancing douchebags on the biggest and shittiest birthday cake I have ever seen. Why do these tapdancing cocksuckers exist? Who decided it would be the neatest thing in the history of the Olympics to put these fools on a world stage?

They weren't even really tapdancing! They were pretending to tapdance to a prerecorded tap dancing track! And they still managed to fuck that up!

Although, to be fair, the tap dancing track these prancing nitwits were miming had absolutely no rhythym. It was just a cacophonous racket, with absolutely no meaning.

Gregory Hines is dead, and his fucking corpse has more talent than these "professionals".

Then a storm settled into the arena. Thunder and lightning and chaotic noise! A cloth mountain rises from the floor, ascending to the sky! A group of useless people dressed up as snowboarders and skiers descended upon the crowd, their jackets glowing with beautiful soft lights as they mimed skiing down the polyester Matterhorn.

They call all of this "interpretive dance". I call it garbage.

And here comes some fat, bearded "Poetry Slam!" asshole to tell the world what it means to be Canadian. He yammers on for what feels like a week, and by the time he's done, I still have no idea what it truly means to be Canadian.

You fail, sir!

Then some boring people gave some boring speeches, and I nearly passed out. This experience had simply exhausted me. My mind was slowly unraveling.

Then they fucked up the Olympic Cauldron Lighting Ceremony.

Four pillars were supposed to rise out of the arena floor, leading to the unlit cauldron. Four athletes were supposed to approach their respective pillars with their torches, touching their flames to the pillars. The flames would then travel up the pillars, into the cauldron, which would then burst into life, signaling the official beginning to the games of the 21st Winter Olympics.

But only three pillars rose from the arena floor. The fourth was too embarassed by the garish and boring splendor that preceded this moment, and decided to stay underground, where it was safe.

So three athletes performed this ceremony, as they touched their three torches to their three pillars, and the flames traveled up the three pillars into the cauldron, which then burst into life, signaling the official beginning to the games of the 21st Winter Olympics.

The fourth athlete just stood there, holding his torch, looking confused. I laughed heartily.

Schadenfreude is a beautiful thing.

Great job, Canada. Ya blew it!

I used to like Canada. Now the idea of visiting Canada fills me with a deep, primal terror. I just broke out in a cold sweat thinking about it.

In conclusion, Dear Imaginary Reader, I still do not know why I subjected myself to the utter torture that was the Opening Ceremony of the 21st Winter Olympics.

I could have watched something else. I could have turned the channel at any time. I could have watched any of those episodes of "Wild West Tech" I have cluttering my DVR.

I should have read a fucking book. Or plucked my eyebrows.

Or plucked out my eyeballs.

But I didn't take the coward's way out. I sat in front of that television and I endured.

Because I am a fucking moron.