You Know You're a Figure Skating Fan When...

[moonvine]

for worlds in montreal in 2020, i had bought 3 days out of 5 (no gala and I think i had skip the thursday or the wednesday)...
I am considering something similar this time around... skipping the first would probably mean skipping short programs for two disciplines and if it's pairs, it's usually ok because most pairs make it to the free... but yeah... I am not sure I can do 4 days SITTING at the rink... I find GPs very long and it's just two short days... really considering here... at home, it's easier.. sometimes i would pass out... or at least change set-up (chair,desk, couch, etc) but at the rink? Have you ever done 4 full days?

I’ve done 6 days at Nationals. Next year I’m going to try to do 7, that would be s practice day. Skipping only the junior ladies because they started at 9 am and it didn’t finish til 11 pm. Once I get there I do not leave because I watch practices. After that I am so tired I have to take a day to recuperate because otherwise I’m so exhausted I can only drive short distance. I drove 2 days to Boston because I was going to see Gracie. I got super excited to see all the good skating and couldn’t sleep. Took me 4 days to drive home. So now I take the train if the drive is over 9 hours or so.

But staying up all night? Cannot do it. Just makes me sleep more.

 

[moonvine]

well... here is the deal... if it starts late in the evening, I will watch some of it live...BUT i doubt it will be like that... I have the feeling that it will start at 4am or 5am like the LPs.. which is not happening for me... Saitama, i would start watching at 10pm Eastern and then would get sucked in to watch as much of the second session until i passed out... but there is no way i would stay up until 5 to start watching an event and even less way that i would go to bed super early to wake up at 5am... anyway... is the schedule out?

I don’t know about the schedule but I think with so few skaters they probably will start evening time in Japan.

 

[Weathergal]

You start following a fine arts museum in Boston because they have a picture of Yuzuru in their Great Wave exhibition and you then find out you would really like to go there for a lot of their other permanent stuff (god, my passions get tangled and interconnected so much). So Boston is now on my little list of 'why the US might not be a bad idea' and it's all FS's fault.

(I'm putting a couple of links just as text, including the main Great Wave one because I adore and collect Great Wave homages )

https://twitter.com/mfaboston/status/1639990663981801473

https://twitter.com/abcd9mooo/status/1640269882926465024

https://twitter.com/mfaboston/status/1640337297018171394

I've been to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and really recommend it! And if you want to see more art while you're there, visit the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum. It is in an old mansion and is one my favorite museums ever! It is incredible that this came from one collection.

Getting back to skating...how amazing that Yuzu has made his way into the museum!

 

[TallyT]

I've been to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and really recommend it! And if you want to see more art while you're there, visit the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum. It is in an old mansion and is one my favorite museums ever! It is incredible that this came from one collection.

Getting back to skating...how amazing that Yuzu has made his way into the museum!

{Scribbling details in 'one day one day maybe' book...} Thank you! I love museums and galleries.

Yep, Yuzu does have quite an appeal to artists etc... this was somewhat out of left field, but when you look at the couture outfit he was wearing for that photoshoot you can see where the wave idea comes in.

The Lego Great Wave is also amazing.

 

[cake]

When everybody else is looking forward to summer and you think "Oh, no - off season"

 

[skatedreamer]

{Scribbling details in 'one day one day maybe' book...} Thank you! I love museums and galleries.

Yep, Yuzu does have quite an appeal to artists etc... this was somewhat out of left field, but when you look at the couture outfit he was wearing for that photoshoot you can see where the wave idea comes in.

The Lego Great Wave is also amazing.

Right? I couldn't believe that was all Legos -- so imaginative!

 

[jgg220]

You know you're a figure skating fan when you're watching the Netflix documentary about David Koresh and, when learning that one of the songs the FBI blared on repeat to try to evacuate the cult was "These Boots Are Made for Wakin'," your immediate thought is, "That would have been one of the least offensive songs in most of the figure skating events I've seen this decade."

 

[CaroLiza_fan]

...when you watch this morning's episode of "Honey West" on Talking Pictures TV (Series 1, Episode 19: "It's Earlier Than You Think"), and you see a sign in front of a house that says:

For Sale
Knierim Real Estate Co.
TH 61420​

And you think "Mmmm. I can't imagine that 'Knierim' was that popular a surname in 1960's America. I wonder if it was a relative of Chris' that inspired this choice of name for a fictional estate agent's".

Maybe somebody that worked for Four Star Television knew a Knierim, and liked the sound of the name, and suggested it to the producers. Or perhaps a Knierim worked for Four Star themselves, and the name was used in the episode as an acknowledgement for their work.

Hey, for all I know maybe it was the name of a real life estate agent's, and it was shown as a form of product placement (did they have that as early as the 1960's in America? We didn't get it in the UK until about 10 years ago). Does Chris have any estate agents in his family?

Whatever led to the name appearing in the episode, it would be fascinating to know if there was a connection to Chris' family.

CaroLiza_fan

 

[iluvtodd]

You know you're a figure skating fan when you're watching the Netflix documentary about David Koresh and, when learning that one of the songs the FBI blared on repeat to try to evacuate the cult was "These Boots Are Made for Wakin'," your immediate thought is, "That would have been one of the least offensive songs in most of the figure skating events I've seen this decade."

