Meet Kathleen: Guest Star

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Kathleen helms the our up and coming “Cooking Poor” video segments. She is also a frequent Words to Bumble guest star who find treasures in the subway and has issues with apartment rehabbing.

Shocking Performances, A Displaced Queen & the Olympic Hangover: Ladies’ Figure Skating World Championships

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If Johnny Weir has said it once, he has said it a hundred times: “the Olympic hangover” had a huge effect on the figure skating world championships this year. Several of the top male competitors– including Weir– dropped out of the competition and the women– especially those on the younger side– appear to have cracked under the pressure of the final act to the Olympic season beginning a mere three weeks after closing ceremonies. After the free skates Tara Lipinski (who called the programs with Andrea Joyce and also provided commentary with Johnny Weir and Peter Carruthers in the so-called Universal Sports “loft”) exclaimed in exasperation, “These ladies need to learn to handle pressure!”

While the men’s championship was already a completely different beast from Olympic competition due to the absence of leaders Evan Lysacek and Evgeny Plushenko, the women’s field retained an almost full roster of high-ranking skaters, excluding bronze Olympian Joannie Rochette.

There were opportunities for redemption– as in the men’s competition–, titles to be defended and expectations to be met. There was potential for drama and drama was had.

The Short Programs:

UniversalSports.com

Mirai Nagasu skated a downright spectacular short program, earning her a 70.04 point personal best providing the breakout performance of the competition. As analyst Peter Carruthers said: “Wow– did she just rock the place!”

Nagasu’s dreamy skate preceding the most shocking of the short programs: Olympic champion Kim Yu-Na delivered an oddly off performance of her James Bond routine, leaving the arena stunned silent upon receipt of her score: 60.03, ten points below Nagasu (who skated just before her) and a full eighteen points below her Olympic showing.

Coming off the ice Kim said something about a boot lace to her coach. She has also expressed having difficulty remaining focused and motivated after the emotional and physical strain of the Olympic games in Vancouver last month. She shortened a triple flip, had wobbly landings and some issues on a spiral sequence.

Neither fans nor commentators nor Kim herself seemed to have any idea what to do with such a result. Lipinski put it simply: “It’s so shocking.”

Weir continued with, “I think she’s so used to skating clean– it shocks not only us but it shocks her.”

One of the most shocking results of Kim’s short program is that she did not score high enough to warm up and skate with the last group for the long program. Her final placement for the short program was seventh position.

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Due to Kim’s poor showing, Olympic silver medalist Mao Asada of Japan found herself in prime position to challenge the Olympic champion and defending World Champion Kim Yu-Na. Asada’s short program put her into second place just a few points behind Nagasu. Asada of course had been the Kim’s main rival over the  years; this season found her more and more unable to catch up as Kim continued to excel at a meteoric rate. In fact, in the past two years Kim had only ceded once to the competition– that competition was Asada still fighting her end of a fading rivalry against a fierce opponent. After the short program Weir selected Asada as his pick for the top of the podium.

Laura Lepisto of Finland took third place after the short program, after having been somewhat discounted in Vancouver.

The Free Skate:

Kim Yu-Na delivered another lackluster performance for her free skate. As she came off the ice, Lipinski forecasted: “I know she wants to defend her title, but I’m not sure that’s going to be enough to win.”  She suffered an unlikely fall, a scratched jump and substituted with a waltz jump, which– sidebar–  Tara Lipinski declared  is the jump you learn when you are three years old. Lipinski appeared to be quite frustrated with the inconsistency of the performances at these Worlds.

Giampiero Sposito/ Getty Images/ UniversalSports.com

Surprisingly Kim’s free skate was scored the highest, allowing her to somewhat overcome her short program and land on the podium for the silver medal. I for one was  shocked by the final standings, particularly when confronted by the utterly defeatist attitude that Kim took onto the ice. Weir even observed that it “looked like she was hating being out there,” and Lipinski commented on “the way she got up was so slow” after falling on a salchow.

Damien Meyers/ Getty Images/ UniversalSports.com

Skating after Kim, Asada put in a strong performance that was somehow scored below Kim’s free skate but still placed Asada in first place when combined with her short program. Asada delivered her trademark triple axel twice, prompting Lipinski to exclaim,”Her jumps are just so smooth!”

A final declaration by Joyce: “Wow! What a terrific  performance by Mao Asada and she knows it!”

Skating second to last, it seemed that Mirai Nagasu was well within reach of the podium, if not the top spot. Lipinski uttered ill-fated words: “These next four minutes could really change [Nagasu’s] career.” [Full recap of Nagasu at the Worlds]

Clearly there were a lot of nerves at stake given Nagasu’s unexpected ranking coming out of the short program and it appears that at the end of such a high-stress Olympic-year season the pressure was just too much. Instead of being bolstered by her short program performance, Nagasu caught herself a bunch of nerves and despite fighting her way through the entire program could not hang on and ended up in a disappointing seventh place.

