| The Olympics are coming! The Olympics are coming! |
[Nov. 22nd, 2009|03:02 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | skating | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  bleary | ] |
The Olympics are coming! The Olympics are coming!
If you're like me (in years past) you probably tune in to these winter sports, oh, once every four years. You get a general sense of who the favorites are from the announcers and interviews, roll your eyes at the inspirational life story clips, and root for the home team.
Now you don't have to be in the dark. You can be knowledgeable long before the Olympics hit.
At least about figure skating. (Everyone, feel free to correct me. I'm not an expert, I've just been following skating to the best of my ability for a couple years.)
Right now the horse race is on. It's the Grand Prix. As we speak, world class skaters are competing in a series of competitions Russia, France, Canada, the U.S., Japan, and er, I think elsewhere. Right now they're trying to earn points to get to the Grand Prix final -- and prove themselves worthy of the Olympic teams.
You see, last March at the World Championships each country won the number of slots they'd have at the Olympics based on how their skaters did. (The max is three.) China was very disappointed to not win any for men's figure skating. In a real shocker, the U.S. women's figure skating only scored two slots as our current National champ fell apart.
But our men are doing fab. Evan Lysacek won the gold at Worlds and we have a "deep field," namely, many guys running neck and neck for the same titles.
Let's have a look at our boys.
The Americans.
The ever-hot gentleman, Evan Lysacek. (The belt buckle is Batman, with cable and bat-grappling hook.)
( Evan has the quad. He has the fire. He's a skater who starts pouring it out in the last 30 seconds of his performance.... )
Finally, there's Mabanoozerabadahblbrghf. Graceful, fluid, fun to watch. I don't know if he'll keep moving up, he's still inconsistent. But he has a musical sense that makes him figure skating eye candy.
Only three will make it to the Olympics.
Which three? We'll know at Nationals in Spokane, January 2010.
Tomorrow: those other guys, yeah, them foreigners. |
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| Out Of Bounds: choreography for John's freeskate. Augh! |
[May. 3rd, 2009|07:44 pm] |
Now writing the choreography for John's long program.
I'm officially scared of this scene.
To make myself see it, I'm writing background scenes from the summer training. Maybe wqatching Sonja do the choreography will make it easier. *tears at hair*
Someone who knows what they're doing ... help. |
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| Not considering a Merlin figure skating AU, oh no. |
[Mar. 26th, 2009|10:36 pm] |
I'm not saying that I've considered writing a Merlin figure skating AU where Arthur and Merlin are competitors. But watching Anton Kovalevski skate...
... makes such thoughts inevitable.
And tonight at Worlds his hair was even longer. Frighteningly like Arthur. |
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| Worlds! And dithering, so much dithering |
[Mar. 26th, 2009|05:28 pm] |
Eeee! The men's World Championship is on in five minutes!
Wrote the warm-up to John's short program for Out Of Bounds. Now I need to write his actual short program (or this other scene that's prodding at me). I'm wondering if I should include more of the other skaters or just focus primarily on John's performance.
Any experienced fic writers out there who'd like to do a little hand-holding? I'm dithering and second-guessing myself about these last few scattered scenes like you wouldn't believe. I need someone to tell me, "No, Icarus, that's a bad idea" or "Yes, Icarus, you should write more about the other skaters" and unfortunately my betas are busy right now. |
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| U.S. Nationals! |
[Jan. 25th, 2009|02:34 pm] |
You guys are watching the U.S. National Championships now, aren't you?
Go, go, go!
Oh, what an intense, strong, jump-filled and totally professional proformance from this high school kid who just moved up from juniors this year, Mroz. Fun performance (with whoopsies) by the sexy playful Ryan Bradley.
And now, the ringer for John Sheppard, Evan Lysacek is about to perform.
Wooooo! |
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| Skating competition in the Netherlands. |
[Dec. 21st, 2008|04:13 pm] |
Quick. I need a city in the Netherlands for a skating competition.* I can't find the name of the city where I stayed in 1985. (Who knew I never wrote Gerben's address down?)
* Not Amsterdam. |
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| Icenetwork.com speaking, please how may we ignore you? |
[Nov. 16th, 2008|09:52 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | skating | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  irate | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Street Fighter - Vega Stage | ] |
Icenetwork.com has absolutely dreadful customer service.
Why am I signed up with these jokers again? Oh, yeah, right. I want to watch the Regionals and Sectionals.
