ronaround74

I caught some of the men's short program broadcast on NBCSN tonight. I liked Ryan Bradley's commentary. His voice is somewhat squeaky and his delivery a bit languid, but he was insightful and technical and not over-excitable like Scott Hamilton or catty like Johnny Weir. Not sure if pairing him with another slow talker in Tracy Wilson was the best choice :) but I hope he gets more commentating gigs. Yuzuru Hanyu's short was ridiculous. So effortless and so difficult. I've yet to watch the short dances but I'm thrilled that the ShibSibs are up in 2nd place!

It's also sometimes hard to judge the size of a room if it's empty and there's nothing to provide a sense of scale. The last time I house hunted, the condo I eventually bought was empty, and I had concerns that the living room wouldn't fit all of my existing furniture. It wasn't a dealbreaker and I ended up buying the place anyway due to the location and other features, but it turned out that all my living room furniture did fit comfortably. So that's one value of staging a home or at least key rooms when prepping for sale.

Same! Mirai's had a pretty consistent season so hopefully she can perform at Worlds as well as she did at Four Continents. Wouldn't it be something if she were the one to break the US ladies' medal drought this year.

Gabby used the same floor routine as the one she did at 2015 Worlds. She performed it with a lot more spark and expression there though; she seemed to be going through the motions at American Cup. The landings were great though. Maggie had a new floor routine but it looks very similar to her one from last year. I do wish she'd replace one of her full-in passes with something like a double arabian or a triple twist, just to mix it up a bit (so many double backs!).

From the protocols it looks like the Shibs got level 4's for all five of their SD elements, while Chock & Bates only had one level 4. Hubbell & Donohue had four out of five elements rated level 4. Gracie Gold is down in 9th, about 9 points behind Nagasu. Looks like she (Gracie) fell twice. Karen Chen is in 13th. Same :) although I do wish Gracie and Karen had performed better in the short.

I happened upon a video of Anna Pogorilaya's free skate at 2016 Europeans where she had a couple of "outrageous falls" (per Johnny Weir). She pretty much logrolled on the ice after going down; definitely not the "bounce down, bounce right back up" type of falls that Dick Button was so fond of pointing out whenever Michelle Kwan would take a (rare) spill. Anyway, then I found Pogorilaya's short program from a Grand Prix event earlier this season (I think NHK) where she fell twice on jumps AND in her step sequence, and all of them were also these horrendous, sprawl-across-the-ice kind of falls. What's her deal? Has she always been prone to falling in this manner? She seems to skate very fast so does she maybe carry so much speed through her jumps that there's no way for her to fall gracefully? I fear she's going to concuss herself one of these days (if she hasn't already).

I liked Anna Rechnio's short program to GWTW at 1998 Worlds, but that was more due to the all-guns-blazing quality of her performance (she finished 2nd in the SP to Michelle Kwan there) rather than anything special about the program/choreography itself. My mouth was agape (in a happy way) when the ShibSibs' FD scores came up and they took the lead. I got to see both them and Chock & Bates compete in person at Skate America a couple seasons back, and while C&B won, the Shibutanis got by far the bigger ovation. Their connection to the audience is that much stronger. I actually like Ashley Wagner's skating; I feel she's a far better performer than either Gracie or Polina, although I do think technically she doesn't quite match up to the other two, especially in terms of jump height and rotation. I wish though that Ashley would do a little less self-promotion/trumpeting and just put down solid, consistent programs on a regular basis!

It hasn't been that long since Claire's "reveal" has it? I thought it had only been five years or so. Otomo showed up at the school and zapped Tommy into Evernow. Someone (we don't know who yet) teleported HRG away just as he was about to be crushed by a car that had been flipped during the storm that Malina was able to block.

Were the mother & daughter who were being led through the "underground railroad" the same people who were test driving a car with HRG early on in the first episode? Like many of you, I'll be giving this one a chance for at least a few more weeks. My head was spinning with all the characters and storylines being introduced but I am interested in how they develop and interconnect (hopefully soon).