Yuri Kadobnovi/ Getty Images/ UniversalSport.com

Laura Lepisto again put in another solid skate, placing sixth in the free skate and holding on to her third place position overall for the bronze medal behind Kim Yu-Na in an unaccustomed number two position and Mao Asada claiming a deserved and hard-won gold at the top.

Weir, as usual, reflected on the subjectivity of judging in figure skating, saying that he felt Nagasu was overly punished for her mistakes. Regarding Lepisto he said that although she stated well, she only has doubles in her repertoire: “She didn’t have the jumps… It was disappointing for me to see that as a bronze medal performance,” which he thinks would have been more fairly awarded to Miki Ando of Japan.

I for one loved seeing the reality of competition in this ladies championship, especially after the Olympic where Kim Yu-Na was so unstoppable that the competition was downgraded to a fight for silver and bronze. Torino bore witness to the fierceness that is Mao Asada, the lady who lands multiple triple axels and who continued to challenge herself to challenge Kim Yu-Na for the gold– even at the Olympics.

Her triple axels even made Tara Lipinski’s ‘best moments’ list: “Watching Mao land a second triple axel, I just admire her so much!”

It really was a most exciting competition to watch; both more exciting and more devastating that the Olympics– a battle to the end. I give Mao Asada the Words to Bumble Fierce Award.

Ups & Downs: Mirai Nagasu at the 2010 ISU World Championships

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Clive Rose/Getty Images/ UniversalSports.com

Mirai Nagasu skated a downright spectacular short program, earning her a 70.04 point personal best providing the breakout performance of the competition. The camera caught her exclaiming, “yeah!” in the kiss and cry area upon hearing her score. When asked to name her “best moments” of the 2010 World Championships, Lipinski recalled the grin on Nagasu’s face in the final pose of her short program, soaking it all in and “really enjoying the moment.” Weir tried to describe the emotions at play in the final pose of a stellar skate: “That beautiful joy, and just– you know, holding that end position.”

But back to the beginning…

As Nagasu entered the ice Andrea Joyce noted, “What a fighter she has come to be.” Lipinski reflected, “The focus she has just before she skates is amazing.” As such a young skater competing again the likes of Kim Yu-Na and Mao Asada, Nagasu had not been lauded as a skater in contention for a medal at the Olympics, making her fourth place finish quite the fighting statement. Her first place score for the short program declared yet again that Nagasu is, as she likes to say, “the future.”

Clive Rose/ Getty Images/ UniversalSports.com

It was a spectacular performance full of Nagasu’s unparalleled trademark spins, spirals and fluid grace, leading Lipinski to comment, “This is what she does best… I don’t think anybody can match her on the spins orthe spirals… Look at the flexibility, it’s amazing! … She keeps the speed throughout the entire spin.”

Weir exclaimed, “She has to be missing bones in her back! … It’s gorgeous, no one can do that.”

And Lipinski went on to praise the totality of Nagasu’s skating, because of course it is not just about the spins: “[Nagasu] really mastered the ability the art of just skating in and out of a jump… [and] she not only has the flexibility, but she has the jumps.”

Weir also reflected on how inspiring it must be for Nagasu to train with Olympic champion Evan Lysacek, widely regarded as having an incredibly admirable training ethic and total skating style: “Making sure you’re performing from your head to your toes.”

After the short program Nagasu spoke to reporters, remaining grounded in the ongoing battle of competition: “I think it was a good way to do my very last short program this year… I just need to stay focused… It was really important to me to be able to do the triple-triple here after the Olympics.. After the Olympics I’ve been really tired, but I’m glad that I stuck to it and did the best performance that I could here.” She went on to say elude to the hard work ahead for next season to keep her momentum going.

Lipinski closed the discussion on Nagasu’s short program by saying that “Mirai really needs to prove herself and she knows this is the place to do it.”

Unfortunately the pressure would prove to be too much for Mirai Nagasu, who despite a strong lead coming out of the short program (in which she had scored ten points higher than Kim Yu-Na with an out-of-character skate directly following Nagasu), would finish the world championships in seventh place.

Nagasu’s free skate began with Lipinski– who had earlier cautioned Weir’s prediction that Mao Asada would take the gold in favor of Nagasu– solemnly stating, “These next four minutes could really change her career.”

I look back on my notes and I feel devastation.

Nagasu made a mistake on her first jump, downgrading a triple to a double lutz prompting commentators to say that, “She needs to take control now and forget about that.” As she settled into the program recovery seemed possible: “She is in a little bit of a trouble. She just needs to make sure she can get on the podium– but I think she can.”

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Nagasu unfortunately continued to have trouble with the take-off on combo and later fell on a double axel landing, prompting: “I think it’s just nerves sitting in first place… knowing you could win your first world championships.”