I really liked Maddie & Evan's SOI exhibition performance of "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'." For that matter, I also enjoyed it when Jill Trenary skated to it.

 

[CaroLiza_fan]

...when you discover that there are free AI text to image generators, and you try them out using the term "Tuktamysheva"

Some of the images generated were dodgy enough (some made her look like a bloke!), but other images were just beautiful.

Here are a couple of the dodgy ones:



And here are some of the good ones:



The website I was using had a selection of styles, and for all of my experiments, I tried two of the options - "Cyberpunk Portrait" and "Fantasy Portrait".

Here are the two that were created by inputting "Tuktamysheva as Pocahontas":



Ah. I didn't realise there was a limit to the number of attachments.

Give me a moment, because there are a couple more I want to post.

CaroLiza_fan

 

[CaroLiza_fan]

Continued from above.

OK, so I tried a few other skaters too. But, not quite as many times as I did with Liza.

Carolina Kostner:



Polina Ustinova:



There were other skaters I tried, but the images were so far off I don't know how they came to them.

Finally, in honour of @Jeanie19 , I also tried "Evgenia Medvedeva pretty dress". And here are the two results:



The Zhenya ones didn't turn out great, did they?

All in all, it's amazing what this artificial intelligence can do. And I will be trying more.

CaroLiza_fan

 

[yesterday]

...you wanted to create what's mentioned above to celebrate a two-time-Worlds-Champ-two-time-Worlds-Champ-coach's birthday but you're not happy with the results and comic portrait was what worked best.

 

[TallyT]

You are going to spend something like $250 AU (depending on postage and I don't think I wanna know) on a snowglobe.

 

[skatedreamer]

When you dream about one of your posts on GS...and then edit the post in the same dream.

Clearly I've been hanging out here too much!

 

[iluvtodd]

... when you continue to buy/order online international flags of countries you haven't visited in order to support the skaters from those countries, whether you're watching the competition (or show) in person or @ home.

 

[CaroLiza_fan]

...when you go to a Twitter page that you regularly visit because the owner puts up lots of old photos he finds on the internet of his homeland (Cyprus). And you see a photo taken in 1913 of a group of people in a particular village. And the first thought that comes into your mind is: "that's the village that Marilena's family was originally from. I know it's a long shot, but I wonder if any of the people in the photo were perhaps related to her".

https://twitter.com/Blueyonetwo/status/1646107972110802944/photo/1

Incidentally, here is another photo, but taken about 50 years later at the beach, that he posted 2 years ago:

https://twitter.com/Blueyonetwo/status/1378692315137499139/photo/1

I'm pretty sure I've gone through the coastal part of the village while travelling along the road between Morphou and Kyrenia. But it's hard to tell because the north coast around Kyrenia is now just one big conurbation. (Just like the south coast around Limassol).

CaroLiza_fan

 

[Arriba627]

...when you say you won't stay up 'til 3 am watching the pairs, and then you do it anyway!

 

[labgoat]

When the season is over and you still check in daily to GS for any tidbits.

 

[CaroLiza_fan]

... when you continue to buy/order online international flags of countries you haven't visited in order to support the skaters from those countries, whether you're watching the competition (or show) in person or @ home.

I am currently in a dilemma over flags.

There are a couple of flags that I have been looking for on a well known auction website for years, and they are so obscure that I have never seen them for sale on there before. But there is finally somebody selling both of them. And they are at a relatively reasonable price too!

The problem is that I am very fussy about the quality of the material. And I have found from past experience that you can't judge from the price. For example, one of the cheapest flags I have bought had the best quality material. Meanwhile, you could spit through by far the most expensive flag I have ever bought! When you are buying online, you just don't know what you are getting. That is why I prefer to buy flags from an actual shop, where you can inspect them before you buy. But, it has been so long since I was in a shop that sold a wide variety of flags. The last one I was in was in Edinburgh, and that was about 15 years ago. I don't know of any in Northern Ireland.

The added complication is that I know that the two flags I am looking at are in the ratio 1:2. But, the sizes in the drop down menu seem to be in the more common ratio of 2:3. So that is also adding doubts to my head.

For that matter, I am dithering over which size to buy. 5ft wide (which is what I have bought in the past), or 3ft wide (which is a better size for holding up).

The seller is in China, and the predicted time for delivery is 2 to 3 months. So, if they are not exactly what I want, it will take ages for me to find out.

I have been thinking over this for a few weeks now, and I am still no-where nearer making a decision over whether to buy them and, if so, which size to buy.

Why am I like this?!

CaroLiza_fan

 

[TallyT]

With all the news and pics and videos of Yuzu's visit to TCC this week after 3 years(!!) and people waxing emotional about the 11 years since he first went there, I acted on a whim and went looking in the 2011-12 archive to see what people thought when he first went there. It's the first thread that comes up and oh boy, opinions were really mixed and quite a lot negative/critical (someone thought he would never have another program with the same emotional impact ) Hindsight is a wonderful thing, isn't it?

Ironically, the very first thread on the 2010-11 archive was Chock and Bates teaming up, a short and startlingly unenthused discussion. Could they but see where this couple would end up...