If anyone can give me a better option to watch these lower eschelon competitions, I will drop Icenetwork.com in a heartbeat. Any ideas? |
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| Drive-by posting: skating! |
[Oct. 26th, 2008|11:53 am] |
| [ | Tags | | | skating | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  ditzy | ] |
Up late last night. Skate America got out at 11:30. Yes, that's pm. Get this: Lysacek's final performance started at 11:05. What a ridiculous schedule, do they do this often?
Woke up late this am. Definitely not doing the 7:30am fan fest this am, eh? Driving back and forth between here and Skate America, I think I've worn a trench in the road.
The crowd booed the judges at the end of the men's program when Lysacek came in third. He really sold it in his performance, but I'm guessing he paid a lot of technical points throughout. Must ask ![[info]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) roaringmice what she thinks.
My favorite women's skater is Kim Na-Yung. Talk about elegance. Off to the races. Will reply later.
Skate America's too short! |
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| Skate America practice session. |
[Oct. 23rd, 2008|11:50 pm] |
Skate America practice sessions:
Wow.
Not too coherent right now, partially because I was up at 4:45am. But some incoherent thoughts:
Wow. Those two Canadian men's skaters arrowing across the ice. What speed. This isn't figure skating. It's Nascar.
Wow. Evan Lysacek bulldogging Johnny Weir. (Okay, I get it, I get it. He considers Weir "the enemy." More about this later.)
Wow. The difference between the fiercely competitive men's skaters and the far more polite ice dancers.
Wow. The sheer adorableness of Emily Samuelson and Evan Bates spunky 1940s program. Really, grab this one on YouTube the moment it's available.
Wow. Belbin and Agosto. What class. It's like watching Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers show up for an intermediate tap class. There's no comparison. (What makes them great is that Agosto is as fine a skater as she is, and just as riveting. And hell he looks good in tails.) They skated another couple's music, actually skating one to either side of them. More about this psych out in a minute.
Wow. Skaters try to psych each other out by skating one another's music. And it works. There was an incredible moment where Lysacek was skating Weir's music, circling Weir as Weir tried to do his program, making "I'm taking you to the cleaners" eye contact. They were skating together against Johnny's will, it was beautiful, and intense -- visual trash talking. Lysacek skated away, turning his back on Weir, hand on his hip as he stood at the boards, obviously pissed. Another trick is to throw big jumps during a skater's turn, distracting the crowd.
Wow. Todd Eldredge was there with Kimmie Meissner (who has ugly dresses). She seems to be skating well. All smiles and her coach and Todd were beaming. Todd chews gum like a baseball player.
Wow. Miki Ando is a beautiful skater.
Wow. The men fall a lot. They're aggressive, they try all their hardest jumps in practice, and... I started keeping a list of the various ways to fall. There's the skate sliding out and slamming into the boards. There's the overbalance plus shoulder skid. There's the skate wobble followed by dropping like an anvil. There's Johnny Weir's favorite, the overshoot plus bottom bounce (legs in the air, very silly looking). There's the Evan Lysacek forward stumble with shoulder roll, like he's been tackled. There's the falling out of the jump with an ice touch. There's the sideways slide on one's side. The toepick snag and trip (with or without faceplant). The spin wobble with backward flop. The desperate "oh no!" skate skitter followed by a butt bounce. The mushy landing with a sloppy backward thump. The variety is endless. And most of the falls were in men's. In women's, only Kimmie spent the practice working on her jumps.
Also, I think coaches' eyes turn into laser beams as soon as "their" skater hits the ice.
I got a lot out of this, and not what I expected to see at all. |
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| Figure skating ticket. |
[Oct. 19th, 2008|11:16 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | skating | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | hopeful | ] |
Hey-la.
Do you like figure skating?
Would you like a free ticket to a major figure skating event that WG cannot attend?
By which I mean Skate America.
By which I mean you get to see Evan Lysacek and Johnny Weir and some of the top skaters in the world do their artistic/fun exhibition programs this weekend.
By which I mean that I will pick you up and drive up to Everett for a fun evening of figure skating and frisbees, for an event that's very nearly sold out.
I've talked to scribbling_elf (who's not sure about her interest in figure skating per se). I hate to see this ticket go to waste since it's unlikely I'd be able to sell it on Ebay.
And, frankly, I'd rather take one of you guys.
Waddaya say? |
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| Vancouver residents? |
[Oct. 16th, 2008|11:05 pm] |
Is there anyone on my f-list who lives in or near Vancouver, Canada? |
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| Nationals: The men's awards ceremony. |
[Feb. 1st, 2008|09:18 am] |
| [ | Tags | | | skating | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | awake | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Stuck in my head: We Are The Champions - Queen | ] |
As requested, here's the awards ceremony for the men's championship, complete with wildernessguru's comments:
Invalid video URL.