Instead of a triumphant end pose, Nagasu smacked her head with both hands in frustration. As she came off the ice she apologized to coach Frank Carroll who put things in perspective: “You’re not dead.”

When judges delivered her scores the girl who “showed a lot of spunk and a lot of fight at the Olympics,” and shocked Torino with a phenomenal short program was pushed back into seventh place.

Afterwards, a distraught Nagasu fought back tears to speak with reporters (sidebar: her coach has said such things as “There’s no crying in figure skating,” after Nagasu’s rough 2008/09 season). Nagasu struggled saying, “I just wanted to come here and improve on my performance at the Olympics… and I feel really bad. I’m just gonna work harder and do better next year.” She said she has not been this low since she was eleven. It was a sad story, but it marks the impetus for a season driven by the desire for redemption at the 2011 Worlds, where Nagasu is sure to fight harder than ever before to get onto that podium and take what was almost hers.

As Andrea Joyce said: “[Nagasu] has her eyes looking forward always.” Looking forward to seeing her fight it out next season.

Skeletor Returns to the Ice: Men’s Figure Skating World Championships

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The most upsetting thing about watching the ISU Figure Skating World Championships is that the Olympics were about five minutes ago and most people are skating the same programs with the same costumes– and let’s face it: discussing sartorial choices is a major highlight of figure skating commentary in my mind.

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On that note, I tip my hat to Kevin Van Der Perren of Belgium for changing up his free skate program. You may remember him as the skeletor man from the Olympic short program. For his free skate at the World Championships in Torino, Van Der Perren chose to mix things us and perform a program to “Reflections of Earth” (of Disney World fame) which appears to be a piece that he originally skated in the 2000/2001 season.

UniversalSports.com

Inexplicably this is the only image Universal Sports has to offer of his performances in Torino– but know that it was dramatic and spangled. And the music started out just as terrifyingly as his “Night on Bald Mountain” skeletor skate. Van Der Perren is one scary intense dude; he executed a magnificent quad-triple-triple combination worth 19 points out of his 144.88 season’s best score. Johnny Weir, who has been commentating the competition on Universal Sports, described Van Der Perren’s execution of the combination “like shooting an arrow,” after stating that the Belgian skater is not a a fan of choreography, rather for him the sport is all about the jumps, which– for the record– are pretty epic. This was apparently the last competition of his career.

So with Evan Lysacek and  Evgeny Plushenko both absent from the Worlds (Plushenko is apparently injured, but I think he is too busy polishing his fake gold medal), who else was there?

Damien Meyer/Getty Image/ UniversalSports.com

Jeremy Abbott skated as the highest ranked American man, putting in a redeeming short program after a disappointing Olympic performance. Afterwards he said, “I was very pleased with how I skated today… it wasn’t easy– I wasn’t in the zone,” but managed to lay it down anyways. He has repeated said that a misdirected mindset in Vancouver seriously handicapped his performance and that in Torino, “I made the goal about performance outcome instead of trying to win, and I think it really worked out for the best… I can’t control placement, all I can do is skate.”

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Abbott took a few spills after a nice start to his long program the next day, but really at the ISU Worlds placing fifth is no mean feat. Plus Abbott’s high placement assures the US the right to a full team of three men to compete next year. Here is looking forward to seeing more of Jeremy Abbott and maybe some more Beatles choreography. Plus, you can always depend on Abbott for a tasteful costume and let’s face it– we all appreciate that!

Meanwhile, Brian Joubert of France took the bronze with performances of redemption after his own disappointing Olympic showing. In case you missed: Joubert’s free skate program begins with a full body heart beat interpretation.

Patrick Chan took the silver for the second year in a row (and someone should tell him that when you wear all black without much texture the details on your costume do not read well at all). This another redemptive moment after a fifth place finish Olympic games in front of the home crowd in Canada.

Olympic bronze medalist Daisuke Takahashi skated for the gold, becoming the male first world champion from Japan. Unfortunately, this means that he again stood on the podium wearing the fringed, check and cowl-necked, peasant vested sartorial situation. Not OK. Sorry.

Regarding Takahashi’s skate,  Johnny Weir said, “He was crisp and clean and perfect… to the end.”

I hope that Weir keeps commentating, because it is amazing and the best is yet to come once we recap his own recap of his Olympic performance and the totality of his World Champion commenting.

For Sheila: A Fixer-Upper with a Ghost & Two Lunatics

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Frequent Words to Bumble guest stars Kathleen and David have procured a new apartamento, and it is a bit of a fixer-upper situation: a few faulty windows, pink tiles (even in the kitchen, ew) and need of a paint job. Oh right, and the ghost, we will get to the ghost.

