Olympic

I have mixed feelings at best about the decision not to cancel the Olympics (it seems terribly risky to Japan and the athletes without a whole lot of upside) but I did end up watching part of the opening ceremonies tonight, through the Parade of Nations. Imagine my surprise when the third or fourth nation in the parade, Ireland, walked in to the tones of the Final Fantasy battle victory theme. Apparently, all the music played during the parade came from Japanese video games. I also caught "Melodies of Life" and both Olympus themes from Kingdom Hearts; Polygon has the complete list. (One noteworthy absence from that list: anything from Nintendo. Lots of Square Enix games; I wonder if they are a sponsor?) It was a fun tribute and a nice surprise.

I'm sure I'll watch more of the games, despite being less enthusiastic about them than usual. T told YouTube TV to record everything, so I'll have plenty of options!

Why I still watch the Olympics

Tonight, in the men's 400 meter freestyle, an 18-year-old kid named Ahmed Hafnaoui from Tunisia, who was the eighth qualifier out of eight and was so not considered to be a factor that the NBC announcers didn't even mention his name until about halfway through the race, came out of nowhere to win the gold medal by 0.16 seconds.

He's only the second athlete from Tunisia to win a gold medal for swimming, and it's the fifth Olympic gold medal for any Tunisian athlete ever.

These are the stories, the moments, I watch for. You can see the whole race here -- it's only about four minutes. The amazement in the announcers voices. The look on Ahmed's face when he realized he'd won. This, for me, is what it's all about.