redfiona99 | Entries tagged with figure skating

If Zhang and Zhang had actually landed that quad they should have won. I don't think they would have done, but they should have. As it is I'm perfectly happy with their position. Mother isn't. Her point, and it is well made, was that the Russians were lacking a certain something on the artistic side.

I'm a bit :( that Bjorndalen didn't win in the Biathlon.

I'm also :( that an Austrian didn't win the Downhill, but Walchhoffer took it very well, and was generally a good egg. And that's like 2 silvers we've got so far. Admittedly I'm worried that we're not going to get any golds but still so far so good. Plus, at least it wasn't a Swiss that won it.

I can't really find it in me to be annoyed about Lars Bystoel winning the small hill ski jumping, because he's a pretty cool dude, plus I'm quite fond of the Norwegians.

The crowd at the ice skating are already getting a bit 'grr argh' with the judges, which is not a good sign.

That and it's only 1 day till the men's start and I'm so very worried about Plushenko.

It wasn't so bad. Everyone kind of kept away from each other so rows were kept to a minimum.

And there was ice skating - ice skating with Yagudin and Todd Eldredge. So yeah, colour me happy.

I got two books, one by Richard Dawkins who writes well even when I disagree with him. The other is called "The Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric and Discredited Diseases" and is various sci-fi and fantasy authors inventing ever more ridiculous diseases. It is very, very funny. I've got some money and am having to fight my baser urges to spend it on fripperies like CDs when I should really save it up for fripperies like a foil. Plus I already owe the fencing club some money so I really don't have the money to spend on CDs.

Philip Quast was on the Midsomer Murders Christmas special but they didn't use him for much.

Also caught the end of "Murder at the Vicarage", the new one, that I don't like as much because they mess around with Miss Marple and the stories too much. But it does have Tim McInnery in and this one has Jason Flemyng in it so it has its upsides.

Christmas wrestling smut is going nowhere, I'm sensing that this will be yet more out of date fic when it's finally posted. That's the downside to trying to marry fics to what's happening, the rate I write at its always out of date.

Oh and Potter fic, but you all know how often I actually manage to finish that.

Apparently Plushenko winning yesterday was such an afront to karma that it killed the electricity in the house.

Okay truth be told I killed the electricity in the house but Mum doesn't need to know that now that it's fixed.

Talking about fixing ... nah actually much though it hurts me to admit it the Russians were better. Plus their programme was far easier for an audience to get into. In other words would the Bulgarians quit being quite so arty and do something slightly more down to Earth. Actually I hope they don't because the wierd is what I like about them.

And now the only thing left is the womens, which is the one I don't care too much about.
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New fic out - Evolution pre-smut to be found here - http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?disc=200258;article=490;title=JAWS%20-%20Just%20Another%20Wrestling%20Storyboard

Actually it started going to hell beforehand but still.

Let's start with our central heating boiler going bust. Again. It's going to be a cold couple of weeks.

And then Phil had issues. So I had to go out and deal with him. Of course to get permission to go out I had to explain to Mum that Phil was having issues. She stupidly phones Uncle Ste, who is one of the issues so Uncle Ste comes flying out at us.

So I had to cover to Uncle Ste that the problem was with Colin, which it also was.
Then I get home and have to cover again by saying the problem was with work, which again is part of the problem.

And people wonder why I prefer being at uni. Lord love a duck, I love my family but they drive me up the wall.

Back to actually fun stuff, my boy won. Okay so it involved the judges being biased even more than they usually are but the bias normally works against my favourites so I'll take my joy the one time it doesn't.

Personally I think the best skate of the night was Stephane Lambiel which takes some doing since he's Swiss, but really, he's that damn good. Plus he's all grown up now.

Joubert's routine was good, Mum hasn't seen the Matrix so she hated it but I feel I may have to apologise to him for wondering why he won the European Championship. He also should have won the World Title. That I'm happy about Plushenko winning doesn't change that fact. Ditto Lambiel should have been Bronze not Lindemann but really I'm far happier about Lindemann winning.

Also really happy about Ivan Dinev not having a disaster.

The young American, Weir I think, was really very good.

