Putin's starting to come across as the ultimate closeted Republican or something.
XXII Olympic Winter Games
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Putin's the guy in your neighborhood who has a well-kept lawn, new siding on the house, a new roof, and a Mazeratti in the driveway, but when you actually go into the house the wallpaper's peeling and cockroaches are the dominant species.
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@Monkey:
Potential civil war to the left of me, terrorists to the right, here I am, stuck in Sochi with you~
Pardon my ignorance, but by that you don't mean in Russia, right? Is that referring to the riots in Ukrania or is it something else?
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What blows my mind about this is two things.
1. Maybe I just missed it all, but was there like..anything like this with China?
2. Brazil is seeing some bad stuff, but…that's two friggin' years away.Is Russia really that much more shambly that it's fellow Brics? Even the much poorer and much more authoritarian China?
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Pardon my ignorance, but by that you don't mean in Russia, right? Is that referring to the riots in Ukrania or is it something else?
Ukraine. People are worried that it could go that way yes.
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Even these olympics is kinda mocking us…
It's like two miles from Abkhazia right?
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@Monkey:
Ukraine. People are worried that it could go that way yes.
Ok, that's what I thought. I wondered if you might be referring to a potential civil war in Russia but I don't think that's in the making in the slightest.
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With all the corruption that has caused this level of shitty infrastructure, one has to wonder if dead athletes will be caused by Chechen terrorists?….or bad infrastructure on the courses themselves.
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@Monkey:
What blows my mind about this is two things.
1. Maybe I just missed it all, but was there like..anything like this with China?
2. Brazil is seeing some bad stuff, but…that's two friggin' years away.Is Russia really that much more shambly that it's fellow Brics? Even the much poorer and much more authoritarian China?
Yes and yes. It's really that bad, everything outside of Moscow and St. Petersburg is pretty much… this, except without the massive flow of cash that at least makes the exterior look nice. The infrastructure and the living conditions of normal people are SO bad that it's practically a wonder the country stays alive. Our local humor websites keep pasting picture montages from Russia without any editing because it honestly isn't needed, although admittedly it's more sad and terrifying than it's funny to see pictures like that.
And the funny part? Yeah, China. Poor, poor, wretched, authoritarian China. They did everything so much better and have actual functioning infrastructure in most of their bigger cities that they have, like, hundreds if not thousands of? The contrast is almost scary. The Chinese have deeply ingrained cultural pride and absolutely couldn't handle not doing things properly; Russians, as a people, are nothing like that.
This is the insane Russia that you guys are dealing and having a pseudo-real arms race with.
In Loving Memory of Toraish, Rex Avium: http://apforums.net/showthread.php?t=40786 | 3DS Friend Code: 3196-4274-7836
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@Monkey:
Is Russia really that much more shambly that it's fellow Brics? Even the much poorer and much more authoritarian China?
Well I doubt India could pull something better. They hosted the Commonwealth games in 2010 and it didn't go well so I heard. Lots of problems with monkeys.
I'm really stonished to learn that Russia spent 50 BILLION US dollars on these games. Like godamm. I wonder if even a tenth of that went towards the tournament itself and not pocket linings.@Toraish:
We're taking the gold this time, though. Just watch. :P
Leaving Giroux and St. Louis out is going to cost you.
Implying Finland EVER getting a gold :P
And we got Marty onboard now
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So when is the opening ceremony? I'm kind of confused at the schedule. NBC is airing its coverage at around 7-8 PM today and tomorrow at least and I expect this'll continue. I just don't want to miss something I want to watch because of the weird timezone difference.
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@Toraish:
Yes and yes. It's really that bad, everything outside of Moscow and St. Petersburg is pretty much… this, except without the massive flow of cash that at least makes the exterior look nice. The infrastructure and the living conditions of normal people are SO bad that it's practically a wonder the country stays alive. Our local humor websites keep pasting picture montages from Russia without any editing because it honestly isn't needed, although admittedly it's more sad and terrifying than it's funny to see pictures like that.