Since repainting was mandatory and the pair had a chunk of time between the handing over of the keys and their move-in date– they decided to do the painting themselves and even selected a few snazzy colors that I named “Yoda’s Swamp Green,” “Caribbean Teal” and “Adobe Sand.” The first is clearly the best. Also, it is eerily accurate.

Speaking of eerie things, Kathleen and David have decided that they have a ghost– they just had a feeling. David described it as, “It was kind of like Nicole Kidman in The Others”

Really. Really. They are dead convinced that an angry specter is going to haunt their new exotically themed abode.

I think it was the paint fumes, personally. I do not indulge in such things as ghosts. Argue with me all you like. Meanwhile, Kathleen is in the market for a priest willing to do an exorcism on a Manhattan apartment, so if you know anyone… you let me know and I’ll go ahead and pass that tidbit along.

It might also have been the fact that they were exhausted and on edge from such things as what occurs in the video below. Rickety furniture used as a ladder is rarely comforting.

It is a wonder that no necks were broken– or sprained at the very least.

And the Trashy Spain bit refers to a bar that I might someday open, inspired by some trashy discotheques that I have frequented on a certain Mediterranean island. It is going to be big. It is not offensive– I swear.

Don’t worry about it. Moving on.

Clearly the fumes and the le tired ness got to them as David was heard to say such things as: “Oranges are very orange. And they taste like it.”

Good observation.

He also got paint in/ near his eye at one point and completely flipped out. So what did I do? I burst out laughing and then tweeted about it. All before actually attempting to help. I am a really good friend (although in my defense I did volunteer to paint their apartment of full free will).

Then I told him to thoroughly rinse his eyes out, which he proceeded to do so vigorously that he exclaimed, “Oh my God– I just gave myself wrinkles!”

I do not think he is going to manage aging with grace.

So Evan Lysacek & Shaun White Walk into a Bar…

ABC/Chris Chavira/Examiner.com

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By now most of you are probably aware that Dancing with the Stars has poached yet another Olympian. It was all big news to me when the Olympics began and I learned that apparently there is a thing with Olympic athletes joining the cast of Dancing with the Stars– and winning. To date Kristi Yamaguchi, Apolo Ohno, Maurice Greene, Misty May-Treanor, Monica Seles, Floyd Mayweather Jr., Clyde Drexler, Evander Holyfield, Shawn Johnson, Louie Vito (pre-Olympic experience) and  Natalie Coughlin have competed, with wins going to Yamaguchi, Ohno and Johnson. So now you know.

Shortly after his gold medal win, Lysacek appeared on Today in Vancouver and expressed his interest in Dancing with the Stars; he said that he had heard from other athletes such as Ohno that it was a great experience, yadda yadda… and before you knew it: Lysacek was skipping out on the Figuring Skating World Championships in Torino (going down this week, airing on Universal Sports) and picking up a pair of dancing shoes.

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At least he already had a tuxedo costume from his “Rhapsody in Blue” routine (which as you may recall is “the date that brought [him] to the dance”).

Lysacek did a little media run around before the season premier this past Monday, appearing Friday on The View to talk about his transition from Olympic Champion to dance pupil: “I’m not a good dancer.”

Kristi Yamaguchi, who came on the show to promote  figure skating special “On Thin Ice”  that aired that evening, encouraged Lysacek to have fun with the experience. She also attempted to get Elisabeth Hasselbeck to function on figure skates. It did not work out.

Back to business.

Lysacek said that he was looking forward to the daily structure of training for the program since that is the sort of disciplined schedule to which he is accustomed from figure skating. It seems that Johnny Weir’s “arch-enemy” is ready to lay it all out there in an effort to combat criticism regarding the extreme technicality of his skating verses the artistic flair associated with Johnny Weir and the older scoring system. In the introductory profile segment shown during the Dancing with the Stars premier, Lysacek says, “People have said that I have no danceability, and this is my chance to prove them wrong– I hope!”

According to conversation on The View (where Barbara Walters tried but failed to grasp why Lysacek had not done a quad and why it does not matter), in retrospect Lysacek feels that he bought into some of the media hype that as a figure skater dancing would be easy for him… not so.

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I made one note as to my reaction during his performance of a Viennese waltz: “He spins so pretty.”

It is true. And it is very figure skater-y of him.

Whoever this Carrie Ann judge person is (I have literally never seen an episode of this program before, although had I previously known that people like Kristi Yamaguchi and Apolo Ohno were on, I probably would have checked it out) really enjoyed making it clear to Lysacek that he is no longer on the ice, noting that he needs to point his toes because “you’re not wearing skates!”

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Thanks for that observation.

Anyways, it seems that he and partner Anna Trebunskaya are doing pretty well. They came in second place after the first night of competition with a score of 23/30 from the judges. Right behind a Pussycat Doll.

Oh sigh.

