The 2008 Olympics are well under way by now in Beijing, China, and if you haven't tuned in for any TV or online viewing of the events, you are really missing out on some spectacular sporting event drama. The artistic impression from the venue architecture to the team uniforms, to signage graphics, and on and on... will create design trends for years to come. You just can't help but absorb some of the aura of the artisans who have created this spectacle into your "web designer psyche". The event slogan is "One World, One Dream", so I'm sure some of that requisite went into the overal design theme thinking.

Here's a handy rundown of some notable 2008 Olympic Games Websites:

1. http://en.beijing2008.cn/ - The Official website of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games
2. http://www.olympic.org/uk/games/beijing/index_uk.asp - International Olympic Committee website for the event
3. http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/index - ESPN TV and web coverage home
4. http://www.nbcolympics.com/ - Just your average TV network site page, this one, maybe NBC has a better offering?
5. http://torchrelay.beijing2008.cn/en/image/ - Torch relay graphics
6. http://en.beijing2008.cn/spirit/beijing2008/graphic/n214070893.shtml - Gold, Silver and Bronze Medal Designs
7. http://en.beijing2008.cn/news/official/preparation/n214510154.shtml - Beijing Olympics graphic designers article
8. http://en.beijing2008.cn/funpage/ - Funpage with wallpapers and screensavers
9. http://www.crazyleafdesign.com/blog/superb-designs-for-the-beijing-2008-olympics/ - Photo blog of some Beijing sculpted gardens
10. http://www.usolympicteam.com/ - US Olympic Team homepage with links to all of the individual team sport websites
11. http://www.olympics.com.au/ - The Austrailian Olympic homepage is sporting a brilliant blue design to commemorate this years Beijing Olympic Games.

With too many countries participating to track down all of the web designs themed for Beijing maybe you could share some of your finds?

Future Olympic Games

http://www.london2012.com - The Olympics will be making a stop in London when 2012 rolls around.

http://www.chicago2016.org/News/Pages/home.aspx
It appears Chicago, Illinois is a candidate city for the 2016 Olympics, this page certainly has some interesting design features. click the Activate Homepage button (upper right) and it slides the page up, changes opacity settings and removes the interactive user form, interesting user-interface choices and a way of changing the page focus.

1. 
   Upstruct.com
   Interesting and trendy concept portfolio site, with Prototype and Scriptaculous as the javascript libraries of choice.

2. 
   AlexBuga.com
   One from my favorites, this one has some very interesting script features using mootools and some other "stuff". The green hanging lamp slides back and forth on a slider and produces a realistic light effect. The PNG image of the lamp includes the shining light that is a transparency effect using white for the light. (Note to self: start doing cool stuff with png or else!).

3. 
   Dgscreative.cz/en Something resembling creativity, and it doesn't hurt to have creative in your sites domain name either. The 3D Create logo is spectacular. Another fine detail is the sequential "Loading" animation when viewing portfolio pieces in the lihgtbox overlay.

4. 
   Albertlo.com
   Movable Type CMS, Jquery and some nice plugin work sliding the portfolio thumbnails on the homepage amongst other great features.

5. 
   Maddetective.com
   This website anticipates the UK release of the film "Mad Detective," in which the protagonist can see people's multiple personalities manifested in multiple people. The site is designed to look bruised and beaten, as the main character is in the early scenes.

6. 
   Digitaldesign.cherrypickpeople.com
   A vibrant but simple color palette at work here. The large photographic headers add some visual interest on the different site pages also.

7. 
   Gomediazine.com
   This looks to be a fresh redesign of this site and I'm liking it. Straight from Cleveland, Ohio home of the "Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum". They are stacking up a pretty good content lineup as well as continuing to offer graphic resources, freebies, tutorials and their usual tasty arsenal of vector packs. Keep GoMedia on your radar.

8. 
   Adhamipenderarchitecture.com
   A new design trend on the horizon, very tastefully done here, is animated flash backgrounds. This subtle fractal animation strikes me as a poignant addition to this architect portfolio site, that is a minimal layout in rich color tones... Magnifique!

9. 
   JonRawlinson.com
   My leisure pick of the week, this video producer's website has some great travel footage from all around the world. Take a break, and have a look. This one's utilizing Wordpress folks.

10. 
    Current.com
    Leisure pick number two. Having not delved too much into video and tv content type sites. The user-interface (UI) for this beta site is pretty well developed. The player was in use on the previous Jon Rawlinson site. Check out the schedule page for a flash nav gizmo, really nice stuff.
    
    Let me know what some of your favorite sites are for something more than youTube video shorts.

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Only a few years ago the Toledo, Ohio area produced a Sunday Night Blues radio program for several years, that program has since fallen by the wayside. The program piggy backed on the success of such modern rock-blues guitarist's as the late Stevie Ray Vaughan SRV, Jonny Lang, Ian Moore, Kenny Wayne Shepherd and others... And also covered some regional blues, cajun, etc.

The question is, are there any national Sunday Night blues radio programs available with streaming podcasts or other? Post the links, I'm sure there are still some. Give us a shout "Pork Chop"!