MaKaM

Just saw the most recent white box and really, I understand devotion to white is her thing but unrelieved white is not any better than the constant gray on the other shows. It hides the architectural details and it definitely does not make these rooms feel bigger. The mismatched furniture in the living room, the urns that took up the entirety of the fireplace, the pot on the stairs for some reason...does she have a thing against curtains? The place looked as blank and sad as my first apartment---sadder because my inflatable furniture had color. I agree about the trolling. These homeowners clearly have art or the ability to acquire art but she puts up plain white canvases, not even a slash of black? She either hates color, is trolling, or is a slave to her stated aesthetic and won't deviate even a hair (which will kill the show because there are only so many boring white boxes to feature on TV). Give me the One of a Kind lady with her somewhat over the top quirk any day.

So I like these two but I'm not going to lie, the all white gets a tad boring (and the one eclectic lady's house looked half done because they didn't put very much of her stuff in. Maybe they couldn't, but they could have faked a few art pieces to break up the all white walls) and sometimes Leanne talks like she is tranquilized. And the static-y hair just makes it look like she didn't bother to comb it. But hey, you do you, Leanne. I like Steve, he is laid back and chill without being too clownish (which is fine but Chip Gains cornered that market). Also, he (or someone) got the corners for the crown to match which makes me HUGELY jealous. I just put up crown and all the corners have a ton of putty in them to hide the fact that they just didn't line up right.

I mean, kids want to fly like Superman too but it is up to the adults around them to make better decisions and safeguard their health. Kids do not have the developed mental capacity to know if their ambitions are possible or healthy.

Hey HeartofDixie, would you maybe consider giving a brief summary/synopsis of the links you post? Sometimes it is hard to tell from the URL just what we might be getting into.

The point being no one would do triples if they weren't worth more. They would do doubles and could focus more on the pairs-specific things like lifts, twists, side-by-side step sequences, et cetera. The IJS could be tweaked to say "pairs is not about jumps. We want a minimum level of jumping but no need to be aiming for quads. All the falls are ruining the sport so, go do other things to get your points, the end." Gymnastics just did something like this with spins. Anything more than a triple (I think?) doesn't add any extra points. So yeah, a septuple spin should be worth more than a triple spin if you were trying to encourage spins but it isn't and so no one does one (not that anyone could do a septuple anyway, but I was exaggerating to emphasize my point).

The point, you missed it. Disincentivising triples means people won't do them and will focus on their other pairs skills that make pairs unique. annzeepark914 was lamenting there was nothing that could be done about pairs jumps and I was pointing out there was an easy solution. So thanks for your input. ETA: points are completely arbitrary. They've gone with harder things = more points but they could at any point reallocate and decide that scratch spins are worth the same as a quad or a change of edge spiral is worth a 3F-3Lo combo. They can do what they want to promote what skills they want to promote and right now, they want to promote difficulty over execution and since the top people all get nearly 10 for artistry anyway, they aren't really promoting that until they normalize the scale down so 8s are more likely, 9s are for exceptional, and 10s are for the perfect Torvill-and-Dean Bolero moment.

I don't mind pairs jumps but they don't need to be more than doubles. Big, majestic doubles. Landed with great glide out and maybe even synchronicity. It is an easy fix too. Just make the doubles worth the same points as the triple and no one will do a janky triple when they can do a superior double. Pairs already limits its talent pool by needing two co-located skaters with complimentary skills, the men have to be larger generally than singles and the women can't be too large. To require this specific subset of humanity to also be able to do multiple triple jumps in unison illustrates (to me) why pairs has been a blah since about 2006. Pairs has lots of opportunity for emotion and character playing but when it has to be stroke, stroke, stroke to your next big skill.

Watching Restored by the Fords makes Allison's designs look that much more derivative and bland. Of course, they are designing for a client and not for resale but I'd rather have any of the kitchens Ive seen on that show than any of the ones that Allison has done.

And even then, it is a faint hope. NBC did a survey once (in the 1950s?) and determined from it that women who watch sports want a STORY and DRAMA and aren't really interested in the sport or the scores or how those scores are calculated. “The people who watch the Olympics are not particularly sports fans,” he [John Miller, NBC Marketing] told Philly.com recently. “More women watch the games than men, and for the women, they’re less interested in the result and more interested in the journey. It’s sort of like the ultimate reality show and miniseries wrapped into one.” So because of this strange idea, we will never see "women's" sports shown as sports (all competitors, minimal drama/narrative, etc) until there is a major culture shift at the network that unfortunately holds the rights to the majority of "women's" sports.