And about that bar in the title: Shaun White look-alike Brigitte (of guest blogging fame) was at The Four-Faced Liar in the West Village on Friday night where she found herself thinking, “Hmmm… that guy at the bar looks a lot like Evan Lysacek,” and texting me thusly: “Shaun White and Evan Lysacek are totally at the same bar right now…”

If only there were pictures, because of course– and I am just saying— Evan Lysacek was in New York on Friday…

And who knows where Shaun White was?

Short Track World Championships: Relays, Super Finals & Social Media Mayhem

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This weekend I discovered how to watch obscure winter sports that have been rudely neglected by Universal Sports (which had recently made me so happy regarding the Alpine ski season), purely thanks to the wonders of social media. Between Twitter investigation and US Speed Skating on Facebook, I discovered that the TVU Networks Player carries Chinese and Korean sports channels and Tony Chung provides mucho helpful live commentary to short track events on Twitter (you know, since I am Chinese and Korean challenged).

FYIs completed, let’s move on to the action.

The Men:

The men’s team was comprised of Kyle Carr, J.R. Celski, Simon Cho, Travis Jayner and Jordan Malone. They not only gave a strong showing at these ISU World Championships, but also social media-ed it up with a lot of conversational tweeting and a couple informal live webcasts for fans… which was ‘interesting’ and definitely involved nearly toxic numbers of teenage girls, leading Cho to wonder, “How many of  you skipped school to watch this?”

As for myself: When you are an unemployed so-called writer, you can only watch so much CNN. Trust me. Also, an inquiry on Twitter did confirm that people were figuring how to get out of class in order to tune in. Distressing– particularly because it was being recorded for later viewers.

On Friday Celski and Jayner made it to the 1500 meter final along with Thibaut Fauconnet (France), Kwak Yoon-Gy, Lee Ho-Suk and Sung Si-bak (Korea). From starting position #2, Celski settled into second place at the beginning, Jayner at the back of the pack from his #6 starting position; however the 1500 meter saw a lot of movement back and forth before the finish. France, Korea and the US each had a turn in the lead–at one point Celski and Jayner were in first and second positions respectively–but the race ended in a Korean sweep: Kwak, Sung and Lee for the podium with Celski taking fourth and Jayner sixth, despite all efforts to split up the Korean team. In terms of world rankings for the 1500 meter Jayner is tenth and Celski is unranked due to that epic injury from the Olympic trials last autumn that prevented him from competing for several months; Malone– who apparently got into an argument with the ice a few times in Bulgaria– is ranked fourteenth.

Fast-forward to the 3000 meter super final on Saturday: Celski competed once more against familiar faces from the Olympics: Charles and Francois Hamelin (Canada), Kwak Yoon-Gy, Lee Ho-Suk (Korea), Liang Wenhao (China) and François-Louis Tremblay (Canada) in the longest distance individual short track event.

Celski started from position 7– which pushed him into a start line behind the other six competitors– no problem: He immediately settled into the top three working hard to keep the team of three Canadians separated. After a pace pick-up to about 44 km/hr around 1.15 Celski fought his way into first by 1.30, ahead of Tremblay. As a bonus for being in the lead at 1000 meters Celski was awarded five extra points; he would hold his position until the last lap. After the 1000 meter mark, Celski was so far ahead that the he was out of the camera shot, which was following the rest of the pack. At eight laps to go it appeared that all he had to do was hang on for the win… it was not to be. The pack slowly gained ground and by 4.20 Lee and Kwak were coming up fast from behind, the three appear to have lapped other competitors and in an unbelievable pass Lee and Kwak passed Celski to take first and second in the super final, respectively, with Celski taking the bronze. In terms of the overall results for the Championships, this meant that Celski missed the podium by a mere eight points, taking fourth. Eight. Points.

See? It’s so exciting, people should always be watching short track when it is not the Olympics!

And to close their season (it seems that although the team qualified they will not be attending the team Worlds in Torino at the end of the month), the men went ahead and took home the silver in the 5000 meter relay. If you are not familiar with the relay format, note the image and my previous post on the Olympic relays.

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The relay began with two false stats, which create visual mayhem during a relay– the ice starts to look like a public rink full of people aimlessly milling and circling about. The US started out in first quickly shifting over to Germany and then Korea, an order (Korea, Germany, USA) which was maintained for quite a while. Around 2.23 the American men passed into first place leaving Korea to hold off the Germans. The lead did not last long and at 2.40 the teams reordered: Korea, USA, Germany and China way behind. China eventually ended up getting lapped by the three leading teams. At eight laps left the Korean team was pretty far ahead of the Americans who had, in turn, broken away from the German team… AND, that is how it ended, with Team USA .03 behind the Koreans.

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And what did we learn at the medal ceremony? The flowers are presented by girls in full Bulgarian folk attire. Just thought you should know. Also, there are not a lot of spectators– shocking, I know.