And the funny part? Yeah, China. Poor, poor, wretched, authoritarian China. They did everything so much better and have actual functioning infrastructure in most of their bigger cities that they have, like, hundreds if not thousands of? The contrast is almost scary. The Chinese have deeply ingrained cultural pride and absolutely couldn't handle not doing things properly; Russians, as a people, are nothing like that.
This is the insane Russia that you guys are dealing and having a pseudo-real arms race with.
I feel like everything would be better if Russia just got over the "we're not a superpower anymore" and just got around to deciding to have themselves a nice country. Just focus on living. Building up a new different pride.
But it's like mentally the whole place just has nothing, and is addicted to an already somewhat warped and questionable pride in the recent past. That addiction is killing them.It's like Russia has become Matahachi from Vagabond. You Potemkin for too long and you stop realizing what's Potemkin and what's not.
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The really sad and depressing thing is that the whole place has just had nothing for centuries. They had something going on right before the Mongols invaded, but after that it's been all the same with one corrupt maniac after the other ruling the whole place and ruining everything the few occasional reasonable Czars had managed to achieve. Honestly, as bad as the Soviet times were for everyone, that miserable construction might have advanced the whole nation more than anything else in the past has.
And if you think about it, it's no real wonder that they've been projecting all that to the smaller neighboring states. When things suck that much for you, everything an irritating smaller guy says to you is enough to just make it all boil and flow over. That's why everyone fears them. It's not like they're so strong and scary that they might do something bad, it's that they're so depressed and utterly unpredictable that you never know what happens when something snaps.
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Well I doubt India could pull something better. They hosted the Commonwealth games in 2010 and it didn't go well so I heard. Lots of problems with monkeys.
That is just lazy. You have shoddy infrastructure and an impending terrorist attack and this-is-a-homosexuals-free-zone, and you compare that to monkeys.
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Let's all admire the fact that the first country to put a human into space still had people living in houses made of dirt.
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@Monkey:
What blows my mind about this is two things.
2. Brazil is seeing some bad stuff, but…that's two friggin' years away.Here's the thing: most of our stadiums for the World Cup aren't even finished and it's only four months away.
The other thing is: no kind of work to receive the Olympics have started yet. And it's two years away, just like how it was for the World Cup back then.It'll be somehow like how it was in China but a bit different. Everything will look perfect but nothing will really be.
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Oh shit Russia gets the World Cup in 2018
The 2010s will be forever known as the decade that Putin ruined sports for everyone
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This is all making London feel very, very smug. Even if the confident image we had during the Olympics was a facade put on for the benefit of the world's cameras that most people here bought into for a couple of months.
But yeah, I've been keeping one eye on the World Cup and it looks like it has the potential to go Sochi in terms of the sporting facilities at least. Hope not, because that benefits no-one :/
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@Cyan:
Let's all admire the fact that the first country to put a human into space still had people living in houses made of dirt.
That kind of economic disparity is in no way limited to Russia, though. A lot of countries are very good at pretending that their poor populations don't exist.
moooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooon
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@Print:
A lot of countries are very good at pretending that their poor populations don't exist.
How coincidentally topical!
:ninja:
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@Cyan:
Oh shit Russia gets the World Cup in 2018
The 2010s will be forever known as the decade that Putin ruined sports for everyone
To be fair the World Cup thing can be entirely laid at the corrupt FIFA's feet. The 2022 games are in Quatar and the FIFA only just realised it's 50 degrees Celcius there in the summer, that the airconditioning is single-handedly going to double the hole in the ozone layer and as a result will cost billions of dollars and that a bunch of foreign slaves have already died setting up the stadiums. And that's still eight years away.
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To be fair the World Cup thing can be entirely laid at the corrupt FIFA's feet. The 2022 games are in Quatar and the FIFA only just realised it's 50 degrees Celcius there in the summer, that the airconditioning is single-handedly going to double the hole in the ozone layer and as a result will cost billions of dollars and that a bunch of foreign slaves have already died setting up the stadiums. And that's still eight years away.
