good for something: 08/08/08

At first I was a bit dubious about this whole 08/08/08--ooh, lucky day!--thing. My day started off pretty roughly and I left work with still a lot to do. To top it off, I had hoped to finally catch "Iron Man" at the $2 movie theater with Paul and Velina. But the girl threw me for a loop. After watching "Project Runway" on Wednesday, where the challenge was to design something the US team would wear to the Olympic Opening ceremony, she expressed interest in watching the Olympic Games. She especially was interested in watching the Opening Ceremony, sooooo scratch "Iron Man".

Sad to say, I'd become somewhat of a jaded Olympic viewer. I remember enjoying watching the games as a kid but I hardly remember the games after '96 games in Atlanta, where Strug made that amazing vault with an injured ankle. I remember the hype about the "Thorpedo" swimmer and the provocative Nike billboards that proclaimed "You don't win Silver, you lose Gold" from the 2000 games in Australia and wow, for the 2004 games in Athens, I can't recall anything beyond that Phelps was gunning for Spitz's record but didn't make it.

Well after watching the Opening Ceremony with my daughter oohing and aahing, emitting an occasional I wish I was there, I'm hooked again. The Opening Ceremony (directed by Zhang Yimou) was amazing. It would have been incredible and totally worth the bribes it would have taken to get a seat for that event. It was such a cohesive, awesome program that utilized over 15,000 performers (apparently when the press remarked on the large number of performers, Zhang Yimou deadpanned, well, we have the people) who were tight, tight, tight. Whether it was the big drumming intro, the printing press performance, the huge Tai Chi circle, or the runners on the huge floating globe, it was at worst, ridiculously engaging, and at best, jaw-dropping. I admit we dozed off as all the countries' teams made their entrances. But we got hooked enough, that I was motivated to suggest making a scrapbook following the Olympics and the girl was in.

Velina took the lead and wanted to include these guys, the Beijing Olympic mascots:

She wanted to render the mascots in our scrapbooks (though she took artistic license and pulled Beibei's hair back because it was too complicated to draw):

And then we drew the mascots preparing for actual Olympic sporting events. She drew Beibei getting ready to swim and I did Jingjing getting ready to do a little bit of weightlifting:

And then we reflected a bit on the mascots:

I plan to go for some old-school scrapbooking with clippings from the newspaper. It's definitely a hap-hazard, winging-it scrapbook but I think it's going to be a bit of fun.