Congratulations, Evan Lysacek.
I just learned from roaringmice that next year's Skate America will be held in Everett, WA. Skate America - Oct. 24-26, 2008 – Practice ice and Fan Fest begins Oct. 23, 2008. I think it's a smart move to drum up local interest early since --
Four Continents Figure Skating Championships 2009 will be held on February 2-8, 2009 in Vancouver’s Pacific Coliseum.
Annnnnnnd... as most of you may know...
The Olympics will be held in Vancouver, Canada, just across the border in 2010. |
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| Evan Lysacek's warm-up for the long program. |
[Jan. 31st, 2008|07:53 pm] |
Man... I woke up this morning and I was so wiped from last night's homework cram, even though I wanted to work on Out Of Bounds -- I couldn't. I drew a complete blank. I did tinker a bit with a scene that I sent dossier, rabidfan & Co. last week.
I'm thinking I'm going to do some "splatter" writing: just write random scenes that I feel strongly that I can fit together at a later point.
For those of you who were interested, here's my shaky (sorry, I'm new to digital cameras) footage of Evan Lysacek's warm-up for the US Nationals Freeskate. I rather enjoy wildernessguru's running commentary:
Invalid video URL. |
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| Weir. You can always count on him.... |
[Jan. 31st, 2008|09:22 am] |
| [ | Tags | | | skating | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | cheerful | ] |
... to bluntly say what no one else will admit.
"Figure skating used to have a public persona comparable to the high school homecoming queen or prom queen," the always-controversial Weir noted before the [US Nationals]. "Now our image to the public is the homecoming queen after she got knocked up on prom night and is living on the wrong side of the tracks."
Weir of course, is referring to the 2002 Olympic judging scandal which tarnished the reputation of figure skating worldwide but had the biggest impact in the U.S., where the games were hosted and saw the biggest TV audience.
Personally, I think the the new scoring system is the problem, not the politics. The politics behind the scenes had always been the fun part of figure skating for the audience. We used to know which judge gave which score and have always gone, "Ooo! Look at the low score the Russian judge gave the American skater." Plus the scores were easy to understand. Even in grammar school I knew that 6.0 was better than a 5.7, and grasped the concept that 6.0 was like a perfect "A."
Now we get a score: "244.77."
Huh? What does that number mean to the fans who don't follow skating religiously? I told WG, "Anything over 200 is pro-level." But that applies to the final combined short program and freeskate score, not the short program alone.
Weir and Lysacek's tie this weekend at 244.77 is much more exciting when you know that this is the highest skating score ever. That's how hard they fought each other.
Tickets to the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, Canada, go on sale this October. Figure skating tickets are as low as $50 for the nosebleed seats. Trust Canada to keep their promise to have affordable tickets so regular people can attend. Figure skating is a great show. Unlike skiing, where you can expect to stand there for an hour only to have a blur rush by ("which guy was that?" -- "I think he was ours"), skating delivers three hours of non-stop entertainment. Even between programs there are always skaters warming up on the ice doing cool jumps (or impressive falls).
Anyhow, I have two shaky and poor quality vids of the US Nationals that have been uploaded to Imeem, I'm just waiting for the confirmation email.
Overwhelmed at school this week. I started my tutoring job and so -- eep. Haywire. |
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| We're home. |
[Jan. 28th, 2008|11:27 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | home, skating | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | relaxed | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | In my mind? The theme from Pirates of the Caribbean | ] |
We're home. I feel like we've had a real vacation.
Fuzzhead missed us and is doing the rounds of lap-leaping, and snuggle-insistence. He seems very relieved we're here.
And, ahhhhh. The figure skating was great. |
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| I confess. I've been holding out on you guys. |
[Jan. 23rd, 2008|11:02 pm] |
Okay, I've been holding out on you guys.
I'm naturally superstitious. So I decided to wait to get excited.
But ... I just got my new contacts. New glasses. Spunky haircut (couldn't get a colorist so that's for next time). We bought a digital camera. We have our binoculars for each of us. We have little gift baggies for snacks. wildernessguru is almost packed while I'm going to pack tomorrow night.
I have my confirmation number for the airline tickets. For the car reservation. For the hotel. We have a last-minute snafu with the pet sitter so we're scraping to find another one (hey, anyone in Seattle want to feed a cat?).
I have the tickets to the National Figure Skating Championships in my hot little hand.
