OT: Winter Olympics

[Garbs_7]

No offence to any Russians here but of all the beautiful winter cities in the world, the Olympic committee decided on that heap of **** to host something that only comes around every 4 years? Nearly as bad as the corrupt FIFA organization giving the World Cup to Qatar...

Sochi is located in an extremely historic and beautiful area of the world. Ossetian and Circassian myth is largely seen as the hidden mythology at the crossroads of Ancient Europe and the nomadic Steppe peoples. This 'heap of ****' you speak of has more to do with the farce of Sochi as a Russian city where a homophobic self-proclaimed magnate tried to buy prestige and notoriety by outspending to host these historic games. The joke is on us as a modern culture.

Ok fair enough, I shouldn't really comment on the matter as I've never been there, and don't know a whole lot about it apart from all the negative press and how awful the many photos look that have come out. My negative comment is more directed to the organizers and people responsible for the poor standards of the setting and lack of planning around these games. The homophobic stuff in 2014 is just ridiculous also...

[trwi7]

Well yeah pretty much any city on the sea with mountains behind it is going to be beautiful. The point is that they've been **** terrible. $51 billion spent and they don't have hotels done, they're telling you not to drink the water or put it on your face. They put toilets next to each other with no walls. They've been terrible hosts and the opening ceremony hasn't even happened yet.

Awful by the Olympic committee giving it to them/having faith that they won't **** it up and awful by Russia for predictably **** it up.

[bizarro]

Well yeah pretty much any city on the sea with mountains behind it is going to be beautiful. The point is that they've been **** terrible. $51 billion spent and they don't have hotels done, they're telling you not to drink the water or put it on your face. They put toilets next to each other with no walls. They've been terrible hosts and the opening ceremony hasn't even happened yet.

Awful by the Olympic committee giving it to them/having faith that they won't **** it up and awful by Russia for predictably **** it up.

I agree its' quite embarrassing. And, it is obviously dangerous even when you've been told not to even apply the piss-looking water to your face. It's comical. And, it's a also deeply ironic.

And, yet, I also have compassion for those trying to put this on. I've opened historic Inns as a Manager that went through massive renovations. We created deadlines. We booked rooms. And, we were ****. It's not easy. SO, you talk about a $51 billion project where the gargantuan ego of Putin had its tentacles on every planning and development...this doesn't surprise me one bit. And, let's keep it in perspective: Every Olympics has their issues of getting things up to snuff for the event. There are stories of employees painting seats at huge venues hours before opening ceremonies. Salt Lake City had its issues. Each event is creating an infrastructure and facilities from scratch. This just happens to be the biggest and, so far, colossal clusterf#$% we've seen to date. AND, no other olympics had a social media engine as widely used and shared as we do now. I just think it's real real easy to get worked up about all of this and, at the end of the day, the most important thing has nothing to do with accommodations etc.

IMHO, positioning the Olympic games in such a disputed territory w/ a homophobic back-drop is inexcusable. That's the real story for me. Putin and his crumbling and inadequate lodging facilities can take a backseat. I said it before: The joke is on us as a culture. Period.

[Ayt]

The Olympics in general seem like a gigantic waste of money to me.

[bizarro]

The Olympics in general seem like a gigantic waste of money to me.

[ReasonablySober]

The Olympics in general seem like a gigantic waste of money to me.

So, so much this.

[PkrsBcksGphsMqt]

It's always hard for me to find the desire to tune in to the Olympics beyond anything more than a few minutes during a channel surf.

[RiotPunch]

Wow, Sochi is a freaking joke. Racist pictures of the Obamas, anti-gay rhetoric, unfinished/dangerous hotels, four ring Olympic logos, stray/dead dogs, unfinished plumbing, toilets without any wall separation and many of those toilets are incapable of flushing. Clusterf*ck central.

[Rockmaninoff]

Just chillin'.

[Kerb Hohl]

Well yeah pretty much any city on the sea with mountains behind it is going to be beautiful. The point is that they've been **** terrible. $51 billion spent and they don't have hotels done, they're telling you not to drink the water or put it on your face. They put toilets next to each other with no walls. They've been terrible hosts and the opening ceremony hasn't even happened yet.

Awful by the Olympic committee giving it to them/having faith that they won't **** it up and awful by Russia for predictably **** it up.

I agree its' quite embarrassing. And, it is obviously dangerous even when you've been told not to even apply the piss-looking water to your face. It's comical. And, it's a also deeply ironic.

And, yet, I also have compassion for those trying to put this on. I've opened historic Inns as a Manager that went through massive renovations. We created deadlines. We booked rooms. And, we were ****. It's not easy. SO, you talk about a $51 billion project where the gargantuan ego of Putin had its tentacles on every planning and development...this doesn't surprise me one bit. And, let's keep it in perspective: Every Olympics has their issues of getting things up to snuff for the event. There are stories of employees painting seats at huge venues hours before opening ceremonies. Salt Lake City had its issues. Each event is creating an infrastructure and facilities from scratch. This just happens to be the biggest and, so far, colossal clusterf#$% we've seen to date. AND, no other olympics had a social media engine as widely used and shared as we do now. I just think it's real real easy to get worked up about all of this and, at the end of the day, the most important thing has nothing to do with accommodations etc.

