Jim: Well, I’m watching the Turkish feed of the opening ceremonies in Italy.

2:06: Right now, we’re up to the dancing cows. Followed up by dancers with giant white inflated condoms on their heads.

Also, kinda nice to see a Danish flag that’s not being burned for once, huh?

2:11: The Italian Military Guard has arrived. Insert the standard, “lost World War Two” joke here. Now a little girl comes out to sing the Italian national anthem… which I am surprised to learn is not “The Godfather Waltz.”

The dancers are dressed like the henchmen of Dr. Evil. With mining helmets.

2:19: Okay, the first really cool thing, a hundred dancers forming a giant skiier from a bird’s eye view and making him move down the slalom and back.

Flaming rollerbladers. Because, you know, the whole thing has been kinda flaming from the first choreography.

Okay, no, here’s something not so flaming - dancers in red and black latex. This is very Italian, apparently. Because the outfits on the men are tight enough to tell what religion they are, and the womens’ are even tighter.

There’s a vague Fifth Element feel to all this.

Greece begins, because they had the last ones. Next up is Albania, which must be an interesting experience, because they’re always going to be the second ones to enter.

Algeria - big on winter sports, apparently.

Followed by the entire population of Andorra, all six of them.

Australia enters to… “I will survive.” Kind of setting a low bar, huh? “We may not get medals, but we will live to see the end of these games.”

Austria enters. There’s about a million of ‘em. Aw, just give ‘em a bunch of golds and get it over with. Particularly the Herminator.

Bermuda entered. Looks like two athletes, two coaches. Guess they ain’t bobsledding.

Canada’s entry resembles an invading army. I’m sure it’s all the curlers. It’s like, “Ice Housework.”

China enters… With a billion people, they ought to be able to find some good cold-weather athletes.

Cyprus enters, to the name, “Cipro.” For a moment, I thought a team had been sponsored by a pharmaceutical company.

Korea enters, under one flag. That’s it, South Korea, you’re on your own, take care of your own defense. Upside, Hong Kong is still separate.

Denmark enters - hard to tell if anybody’s booing. Still, after the news in the past few days, I figured that the flames were part of the design.

Germany’s uniforms are neon yellow and orange. Apparently, they believed they might need to be spotted by a search and rescue team.

“To ensure everyone sticks together and no one gets lost, we’ve outfitted all of us in the most garish combination of colors imaginable.”

Gioppone - “Japan” to those of us outside Italy - arrive, the proud sponsors of the figure skater who usually comes in third.

Iran sent a team, entering to an American song. They’re set to have an explosive performance this year. Really, they’re all aglow.

Ireland enters, expected to sweep the drinking competition. Sorry, Russkies.

The Virgin Islands sent a luge team. Heh. Lugers.

Israel… boy, just their luck, alphabetically close to Iran.

Kazakhistan… Somewhere, Borat is smiling proudly.

Latvia makes a stylish entrance. For some reason purple has not turned out to be a popular national color or flag. Really kind of underrated.

And here comes the Lebanese team and their Syrian minders!

Luxembourg sent an ice skater, judging by her cheekbones and 80 year old coaches. Proudly contributor of the “Lux” to “Benelux.”

Sometime after Madagascar (yeah, Madagascar) the music switches to Annie Lennox, singing “Sweet Dreams.”

Mongolia has already taken the gold in “biggest hats.”

The music is now, “Video killed the Radio Star.” Call Kathryn Lopez, it’s an All-80s Opening Ceremony!

Norway - where all the salmon comes from and all the gold metals go to.

New Zealand’s uniforms appear to have been inspired by East German border guards.

Poland’s ten enters with the dashing red and gray. Insert standard “how many to screw in a light bulb” joke here.

I take it back - Russia appears to have brought its entire population.

And now a team from San Marino… okay, are certain these are all real countries? Is it possible somebody just made up a name, filed the right paperwork, bought matching jackets, designed a flag and marched in? “I’ve always been a big fan of the Miami quarterback, let’s name a country after him…”

And as Serbia enters, “YMCA” begins. A nice, subtle shot at the masculinity of a recent U.S. bombing target. Of course, where’s the Yankees ground crew?

The Spanish team enters. Based on my experience with that country last year, my guess is that they partied late last night, will party late tonight, and will party late into the night for every night of the Olympics.

USA! USA! Laura Bush is sitting next to Cherie Blair. We, too, have a huge team. And we enter to Aretha Franklin singing “Freedom”? How appropriate. (There is some dispute whether this song began as the U.S. entered, or after, when they were marching across the arena.)

Then, the Swedes - a nation apparently just designed and engineered to be a Winter Olympics competitor.

The Swiss arrive, on time, no surprise.

And now, Van Halen’s “Jump.” Give it up, world. We make the pop culture. You will be assmilated. Your local talent will be added to our own.

There are two Thais in this year’s winter Olympics. How does it feel to be the one guy who doesn’t get to bear the flag?

Turkey! May they take silver in every race they compete in!

Then the Ukrainians, and the Hungarians. You never realize how many blondes there are in the world until the Winter Olympics.

Venezuela. Booooooooo!

Italy is the grand finale, in their snazzy silver coats.

Cam: I missed most of the opening ceremonies (too busy in the hotel bar), but the wife watched. Apparently there’s some Italian Alpine skier who she’s all a-flutter over.

Marshall: I missed them, too. But Jim’s account was the most enlightening I’ve seen anywhere.

Seriously, I was trying to get into these olympics. I recall really enjoying the curling four years ago and a couple of other things, but it seems like NBC has cut back a good bit on their coverage. USA seems to be all hockey all the time. And the prime time shows will — as always — be dominated by figure skating. Yick.

Oh well. It’s not like I have time to watch a lot of the games anyway…

Cam: Did you see that Michelle Kwan might have to withdraw because of a groin injury? Jim jinxed her.

Marshall: I did see that. And honestly, I didn’t care. If figure skating was completely ridiculous and unwatchable before, now — with the new scoring system — it’s completely unwatchable. They ought to try it as a treatment for insomnia.