> I only saw a little bit of the opening when I was sitting in Chili's, so I really couldn't quite figure out what was happening. However, I do have a question. Why was a little girl flying around while pretending to sing? She looked like an average little girl to me, but the camera crews seemed to think she was pretty special because they kept focusing on her. After she stopped floating around, the cameras *still* focused on her! Who was she and was there a point to the whole flying around thing?

That was a "sea" sequence. It started out with the little girl lying down on a beach towel, then the idea was that she was dreaming about swimming at the Great Barrier Reef or something. She went up in the air on wires to "swim" around up there, and all the big floaty fish and things on poles were swimming around her. From the coverage we got in New Zealand, it looked like a terrific sequence. I can imagine it would look pretty stupid if the cameras were focused in on just the girl herself, though. Heh. Seeing the whole stadium in the shot, however, it was cool.

> I saw a little bit of the part where people where wearing exotic costumes and dancing around. I imagine it would have been amazing if I had actually been there, but from where I was sitting, it didn't mean much to me. I did see some guys in bright green outfits who reminded me of Ninja turtles, though.

Those green guys were just bizarre. I loved the idea - there was a group representing each of the colours/world areas of the Olympic rings. The other groups did look sufficiently African, Asian, American and Oceanic (dig those Maori guys in tattoos and blue plastic, hehehe), but whoever designed the greenies obviously thought Europe is populated mainly by Martians from 1950s B movies.

Brunnen-"and who am I to say it isn't"G