9am Friday! We leave at 9am Friday!
Watch me abandon all dignity.
Woo woo! *Kermit flail!* *fists in the air, ass wiggling dance*
I promise you all I will take notes, copious notes, for Out Of Bounds. |
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| Nationals. |
[Jan. 22nd, 2008|06:21 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | skating | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | cheerful | ] |
Skating fans.
If you're interested, and have a broadband connection, you can watch coverage of the younger skaters right now at Icenetwork.com.
I thought you had to have a subscription but it seems not?
The Nationals are here. :D |
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| Please shut up, Nancy Kerrigan. |
[Jan. 19th, 2008|11:23 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | skating | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | cheerfully annoyed | ] |
I just can't stand Nancy Kerrigan as an announcer.
Okay, okay, during the competitions she's not bad. She knows (and can tell us) the difference between a triple flip and a triple Lutz -- although no one does it like Dick Button. Button tells where the skater has been, tells us, "Ryan has always had trouble with his speed but boy, he's fast tonight!" He gives us a sense of history, that this competition isn't an isolated event.
But she's driving me batty during the exhibitions. She just doesn't know when to talk or when to shut up.
Pointers for future announcers:
1 - Watch your mic. If it's fallen closer to your face -- put it back where it was! Otherwise your voice is now very, very loud, and very unprofessional. A tip: your nasal voice should not be louder than the music.
2 - Give the important information up front. The song. The skater name. Don't wait until halfway through the performance when the viewer is into the show to interrupt it to tell us this shit. Cute comments also go in the beginning. Then let the viewer watch.
3 - We don't care about your past experiences in skating. Really. We don't want to know what it's like for you to perform in an exhibition. We're not watching you. You are not the show. You are just a disembodied voice. (Besides, Nancy, you always sucked. You were technically pristine but a boring performer.)
4 - You are watching the jumps. The viewer is watching the show. Don't shut up during the jumps and talk over the performance when you get bored. The truth is, hard as they are, important as they are, you've seen one jump, you've seen them all. Footwork, character, expression are what matter in an exhibition. You know, the stuff you're interrupting?
5 - It's an exhibition. Telling us during an exhibition that it's illegal to do that backflip is completely irrelevant. It's not a competion.
6 - Pay attention to what's going on. Never tell us what you don't know. For example, telling us that "I got so into it I didn't catch whether Takahachi did a triple flip or a--" *strangles Nancy* |
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| Capturing Video... lots of ideas, none working so far. |
[Jan. 19th, 2008|01:33 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | skating | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | interested | ] |
Alrighty then. I'm trying several ways to capture video. YouTube is easy. I'm trying to do this, however, from a site that's gotten creative in how the streaming video is displayed. The video appears in a little window within a pop-up window. There is no URL to the file.
Real Player version 11 Tools -- Preferences -- Downloads and Recording
While this works nicely for YouTube, it records just the blue surrounding background window for the videos I'm trying to capture.
Firefox's Download Helper then convert it from flv using Media Converter. (Super (c) will also work.)
Download Helper shows a list of sites that it works on. My site is not on that list.
Use a program called 'Replay Media Catcher' to grab the file.
I'm trying out the free trial version of this now. So far it doesn't seem to be doing anything. I'll have to test it on YouTube to find out if I'm just using it incorrectly, or if it's this site again.
You don't need any software to capture the You Tube videos. UseInternet Explorer to access the site. Then open your Temporary Internet Files Folder via Windows Explorer. Sort the files by "Last Accessed" byclicking that heading. The YouTube videos have a filename using this pattern: "get_video?video_id=".
Drag this file to your desktop or another folder and give it the nameof the file you just watched with the filetype of ".flv". Download theFLV file player or VLC and you can watch the video as often as youlike. NOTE: The file won't appear in the folder until it is nearly done playing; the time depends upon your internet speed.
For some reason this isn't working for me. There is no file in my Temporary Internet Files folder (and I remember there once was a whole listing) just a dat file. ??
For firefox users, flash streamed videos can be found in the user'stemp folder in the format fla???.tmp. Wait until the progress bar iscomplete (press F5 in explorer to ensure that the file size is nolonger increasing) then use an unlocker to copy the file to anotherlocation with an flv extension. I use Unlocker from http://ccollomb.free.fr/unlocker/ (freeware).
I haven't tried this yet.
I am still open to suggestions, helps, advice from all you tech-savvy people. :)
In other news, I downloaded my first torrent last night. Go me. |
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desperate
tired but joyful
worried
jubilant!