Someone tell Joubert that having Yagudin as his coach or whatever is cheating, blatant cheating. He always beat Plushenko and now the protege is doing it. (weeps)

Dear Evgeni, stop falling over when you're going backwards. It's bad for you.
Watched most of it with Mum, and quoth she about Plushenko - 'You know he's finally got the beginnings of choreography'. Can't you just tell she was a Yagudin girl. Not that she always taunted me with the fact her chosen skater was better or anything.

But anyhow, however much I may have promised to be a good girl if Plushenko won, at no point did I ask for the hail of bad luck that followed.

Not that it wasn't worth it for both the win and the actual display of emotion for once. Wasn't he a happy little bunny for once.

Sorry about this but I'm a hopeless Plushenko girl.

Current Mood: All Shook Up

Dear Colin, feel free to try and guilt trip me but please be aware of 2 things -
1) I've lived with my Grandmother for 14 years. She is a professional guilt-tripper while you are still an amateur. You're style is still a little off I'm afraid, plus you should know not to do it while my Mum's about because she will always take my side.
2) I have an underdeveloped sense of guilt to begin with.

Actually, he was just pissed off that his daughter has a boyfriend and was taking it out on me. Never mind, I'll get over it.

But I do wish he'd stop being on a health kick. I am well aware that salt and butter are bad for you. However, lack of them makes food taste foul. I've never wanted to live forever but I'd like to make the most of whatever time I have, so let me at the fats and sodium chloride.

( Brief politics whinge )

Other than that whee got to see a little more TNA (which lead to the above mentioned guilt-tripping)
Important points are these -
Why did Vince fire Piper? Really. Because the man is too good for words.
I think I like America's Most Wanted. To clarify, I like the two I think are AMW but I'm not certain they are who I think they are.
I think I'm finally seeing what people like about Sandman and Raven.
There was Vampiro. I am very happy.
Some people have serious complexes about religion.
Too much boy ass. Not enough Trinity ass.
Way too much of Dusty Rhodes's legs.
Hangings well done but icky.

What is that move that AJ Styles does that's sort of like a sitdown Tombstone but with the opponent facing away instead of towards called? Because it looks lethal.
What is the purpose of the go-go girls?
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One more wrestling thing - seeing footage of a young Steven Regal is funny. Because he was skinny. Not thin, skinny. And young, and fresh-faced.
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Figure skating

Pairs - I'm just happy the Poles finished in the top 6. Usual rules about awfulness of costume apply.

Utterly and completely whooo needs to be a mood.

Because guess who now has 'The Wrestling Channel'. Apparently there are a few bonuses that come with Sky Sports that Mum didn't know about or she never would have got it.

Because guess who now has access, however limited, to TNA. It's something called Explosion which looks to be a recap sort of show. Oh and we're about two, maybe more, months behind because Raven has only just had his hair shaved off.

And in the brief glimpses I caught tonight I saw Road Dogg and K-Kwick (yes, not what they're going by at the moment but it's what my brain has them listed as) with Konnan. And I liked their entrance music.

Time for stupid question 1 - Is Glenn Gilberti Disco under another name?

Saw Abyss, wondering whether the Mankind look is deliberate or merely unfortunate.

Saw someone I am 80% sure was Michael Shane wrestling someone I didn't recognise but who had Sting style tights on but without the facepaint. Leading to stupid question 2 - was it Sting? Or if not who was it?

Oh and I saw Piper but I was a good girl and turned the TV back over to the cricket since the cricket was the reason Mum got Sky Sports and without it I wouldn't have had the nice shiny TNA (and others).

Under others come NOAH which was great fun even though my Japanese is non-existant so I couldn't understand the commentary.
Plus Juvetud was on. Red is now on cloud 9.
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Yes, watched the cricket. Am now hunting for pictures of Michael Vaughn, England captain, who has the bluest eyes you ever will see. (Pic hunt complicated by him sharing a name with Alias characters)

Oh and pictures of Andy Flintoff but that's because he's my favourite.

Six nations pics hereabouts -
Scotland really were this bad - http://uk.sports.yahoo.com/040321/2/2mmo.html
And France scored many tries - http://uk.sports.yahoo.com/040321/8/2mnt.html

For some reason lots of the Italians had their hair in braids - http://uk.sports.yahoo.com/040320/3/2lrg.html
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It's the figure skating world championships and I'm home to see them. Very happy about this too.