They have endless channels these days thanks to online broadcasting. They only need to replay the ISU feed with Tara and Johnny overlays (or, you know, not) on any one of endless streaming channels or even youtube. USA gymnastics has been putting junior competitions on youtube live. I watched Romanian championships last year on facebook live. Was it great, no. Could I see everything, also no. But I had the opportunity to decide if I wanted to watch (I did) instead of it being buried behind a paywall or ignored completely. My TV is now sling and I get endless NCAA gymnastics meets, it should not be rocket surgery to toss together a skating channel and replay 50 years worth of figure skating on a loop or something. People would put it on in the background and discover a new appreciation for the sport (and new dislike for American commentators aside from my beloved Uncle Dick and Terry Gannon).

I feel like, unless they go to a more "cafeteria" approach to the long program, women's (and even men's to a point) are going to stagnate. Okay, all the top guys are doing quads, next generation will be doing all quads and no triples, 10 position spins that go at a snail's pace, etc. Unless you provide options for someone to do a 3-3-3 combo without using up one of their 2 uses of a jump or maybe letting someone do doubles but have lots of spins or whatever the person's strength is, everything is going to keep looking the same. The one thing I hate that the scoring system has killed is the step sequence. Everyone is so focused on hitting all the different rockers, brackets, bobbing up and down across the ice that it just doesn't have the impact it used to. Someone mentioned Candeloro and he was able to create a character in the step sequence. Michelle Kwan's Tosca step sequence is still my favorite ever and it conveyed the power of the music and character. Shizuka Arakawa's Ina Bauer was iconic and created a moment. These days, everything is almost rote. There is no need to try to create a character because once you are in the top group, your PCS are all going to be in the 8s-9s no matter what you do (or if you are the top ice dancers, 10s) so who even cares? There is no way to linger over an amazing skill because you have to quick hit the next position to get more points. I haven't been watching much (not paying for that NBC Gold thing and haven't cared much since Yuna Kim retired) but does anyone do a Charlotte or a Kerrigan spiral or an Ina Bauer any more? I know we all got sick of spiral sequences when they a requirement but if a skater could choose to substitute another skill or be given a freebie spin that doesn't have to hit a five positions for five revolutions each for max value. Frankly, even with new jumping beans with quads, skating has gotten boring. The only skaters taking risks are the lower ranked ones and then there is no reward for those risks so everyone else just keeps going to the same Carmen, pastel skating (thank you for whoever called it that, it is so on point).

Yes, I realize she was injured and am pleased she was able to rally and earn a PB in the short. My disbelief was the notion that her management (and her?) thought it was deliberate. It defies belief to think a skater would try an attack like what was alleged in front of everyone and right before the biggest competition of her recent career. What if someone did try an attack like that, what if they swung and missed? They'd be thrown off balance and could potentially injure themself being that close to the boards. Alleging the attack and a bullying history, especially knowing how South Korean skating fans have reacted to "attacks" on their skaters in the past seems like a form of bullying in and of itself. I hope Mariah is not looking at social media and someone is preparing her for being booed/harassed during the long program.

Man, that would be stone cold to take your one time running through the music, change your choreography to ensure you can get close to your rival, slash her in the fraction of a second you pass her while doing a turn in front of a ton of people and media, and then keep going on as if you didn't notice what had happened. Or, you know, so improbable as to be basically impossible. Also, slash is so chancy since skates aren't *that* sharp and you don't know how many layers your competitor has protecting her legs, it would be much smarter to "stab" and try to leave a major bruise that would hinder their jumping. Just sayin'. Maybe skaters need shinguards in addition to helmets...

By far the most bearable person on this show. My kitchen has natural wood cabinets (Ikea Fagerland) and it isn't what I would have chosen (I wanted, yep, white cabinets, beach glass backsplash, and sandy colored countertops) but now, I wouldn't change them. They add "character" to the kitchen. 😛 I did just add white cabinets to my dark family room to hide some of the dark brick on the huge fireplace. I was thinking about covering it with drywall and then putting a fake mantle on it but, well, Allison showed me just how absolutely stupid that looks (even if she did have tile behind it, it looked exactly like the wall). Just kidding. Never had an idea that dumb in my life. At first i thought they were faking the destruction of the different front facade pieces...and I still think that. For all that they talked about dormering the back and leaving the front as is, the graphics showed a full second story right from the beginning. The floor plans are so repetitive. I mean, I guess they are the most popular layouts but it is pretty easy to predict the basement rec room + guest bed/bath, the upper master +2/3 beds, the open concept main floor with extra sitting space in the back...the only interesting bits have been when they do some outdoor decks.