The Women:

The United States was represented by Allison Baver (who did not compete due to a residual flair up of a broken leg injury from last year’s Worlds), Kimberly Derrick, Alyson Dudek, Lana Gehring and Katherine Reutter. The ladies are not quite as enamored of bonding with fans via social media, although Derrick did make a brief appearance during one several of the webcasts organized by Jordan Malone.

UniversalSports.com

Anyways, Katherine Reutter made it to the first final event of the weekend on Friday for the 1500 meter. She started from position #4, getting pushed to the back of the pack after the starting turn, settling into fourth place. As commentators repeated again and again during the Vancouver games, Reutter– unlike, for instance Apolo Ohno– hates being at the back and tends to get panicky if she cannot get into a leading position and skate offensively. Thus, Reutter pulled an impressive outside power pass into the lead. Unfortunately the efforts was not enough, or perhaps she used her energy and power up too early, because the three Korean women pushed her back into fourth again, where she finished behind Park Seung-Hi, LEE Eun-Byul and Cho Ha-Ri. Reutter finishes the year with the third world ranking in the 1500 meter.

Reutter also raced in the 3000 meter super final event on Sunday against nine other women. Starting from the second starting position Reutter settled into fourth behind Wang Meng (China) and two women from the Korean team. After the race speeds up around 1.30, Reutter passed into third and then into second behind Park Seung-Hi… and at this point the amount of movement in the race got out of hand and pretty difficult to follow with Jessica Gregg (Canada), Reutter and Cho Ha-Ri each taking a turn in the lead. Reutter executed another mad pass outside all three Koreans around 3.40 but was shortly overcome again by the Korean team effort. It appears that Reutter might have even lost her balance a bit towards the very end, giving up first the lead and then third place, finishing in a hard-fought fourth place by .14 behind Park, Cho and Lee. Park won the overall Championship title; Reutter ranked in sixth.

For the women’s 3000 meter relay final that followed (Derrick, Dudek, Gehring, Reutter), the USA skated against Korea and Canada (China was supposed to race but did not show), in a rematch of the dramatic and highly contested Olympic relay. It was a race of redemption for South Korea, who this time took home an uncontested gold in the relay with Canada in second and the American women finishing in third place, similar to the Olympic outcome minus the disqualification drama and the Chinese team.

Whew… and that’s that for short track.

******

Purely Entertaining:

And now for a few brief moments of hilarity and randomness from last week’s men’s team webcasts:

• When asked why Apolo Ohno was not on the team for Worlds: “Because he’s in Beruit.” Here is a hunch: they are really sick of people asking about Ohno. At one point, when asked the question, “Where is Apolo,” Simon Cho replied, “Hey what’s that supposed to mean? That’s an insult!”
• There was a discussion on Snuggies. Malone has purchased them as gifts. I almost purchased my dog one once… and then I came to.
• We were also treated to a discussion on how McDonalds is different in every country. Based on the team’s knowledge of various incarnations of fast food burgers, everyone’s greatest question has been answered: Olympians really do eat McDonalds!
• Cho is afraid of birds: “Everyone hates birds, right?” Meanwhile, a) that is not true, b) he and frequent Words to Bumble guest star Kathleen have an irrational fear in common, and c) Malone was like, ‘Really? I have a parakeet.’
• Kyle Carr’s luggage got lost by Air France and so his skates were in limbo for most of the trip. Instead of getting to skate while the rest of the team had practice, he just had to jog around the track.
• There were questions about rolling toilet paper over or under. Over. Obviously the answer is over. How do I come to this? Because that is how hotels to it to make life fancy. The end.
• Cho says, “Don’t waste your money on the iPad,” good advice really.
• Too many people are obsessed with the sexuality of spandex-wearing guys, and the guys appear to pretty tired of it all, really. Even though some people talk about bubble baths, their preferred shampoos and a love of cupcakes; however, those are all really important things in my mind.
• Most of these people fondly remember Pokemon and Digimon from their childhoods. Malone remembers Teddy Ruxpin, and I like that about him because I always wanted one of those and my mother would never get me one and, and…

Ahem. I think that’s it.

So short track recaps: Done. Back to normal programming… I think.

Cyborg, the Full Story: A Blind Date Gone Wrong

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A tale by guest blogger Brigitte, of Shaun White look-a-like fame.

There are certain things that one assumes to be common sense rules when it comes to dating: wearing something nice on a first date, being polite, attempting to get to know the person, and not telling your date with complete and utter sincerity that you’re a cyborg spring to mind.  You know, simple things.  Friends, the old cliché “common sense is not so common,” is unfortunately true.  Apparently, I went on a date with a cyborg.

dark.pozadia.org

As a single twenty-something woman in New York City, I inevitably attempted the online dating thing.  My date, let’s call him Brian, looked good on (electronic) paper: he could form cohesive sentences and string together intelligent thoughts, he seemed to have a good sense of humor, we had a number of things in common, and the pictures of him weren’t entirely unattractive.  Worth a shot, I thought.