So far I've only see the first pairs routines and my basic observations are -
The Russians are amassing again (really, how many Russian pairs were there?)
Petrova and Tikhonov seem to have cracked the presentation thing.
It's nice to see the Russian costumes are back to their usual state of dreadful.
It's nice to see the Poles skating well.
The fashion this year appears to be for the men to have shirts open to their navels. This is neither entirely good or bad.
And while I don't mind who wins, the fact that Maxim Marinin is cute does not hinder my cheering. Sorry, as far as the pairs goes I'm 1)the Russians' bitch and 2)unspeakably shallow.

Didn't see much of RAW, only about twenty minutes, due to silly girls who'd rather watch Sex and the City. Not that I wasn't tempted for once but even my crush on Mikhael Barishnikov has its limits.

Anyway my main RAW thoughts are:

HBK getting angry at Orton would be believable if the height difference didn't make me giggle. Really, Shawn, if you're that much smaller, looking them in the chest does not make them scared.

Shut up HHH. (and could the muse one do the same.) And that pedigree looked nasty.

I would like to state for the record that I don't care how it happens, it can be the flukiest, screwiest, most whack job way of winning ever, I just want Benoit to win at WM. Someone in the writing/booking/ideas department is doing something right if I'm feeling this hyper about it already. Plus Benoit being fantastic helps too.

In a similar vein, Eddie winning would be cool too. It's not going to happen, but it would be cool.

From flashback - Bad Kane, bad. No breaking of the Trish. But yay for Jericho.

And that was all I saw.

However, due to Sex and the City foolishness (or stupidly shutting at 11.30 foolishness) I'll probably miss Benoit v Flair next week. So not fair. Edit: I'll also probably miss the Ric/Randy love in. Bah!

Other than that I saw the first about 30-40 minutes of Chicago and want to know what the fuss is about. Yes, it's good, but it's not Best Picture material. No goosebumps have been brought about.

That's probably because of the complete lack of sympathetic characters other than Amos Hart and the Russian woman (who by the way I'm presuming is doomed) Okay, so fine, they're murderers and other riff raff so they shouldn't be sympathetic but it did lead me to just wanting Roxy dead. Because she was so wishy-washy. Velma at least had spirit.

The best character so far has to be the detective. Much hearting of the detective.

However some questions were left

1) Why is Richard Gere singing with an English accent?
2) Why does the director insist on shooting his female cast in the least flattering light possible? Or at least their legs. And crotches. Sam, very male, very fond of the female form Sam, was complaining.

3) Why did what's his face that Roxie shot put his underwear back on to go the toilet? I'm presuming it was because of a male nudity problem but surely there had to be some other way around it.

Catherine Zeta Jones and Queen Latifah own me, but you knew that already. Most of the women in the Cell Block Tango also own me, particularly Squish, the one whose husband ran on to her knife ten times.

And on that note, how much was that scene influenced by Jailhouse Rock. And it was also nice to know what the words were about having spent ages thinking about it watching Bourne and Kraatz's routine to the tune.

(Ice skating note - I haven't seen the Europeans but how the fuck did Joubert win the men's? France produces all these male skaters who do these wonderfully intricate and interesting to watch with tonnes of artistry and one jumping machine, and the jumping machine wins. Any bitterness due to being a fan of the guy in second place has nothing to do with it, because Yagudin beat Plushenko all the time and I'd still admit he was the better skater.)

One thing I did like about the film was the way the musical numbers were played out in Roxie's head.

On an RL note, I'm going to a fencing competition on Sunday. It involves getting up at 6.45. Wish me luck.
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Fencing - ended up getting up at 6.30 instead. Breakfast was museli bars and water. Museli bars tasted like cardboard but they did grow on me.

Had lots of fun. Won the bronze in the womens event. Admittedly there were only three women but ;) Reeda, the other girl from the club that went, won the silver. We were both totally outclassed by the winner so no complaints. Chris the club captain won the overall competition. So all is whee. Love fencing. My back doesn't but what does my back know.

And I've got a cold now but that was a mixture of the early rising, the lack of food, the stupidly high temperature inside the fencing gear - I'd love to know how James manages in his goalie gear, the cold outside and that there's been something going round anyway.
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Monday, back aches something chronic. Walking hurts, sitting up straight hurts. Buses are an agony.

Sound on my laptop has completely gone. I do wish it wouldn't do that.