There was the other one that "pre-sold" that the note said they were still negotiating about the upgrades which I read to mean that the buyers didn't want to pay extra for all the "fancy" crap that Allison packed into there over and above the original negotiated price. If the place comes with one of those mirrors she loves, fine, but I'm not paying extra for her to buy one, paint it, and install it. I could do that myself if I wanted it.

Eh, I'm from northwest Indiana and I'm gonna claim Chicago when talking generally to people. People here on the east coast aren't going to know where Schererville (sherra-ville) Indiana is but they are going to figure out Chicago. Or sometimes, Northwest Indiana, part of Chicago. Our time was Chicago, our news was Chicago, our major entertainment was Chicago so meh, sorry if that offends, not gonna stop. (also, much of the rest of Indiana is the backwards pits so I'd rather not be lumped with most of them)

She needs to get over her bad self. Not going to take a cent under 2mil...not because there is anything that indicates the property is worth that based on location and the local market but because her designs are just so surpassingly awesome, they increases the value by hundreds of thousands of dollars. But then, I guess they have a lot of losses on other properties to make up for so maybe they *need* to sell at that price not just *want*. Don't see the house on the market on redfin. Maybe she is waiting for the spring selling season for this one too...

I find Windy City too much self-inflicted drama but Boise Boys was too much faux drama. The heavyset guy's constant "what are you doin'?!" stuff to the designer guy's ideas is so poorly acted that it detracts from what could be an interesting show. But still wasn't very interesting because I can't remember more than an episode where they did a hideous brick treatment of some sort and then built a house without wheelchair access for the one guy's family who needed wheelchair access. Allison is memorable for her constant screw-ups at least. I wonder if the HGTV producers think people wouldn't watch a show without drama/conflict but I'd like to see them give it a go, at least once.

Yeah, she isn't an innovator--her designs are derivative and she spends too much time/money/effort on personal design choices that look great in the final reveal but are so specific to her and now that she might as well keep some of the 80s glass block because that is what her brass hoods will be in two years. If I was seeing something new and leading edge, I'd more easily forgive her abrasive "me, me, me" personality but since she is showing designs and ideas that I can see anywhere and all day on pinterest her fascination with herself is totally unwarranted.

I mean, that's nice that the teacher noticed and was concerned, but that simply isn't how you treat eating disorders. In fact, trying to make them eat can exacerbate the problem. I'm sure (hope) it was out of ignorance but calling the ambulance is actually the better option. Teachers/coaches maybe aren't educated enough on the subject in either country. And for all that Raf was getting kudos for his interactions with Mariah Bell, he has been a part of the problem in the past. From an article on Adam Rippon's disordered eating: I think it was training with Frank Carroll that broke Gracie Gold so it isn't just a Russian thing (though the emphasis on youth there is going to cause problems as skaters try to delay puberty or starve it away once it happens).

Yeah, it might be a cultural difference. There was a documentary about a rhythmic gymnast and her coach and the head of the federation were simply awful to her--emotional abuse out the wazoo. The documentarian was worried they would be upset about their portrayal (even though it was simply showing what happened) but they were actually pleased.

Yeah. It's rare, but they are there to make the catch if possible. (ETA: sometimes, it seems like they are there to unofficially coach and indicate to a gymnast when to release. Some countries let them be too present on UB) And here's one of Valeri Liukin catching Nastia:

Yay for Sam for finally getting that monkey off his back! His PBars was great too, others were just better.

Because it is easier to know they'll likely be together 10+ years later when you finally start getting good. They won't break up as partners because they broke up romantically or because they had a big fight. See: the merry-go-round that is US Pairs.

I wasn't clear. I feel that most of Eteri's skaters seem to fall into the "classic/dramatic" music and the choreography into the "face grabbing as emoting" category. But I haven't been following skating closely for the last few years so really, I am basing those feelings off of the recent Olympic season. Disregard my opinion if it doesn't hold up to previous seasons.