I'm generally a very forgiving person and I realize how tough deadlines are. I'm normally the one defending sports players when they are ripped, for instance, for hitting a football receiver in the head when both guys are flying at 90 MPH. I'm normally the one that says, "yeah, well..." I work in deadlines all the time as well.

That said, it's by far the most Olympics ever. I may be naive here, but where the hell is all this money going? Is it going in some bureaucrats' pockets? Other places around the world would probably say "holy crap, we need help" before the deadline was horrendously missed. They are also planned much better.

Not ripping the workers at all. Probably not their fault, though I don't know all the details.

[Nebula1]

I watch the hockey in the winter and the hoops in the summer. Otherwise the olympics is pointless to me.

Too many events, too much disaprity in medals. A swimmer can win like 8 medals but the basketball team can only win 1. That's dumb.

But to each their own.

[buckboy]

Just chillin'.

That is one lucky dog.

They've been rounding up and shooting all the strays over the last few weeks.

ETA: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/06/sport ... .html?_r=0

[El Duderino]

I watch the hockey in the winter and the hoops in the summer.

Olympics hockey is one of my favorite sporting events to watch out of all sporting events, including professional or college sports.

I love hockey and what i find so great about Olympics hockey is it's basically like watching very hard fought All-Star games. Plus, unlike Olympics basketball where USA is the overwhelming favorite each year, in hockey a number of countries realistically have at least some chance to win gold and from game to game, even favorites could easily get upset. Many countries competing have at least multiple quality NHL players and a number of teams have all to nearly all NHL players on their rosters. Can't wait for it to start.

[JayMKE]

Our media is playing an active role in exaggerating the problems of these Olympics, as said there are problems at every Olympics and Sochi didn't have the infrastructure to begin with. We didn't hear nearly as much about how evil the leadership of China was or their human rights abuses in the lead up to Beijing did we? Are we going to hear about how police are using paramilitary tactics to force thousands of poor people from their homes in Rio to make room for the World Cup and 2016 Olympics? Think about all the things they could say about America with similar coverage. It seems like a lot of people in this country are still stuck in the Cold War.

[PkrsBcksGphsMqt]

[Turk Nowitzki]

The Olympics in general seem like a gigantic waste of money to me.

This

It's always hard for me to find the desire to tune in to the Olympics beyond anything more than a few minutes during a channel surf.

and this

[WiscSports1]

I don't watch much hockey at all, but I"ll catch some playoff hockey and Olympic hockey.

[buckboy]

Our media is playing an active role in exaggerating the problems of these Olympics, as said there are problems at every Olympics and Sochi didn't have the infrastructure to begin with. We didn't hear nearly as much about how evil the leadership of China was or their human rights abuses in the lead up to Beijing did we? Are we going to hear about how police are using paramilitary tactics to force thousands of poor people from their homes in Rio to make room for the World Cup and 2016 Olympics? Think about all the things they could say about America with similar coverage. It seems like a lot of people in this country are still stuck in the Cold War.

You're willfully not paying attention. Read the linked articles.

[JayMKE]

Our media is playing an active role in exaggerating the problems of these Olympics, as said there are problems at every Olympics and Sochi didn't have the infrastructure to begin with. We didn't hear nearly as much about how evil the leadership of China was or their human rights abuses in the lead up to Beijing did we? Are we going to hear about how police are using paramilitary tactics to force thousands of poor people from their homes in Rio to make room for the World Cup and 2016 Olympics? Think about all the things they could say about America with similar coverage. It seems like a lot of people in this country are still stuck in the Cold War.

You're willfully not paying attention. Read the linked articles.

Our media is prone to exaggeration and outright lying. For example, that NBC report about people being instantly hacked in Sochi was almost completely false. The report was a 1000 miles away in a Moscow in a coffee shop on an open network visiting and DOWNLOADING malicious android apps from Sochi themed websites. You are in as much danger of being "hacked" in Milwaukee, WI that way as you are in Moscow or Sochi.

[grloung]

Our media is playing an active role in exaggerating the problems of these Olympics, as said there are problems at every Olympics and Sochi didn't have the infrastructure to begin with. We didn't hear nearly as much about how evil the leadership of China was or their human rights abuses in the lead up to Beijing did we? Are we going to hear about how police are using paramilitary tactics to force thousands of poor people from their homes in Rio to make room for the World Cup and 2016 Olympics? Think about all the things they could say about America with similar coverage. It seems like a lot of people in this country are still stuck in the Cold War.

Are you Russian?