Just read Mynx's Evolution fic. If you haven't already, go read it. It's good. Although it did set me pondering on how you can see a pairing completely differently from the same starting point. But difference is always good otherwise you end up with 515 different variations on Matt and Jeff loved each other very much but this was fucked up because they were brothers and therefore Jeff killed himself. Not that there's anything much wrong with that either.

Read another chapter of FOTR last night. Man is Gandalf ever the exposition dude. But it fits for he is supposed to be wise and knowledgable. I have no problem with someone being exposition if they are naturally a source of information. So far film Gandalf seems to be very like book Gandalf.
Book Frodo is a little different, I'm not entirely sure how but in someway he gives off a different vibe. As does Book Sam. So far he's burst into tears twice. Save me from over-emotional hobbits.
And Aragorn got a mention.

Then there's all these bits of dialogue that happen in the film. That's one of the good things about the way it was adapted, PJ didn't stick directly to it but when something was good he used it somewhere were it would fit. Like the speech about Bilbo's pity. It wouldn't have fit in at the beginning of the film where it is in the books (and where it works very well) but it did fit in perfectly in Moria.

There's something so right about the ring downscaling its evil to suit the bearer. And of Gollum becoming a sneak when he first found it. There something very unsettling about his downfall too, very understandable, Smeagol's story is indeed a very sad one.

Some how I'm thinking none of the Dwarf ringbearers became ringwraiths because you never hear any of the Nazgul complain about not being made for cross country running. And much with the anti-Dwarf elvish propaganda I notice. Bah! Although I do find it interesting that in some way none of the Elvish rings have been tainted, although they could become so if Sauron ever gets the ring back. I wonder how that works. I'm hoping the reason turns up somewhere in the LOTR trilogy.

It also annoys me quite how uppity the Elves are, just sailing off without a care what happens to anyone else. I do like the idea of the Dwarves being a source of information though.
And the description of the evil of Sauron - "He does not need you - he has many more useful servants - but he won't forget you again. Hobbits as miserable slaves would please him more than Hobbits free and happy." It works. Nothing about him being horrific evil or vicious or unspeakable but that horrid air of nastiness that says all those things without needing too.

First mention of hope by Gandalf about Gollum.
And hee, Frodo saying that the Gandalf saying there are other forces than evil at work, and that he and Bilbo were supposed to get the ring, was not an encouraging thought. I have to say I wouldn't find it encouraging either.

Current Mood: writing way too much

I other words, both Borne and Kraatz and Lobacheva and Averbuch have retired.

And it upsets me, especially the Russian, even though it makes no sense whatsoever. I think it's because I've seen them skate for so long. I remember when they were the 3rd set of Russians. And then Grischuk and Platov retired, and suddenly they moved up about 5 places.

I didn't use to like them. I always used to say they had too many lifts in their programmes. I am so bloody old-fashioned. Anyway, then Krylova and Ovsyanikov retired and they were suddenly the last remaining Russians. And I got to liking them because there was no one else (except a pair of Italians who also ended up being world champions)

And now they're gone. All of them.

And I am sad.

Current Mood: sad

Oh and since I'm an idiot who forgot to mention it in her last post, the Bulgarian couple are Denkova and Stavyiski. Spellings possible up the wazzo.

More about ice skating when less whooo!

Okay so I've missed most of it (kicks self and the tv guide) but I've only missed the pairs (which I know is good but not my favourite) and the ladies (which I hate with a passion) so I have my two favourites left, the ice dance and the men's.

And guess what, after the ice dance compulsaries my present favourites are in second.

Whooooooo!

I mean I know they're not going to win, because they've not been around long enough but whoo!

I love them for the same reason that I love Krylova and Ovsyanikov, because they have rhythm and soul and movement and they seem to love skating.

So whooo!

So my birthday neither rocked nor sucked, which is in keeping with usual.

However, Eurosport gave me one of the greatest birthday presents ever. I finally got to see my favourite ice dance pair skate again.

Anjelica Krylova and Oleg Ovsyanikov

They still rock my world. They have to be the last successful ice dance pair who actually remember the word dance is in the description.

Of course, while they were competing the dance styles chosen for the compulsaries and the original were the ones they were suited to, rock and roll and the like, and then the minute they turn professional, they change to ones that they are good at like waltzing, but I'm so happy I don't even want to complain.

And I remember why I used to love seeing them skate, because they look like they love skating, not for the end result but sheer joy and exhilaration.

They're brilliant.