I wonder how many players will pass out/die from heat stroke.
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They're considering pushing it to the winter.
They could've also just relocated it to a non-corrupt country, but that would mean losing out on all the oil $$$.
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Everything about this seems like a Yakov Smirnoff routine.
In America, Opening Ceremony before Games.
In Sochi, Russia, Games before Opening Ceremony! -
The Kremlin thanked the Dutch government for being the only western country to send a big delegation and not believing the lies of dissidents and western media. Bozhe moi.
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The Kremlin thanked the Dutch government for being the only western country to send a big delegation and not believing the lies of dissidents and western media. Bozhe moi.
Didn't you guys have some big diplomatic kerfluffle recently where they treated you like shit too?
Man, I'm mad FOR you. -
@Monkey:
Didn't you guys have some big diplomatic kerfluffle recently where they treated you like shit too?
Man, I'm mad FOR you.We currently have a libertarian garbage government. But at least the prime minister was honest and said he was doing it all for OIL BUSINESS TRADE MONEY. But it really makes us look bad, especially since we always pontificate about our progressive attitude towards LGBT members and we are like the ONLY country who send this many people when we've never even gone this far before. It makes sense that the king goes, since he's an honour member of the IOC, but also the queen, the prime minister and the minister of sport??? It's clearly meant as sucking up to Putin after the disastrous diplomatic kerfuffle + the Greenpeace mess. Or really, the entire failed Netherlands-Russia Friendship Year.
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Cholera jasna.
I absolutely cannot stand Putin. I like Russia, the OLD Russia, the one my grandmother and my mother told me about. But what they are doing now? Pretty much every member of my family can't stand Putin and his idiocy. And the worst thing is that many companies still gave money for this thing, even after the homophobic stuff and killing of thousands of stray dogs in Sochi (called 'biological trash' by one of the russian ministers, if I remember correctly).
So, yeah, not a fan. And what I'm angry the most about? That you people will still watch it, they will still get money and in a year or two everybody will forget about this.
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Old Russia being… The Soviet Union where nothing worked for the last thirty years and where the politburo was pretending that everything was fine regardless? Yeah.
In Loving Memory of Toraish, Rex Avium: http://apforums.net/showthread.php?t=40786 | 3DS Friend Code: 3196-4274-7836
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You're giving the Soviet Union too much credit by saying "the last thirty years."
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@Harry:
You know what I don't get is the fact the russian government spent billions on these olympics aka entertainment, when there are so many problems in russia: corruption, drug epidemic, poverty, etc. All that money could be allocated more effciently to better areas. Shows how fucked up tthe world is we spend mpre money on sports than the welfare of people and mother nature along with so many other things.
You answered your own depressing question.
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Yeah, a lot, if not most, of that $51 billion went directly into the pockets of Putin's cronies.
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Why did they have Sochi of all places make the bid anyway?
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Well obviously they all need sixth and seventh Laborghinis
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The money to the next Putin & Friends jungle tiger hunt needs to come from somewhere.
If you have a better way of demonstrating professional or political competence than posing with bigass wildlife, I'd like to hear it.Its really sad how indulgent it is. If any minister or party leader tried something like that here they'd be ridiculed for years on end, and kill their own political cred.
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@The:
The money to the next Putin & Friends jungle tiger hunt needs to come from somewhere.
If you have a better way of demonstrating professional or political competence than posing with bigass wildlife, I'd like to hear it.Its really sad how indulgent it is. If any minister or party leader tried something like that here they'd be ridiculed for years on end, and kill their own political cred.
Eh you pander to what the people want to see. In our society it'd be something like a born wealthy duke who pretends to be down with the working class, or an obvious sexist attaching himself to some feminist cause like he gives a fuck.
And if the Russian people want a burly macho man who wrestles tigers then that's what they'll pretend to do.
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@Cyan:
And the adventure begins!
"The fifth ring was last seen running around a Sochi hotel looking for a working toilet."
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@Cyan:
And the adventure begins!
No terrorism and deaths to ruin Putin please.