There were so many things that should have made me immediately run for the hills, before the cyborg conversation even began, but being a nice person with an unhealthy sense of Jewish guilt, I felt obligated to at least sit through the entirety of our dinner.  Yet within seconds of meeting him, I knew this was not going to work out.

For starters, this 30-year old male who went to an Ivy League School (as he reminded me no less than seven times during the course of our date), did not even live in an apartment.  Oh no.  He was staying in a hostel on the Upper West Side, and apparently had been for longer than, well, anyone who considers himself an actual inhabitant of a city ought to stay in a hostel.

Brian immediately brought up his new friend Tim, an Australian with a drinking problem, who might be joining us for dinner.  Tim didn’t speak French (Brian and I both did), but was trying to get laid by some random French woman he had met the night before, so Brian had offered our services as both wing-people and translators.  Generous of him, no? I know that on a first date with an Internet stranger, all I really want to do is help get his mildly-alcoholic friend laid.  Tim did not wind up joining us for dinner, which, as I look back on the experience, is actually unfortunate, because I would imagine that watching Tim the Trainwreck would have been infinitely more entertaining than what I had to endure instead.

Brian chose a decent-looking Mexican-infused restaurant near his hostel, and I was thrilled when they brought out thin-sliced banana chips and some fresh tomato salsa, but I committed a horrifying faux-pas when I (gasp!) used my fork to scoop some of the salsa onto my chip.

“Don’t put metal into the salsa!” Brian admonished, “Metal causes a chemical reaction with tomato, and it will spoil it much sooner! Use your finger, we’re family here.”

Ok, first of all, maybe I don’t want to get tomato and onion all over my fingers. Maybe I think it’s not polite to dip your fingers into food shared with other people at the table. Maybe I like using utensils. Also, we are not family, we have not known each other for more than twenty minutes. And even if we were, I don’t want my family’s gross fingers all over my food—it’s still flu season, and I don’t want nasty germs all over my salsa, thank you very much.  Also, I don’t think that my metal fork is going to so rapidly deteriorate the quality of the salsa that we won’t even be able to finish all of the chips.  I’m not a scientist, and I didn’t go to Brown, but I would imagine that the salsa could easily last for the next half hour.

After the incredibly informative science lesson, I was next subject to a Mandarin lesson. His ex-girlfriend was Chinese (more perfect first date conversation), and he had me pronounce over and over and over some completely stupid and inane phrase in Mandarin, making sure that I got it perfect because intonation is key. A) I don’t care, and B) f*ck you (emphasis on the “uck” and “ou”—those are very important consonants in this, my favorite English language phrase).

But oh, if this does not sound bad enough, it still was going to get so much worse. Not to mention they messed up my food order, but I was so miserable that I didn’t want to prolong the evening any more by waiting for a new dish, so I ate it without saying anything.

The sort of funny thing about Brian is that not only did he go to Brown, but he also graduated from the hospital, after falling off of a stage.  He did some serious injury to himself (obviously…) and lost hearing in his right ear, as well as his sense of smell.  Now, I get it: traumatizing, life-changing accident.  Makes you rethink values, what’s important in your life, how to be grateful for the moment, et cetera et cetera.  If he had talked about anything remotely related to those sorts of things, he would probably have been an interesting dinner companion.  But no: I got to hear about which foods he could no longer taste, due to the lack of smell.  Multiple times.  Thanks, buddy, but you only mentioned your inability to taste mint 5 minutes ago—I still remember that you can’t taste mint anymore.  Oh, yeah, mojitos have mint in them, but you can’t taste the mint anymore. Yep. Yep. Yep.

I tried to make the best of it for a while, but then, f*ck it, I was getting out of this situation as fast as I possibly could.  I briefly recalled a high school classmate who could make himself vomit at will, and wished I had the same talent.  Instead, I faked a coughing fit.  Multiple coughing fits. Meryl Streep didn’t have shit on me and my Oscar-worthy performance as “a woman with a bad cough.”  I was coughing up not one, but both of my lungs– and oh boy– I was just so darn sick, I needed to go home and rest!

While I was coughing, he decided to continue to ramble on about completely absurd topics, since I was unable to talk.  I got to hear all about the many kinds of karate he can do, and the fact that he could “break me” (was I supposed to swoon? Because really, I wanted to run away very fast). During one lull, he gazed deeply into my eyes and with complete and total sincerity, uttered the six words every woman dreams of hearing from the perfect date: “You know I’m a cyborg, right?”

I kid you not.

