Day 314: Sochi Opening Ceremony Marred By One Stubborn Snowflake

So did you watch the Opening Ceremony last night? I'm not going to lie... I barely made it through the Parade of Nations before I was drooling on the couch. But that's really what my favorite part is... getting to see all of the nations march through the arena and hear little tidbits about some of the athletes that you might completely miss otherwise. I'm sure I wasn't the only one that was confused by the order in which they filed in—that damn Russian alphabet is puzzling.

I also always look forward to critiquing the outfits. I love that the Bermudans wear their shorts—although they were tagged for the "worst dressed" list. And it always makes me chuckle when warm weather countries try to tie in tropical garb with the winter games. Personally, I loved Belgium's duds the most. Oh and the USA outfits were HID-E-OUS!! Ralph Lauren deserves a throat punch for that disaster. Is he trying to get our athletes beaten up? No wonder the US team has been told not to wear their stuff outside of the venue...

Luckily, I didn't miss the best part of the show—the incredibly stubborn snowflake that refused to turn into an Olympic ring. I said, "Well, whoever's responsible for that is going to end up in the Gulag." But guess what? Russian President, Vladimir Putin, never saw the mishap—or at least not when it happened. With some quick thinking, a tape delay, and some previous lighting footage, Putin's and all of Russia's feed displayed all five rings. The show's artistic director blamed the malfunction on the stage manager. Talk about a bad day at work. Only millions of people saw your blunder.

I'm guessing that the faux pas wasn't kept secret from Putin for long since everyone, everywhere was talking about it. I wonder where that stage manager is right now? Packing his bags for Siberia? Hiding under his bed? I know how I feel when I make a mistake at work that only a couple people see... This poor guy had commentators actually pointing out the technical difficulty while it was happening.

But at least the gaffe could help to boost the economy. Leave it to a designer at a New York advertising agency to come up with the idea to put it on a t-shirt. You can buy one HERE for the low price of $22.95. The rogue ring also has its own Twitter account. Maybe you'd like to follow it? @ForgetfulRing is actively tweeting and trying to make light of its error. I hope its feed remains spoiler-free which is more than I can say for the rest of the world.

Maybe the people responsible for the recent Sochi hotel debacle paid this stage manager to flub something up to take the heat off of them?