Just lots and lots of this lol. -
Absolute Best part:
An Olympic ring failed to open due to a malfunction.
"Well, you get the point," an announcer shrugged.
Welcome to Russia!
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You know in spite of all this, I'm still looking forward to the Opening Ceremony after that incredible pile of shit that was the British opening ceremonies lol.
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I think we can agree that Beijing was the best.
Someone married their stepmom and then got murdered?
Sounds like he used a monkey paw to make a porno story come true.
Then the curse of the paw eventually killed him.
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@Rogues':
I think we can agree that Beijing was the best.
Beijing and Athens having these cool "chek our ancient shit out mate
" ceremonies makes me really wish that Iran chills out in my lifetime so that we can complete the "Three Ancient Civ Bros" trifecta with people dancing around arenas in cool costumes with light shows. -
I am surprised to admit the opening ceremony was actually… good? I don't know, but despite the scale, the dream through the history felt quite well focused and neatly presented. Impressive classical ball dance from Tolstoy's War and Peace. Stylish and respectful decision to have a moment of silence for the tragedy of WWII. Positive nostalgic memories of the USSR - constructions and development. And lol stilyagi. Although I wish the presentation continued some more into the XXI century - because it's about time we stopped living in the past. That is my biggest complaint.
Great choice to have Tretiak and Rodnina light the cauldron. Unpredictable but most deserved.
Another lol at tATu. It's hard to imagine a band with a more fitting reputation.
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News going around that someone tried to hijack a Ukrainian plane and direct it to Sochi, but he was detained and the plane was escorted by fighter jets to the nearest airport.
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If we can somehow have a good sports event while still humiliating the Putinocracy, I'm cool with that.
@Monkey:
You know in spite of all this, I'm still looking forward to the Opening Ceremony after that incredible pile of shit that was the British opening ceremonies lol.
You are dead to me, MK :P
(You know I'm not one to usually defend the UK too. But the Opening Ceremony was actually very impressive (with the exception of Paul McCartney appearing and singing 'Hey Jude' which wasn't actually scheduled and is just a regular hazard of life in London). It probably didn't come across internationally too but having the tribute to the NHS was a political masterstroke given that the government is actually slowly getting rid of it with the support of the tabloids and BBC. It was a direct challenge and it didn't go un-noticed, though its effect has kind of worn off by this point. I will admit I'm kind of biased though because when it got to the fireworks, I walked away from the TV and watched them from my window instead XD)
moooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooon
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Hey Jude was my favourite bit of the entire ceremony, don't you dare mock it. D:
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@Monkey:
You know in spite of all this, I'm still looking forward to the Opening Ceremony after that incredible pile of shit that was the British opening ceremonies lol.
You mean this?
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Painting grass green is a memetic joke about communism. I'm laughing so hard about it actually happening.
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@Print:
If we can somehow have a good sports event while still humiliating the Putinocracy, I'm cool with that.
You are dead to me, MK :P
(You know I'm not one to usually defend the UK too. But the Opening Ceremony was actually very impressive (with the exception of Paul McCartney appearing and singing 'Hey Jude' which wasn't actually scheduled and is just a regular hazard of life in London). It probably didn't come across internationally too but having the tribute to the NHS was a political masterstroke given that the government is actually slowly getting rid of it with the support of the tabloids and BBC. It was a direct challenge and it didn't go un-noticed, though its effect has kind of worn off by this point. I will admit I'm kind of biased though because when it got to the fireworks, I walked away from the TV and watched them from my window instead XD)
It was just a bunch of pandering pop culture references when it wasn't being really silly depictions of history events, half of which weren't uniquely british (women's suffrage, industrial revolution etc).
It felt really… desperate. Like the people were afraid a bunch of bored international teenagers were their only audience.
It was like a trivia night at a bar for Millennials instead of a cool piece of visual theater celebrating the country.
You guys have more history than Russia and you went the HARRYPOTTERJAMESBONDSGTPEPPERS route. :/The ten minute preview of the Brazilian ceremony was already better.