To be fair, even though he doesn’t deserve it, he was referencing the titanium mesh netting in his skull. But really: he didn’t have to call himself a cyborg, and he also didn’t need to go on an on about why the titanium in his head didn’t set off medal detectors. I had enough metal science lessons what with the fork incident, thank you very much.

And finally, finally, we were finished with our meal.  I threw in another epic coughing fit for good measure, but this backfired when he came over to my side of the table and put his arm around me to comfort me.  I cringed in horror, which he took as a cue to touch my hair lovingly.  I frantically searched for our waiter, but he seemed to have disappeared.  More coughing.  Copious amounts of coughing.  Tears streamed down my face, and my lungs got angrier and angrier, but I was determined to avoid even talking or listening to this dude anymore—I just wanted to cough.  After what seemed like an eternity, the waiter finally reappeared and I managed to pause the coughing long enough to gasp a request for the check.

Brian didn’t even pretend like he was going to pay for the whole meal.  In fact, despite the fact that he had ordered something more expensive than me, and we both put in a twenty, when the change for the check came, he grabbed the ten-dollar bill and handed me the five, triumphantly declaring that I was going to get screwed over on this bill.  What a gentleman.  Though, he was kind enough to insist that I take both of the after dinner mints, but– of course– only because he couldn’t taste mint.

I walked outside of the restaurant and said “Okay, well, I’m going to the subway now, good night.”

Ever the gentleman, Brian insisted on walking me to the subway.  After all, he, being a prime thirty-year-old male, said, “If I’m going to go on a date with a twenty-three-year-old, I am at least getting a good night kiss out of it.”

I was too shocked to even respond to this, but fury ran through me.  First of all, did he not see me literally cringing in repulsion when he came within my safety zone of personal space?! Did he seriously think that this date had gone so well that he was going to at least get a kiss?! Had he actually expected me to be so overcome with attraction to him with his cyborg line that I would rip my tights off, jump across the table and tackle him in a fury of lust?

And second, buddy, I may only be twenty-three, but I have a full-time job and an actual apartment.  I don’t live in a hostel. I don’t think I’m a cyborg. And I get a real sense of joy from sticking my fork in a fresh plate of salsa. I win.

We reached the subway, and after my final coughing fit I blathered something incoherent about him only getting a cheek kiss.  I bumped one side of my cheek against one of his, and dashed down the subway steps, triumphantly–finally–escaping from the worst date of my entire life.  In all, I have lost about an hour and a half of my life, but I gained two after dinner mints and a really good story to entertain my friends with.

Mancuso Gets Xtreme at Verbier’s Bec des Rosses: Freeride World Tour Closer

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xtremeverbier.com

At the end of the Alpine World Cup tour earlier in the month, Julia Mancuso accepted the chance to be a wild card entry in the Nissan Xtreme close to the 2010 Freeride World Tour at Verbier, skiing down the 600 meter vertical face of the Bec des Rosses. It was her first freeride competition, and she continued the strong streak she has been riding since the Olympic games, clocking the fastest time down the mountain and placing third behind overall [defending and 2010] champion Ane Enderud (Norway) and second ranked Jess McMillan (USA).

xtremeverbier.com

It is a pretty epic affair, hiking up the mountain, being filmed by helicopters and jumping over  natural rock features to the bottom and arriving in one piece. The point being to confront the nature of the mountain, un-groomed for competition. It does not look safe. Not a bit.

xtremeverbier.com

Competitors are judged by a panel of three skiers and snowboarders who take into consideration the difficulty of the skier’s choice of line, the fluidity of their run, quality of the jumps, the level of control demonstrated and of course– crashes. Obviously crashes go down a lot in ski competitions and freeriding, as one may surmise, sees a fair amount of carnage. The final score is based on the overall impression the rider makes on the judges.

Mancuso missed a few features towards the bottom, surprised by the speed she built up: “I followed J.T. Holmes’ advice not to stall before taking the jump and I got so much speed I missed some features in the end.”

After the race she tweeted and posted a status on Facebook; “3rd place in Verbier Xtreme! so fun to be out here with all these ripping girls! they were impressive, pushing their limits! glad to be down safe :)”

Advice in the Subway

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UPDATED: March 21, 2010

Yesterday I took a ride on the 1 train again. Maybe I was looking for paper towels, maybe I have become enamored of the Upper West Side or maybe I was on my way to an interview feeling cranky about having to wear nylons for the sake of decorum.

At any rate, a trio of a capella singing men came through the subway car somewhere above 42nd Street. Personally I was jamming to “James River Blues,” but as we neared the next station and they wrapped up their bit by asking for donations, one of the men handed out a bit of life advice:

“Smile– It’s good for your health,  prevents those forehead wrinkles! And if that doesn’t help, then try fiber!”

And you know, everyone that I was facing on the car did crack a smile. Some of us giggled.

So… how are you doing on smiles/ fiber today?