Making Lemonade Out of DSL Lemons: a Half-Baked GP Final Review

What a lousy time to be reminded of a computer’s limitations.

Having only been able to watch a fraction of last weekend’s Grand Prix events “live”, I planned to watch the rest of them Saturday and Sunday nights… somewhere between washing the dishes and finishing the lights on the Christmas tree. But somewhere between watching the mens and the ladies free skates, my DSL service decided to start imitating a dial-up service. Buffer-buffer-buffer. Skate and pause, skate and pause, skate… and… pause. And pause some more. Nooooo!

Since this problem came from my end rather than the Ice Network, it’s taking more than a phone call to fix it. It’s taking a few phone calls, plus many minutes on hold, plus a couple of days of—shudder—managing with much-lower-than-average DSL speed.

So making a long story even longer, I have yet to see the ladies or the dance finals! But I finally read the reports of who won—couldn’t wait quite THAT long—and I know I managed only 4-for-12 on the predictions. Big shock… but really, with so many withdrawals, aren’t any accurate predictions a near miracle? :-) Especially when two of your medalist predictions were among the withdrawees?

I did make some notes on the Pairs and Men, which I caught before all this happened:
(NOTE: Dance/Ladies will come as soon as I can actually SEE them!)

PAIRS NOTE #1: Did everyone catch when Trankov (of Mukhortova/Trankov) flat-out deserted his partner in the K&C after a pretty dreadful outing? By the time they finished showing their comedy of errors in slow motion, Mukhortova was shown sitting awkwardly alone with the coach while the scores took a small lifetime to be revealed. Maybe their FS music—to something called “The Lady and the Hooligan”—is more accurate than we realized.

PAIRS NOTE #2: Did you also notice that these two underwent a costume makeover since the last time we saw them? Now the whole program is slightly less ridiculous.

PAIRS NOTE #3: Not sure if I noticed it before, but the tango music used by Pang/Tong in their free skate kind of rocks. Too bad I predicted them off the podium…

PAIRS NOTE #4: Wait a minute… did Pang/Tong just nail everything?

(They did… and went on to win, too.)

MEN’S NOTE #1: Okay, Khoklova/Novitski suddenly pulling out of the dance event was one thing… but Joubert pulling out too? COME ON!
(Joubert was my pick to win the whole event.)

MEN’S NOTE #2: As I watched Tomas Verner nail his quad near the start of his free skate… only to pop a triple axel a short while later… I decided to put Verner at the top of a new list I’m making called PEOPLE I WANT TO SLAP.

Then I watched him pop his second axel, and changed my list name to PEOPLE I AM GOING TO SLAP.

Then I watched that faux slap he “gets” later in that same program. Ha! I told him. That was from me! You’re welcome! Now go finish this should-have-been-SO-much-better program...

Then I realized I was way too into the whole thing, went off to get some Cheerios, came back…

MEN’S NOTE #3: See Takahito Kozuka take the ice. See Takahito stand by the boards with his back to his coach. See his coach lightly rub his back in a few big circles, then press his hand right into the center before he heads out. See me intrigued… does anyone know what this is about? Just a ritual, or does it have deeper meaning?

MEN’S NOTE #4: Whoa. I deeply underestimated Mr. Abbott. While I don’t know that he could have won if Joubert had stayed in the event and pulled out a great FS, he has certainly earned his stripes this GP season… and has surely earned a whole bunch of screaming females crying his name at events. How about if we just start referring to him as JeremEEEEE?

For the Clip of the Day I give you JeremEEEEE’s exhibition skate from the last Nationals. Get ready for some vintage George Michael…