the scripts this afternoon.

So much criticism, so little time.

Someone designed that screen in the "entry of the nations." So while they posted the name of the country, the name of the flag carrier, population and number of athletes participated, as long as they added a map, they should have kept it for as long as the name of the country was on and make the map more readable.

I'm lucky I live in the Detroit area so it is on our general lineup. They did a great job of explaining many interesting things without overshadowing the event. I found myself saying, "Interesting" or "I did not know that". I did not know that this is the first Olympiad the Saudis have entered. They would even mention things, such as, Iraq had no women athletes. They also pointed out many of the countries where women were becoming less and less allowed to attend. They did not bring up a map but did a good job in explaining where a certain country was. Example - "This country is a tiny island in the Indian ocean, just west of India....." I also like how when each country came in they told if that country's leadership was in attendance or, because of recent political problems, was not there. They also gave shots of each country's representative with each team entering. Nice to see you Joe Biden.

I loved the response when the refugee team came in and the boos when Brazil's "acting" President spoke.

was truly lovely.

Loved the boos!

The South Pacific is the hardest, so is Africa. But it becomes fun the more you do it.

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=kiribati

with small breaks for Olympic coverage.

Screw 'em; I'm off to find a decent proxy server so I can actually watch the events, uninterrupted, and be able to see ALL of the events (not just the big commercial draws and the ones where an American is expected to win) like I did with the last games. BBC had excellent coverage, as did some little server farm in Denmark... let me see what I can find for this year.

using a smart dns. I watched the opening on the BBC and CBC. I use one called unlocator, have had it for over a year, $5 a month, works well...there are free ones too as you probably know. Most of the main services have a free 7 or 14 day trial. Outside of the Olympics I watch the BBC, CBC and Australia Iview and SBS services. Lots of shows, documentaries and movies with no commercials. Not always HD quality but due to my ISP monthly service cap I watch mainly SD anyway to save on data usage.

of ads, for the first hour. I was flabbergasted.

http://world-geography-games.com/countries_oceania.swf

The nice thing about this one is that you get to keep trying until you get it correct, and also,
after you have correctly identified a country, the name is labelled on the map.


This link does MOST but not all of the countries, by continent. It doesn't include the South Pacific islands
and Australia, but you can get most of the rest here.

I review with the games every few months.

Cut the cable long ago.

long as you know where Merica! is, that's all that matters.

Thanks, anyway

(Still is, actually.

K i r i b a t i
G i l - b ert

They were British, so that -er- was prounced as a vowel similar to "uh", which in the local's language came out as -a-. A couple other fairly common sound substitutions and you're there.

Polynesian languages really avoid having closed syllables (think "constants back to back&quot .

I doubt that the Islanders felt any kind of political cohesion that include them, all of them, and just them prior to colonialization.

more or less but that included mostly the pre colonization ones and the early independent nations from Africa, from the 60s.

Speaking of the alphabet, it certainly was different, having the K's - Kenya, Kiribati - after the N's - Norway.

Or having Monaco after Morocco.

And Yemen someplace in the middle.