potentialities

men's figure skating short program

2014-02-14T00:33:35Z

( men's figure skating short program )

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chilly war

2014-02-07T20:33:28Z

What is the deal with there being a team figure skating event? What is the deal with there being a whole evening's worth of sports the day before the opening ceremonies? What is the deal with the former beginning during the later, causing me to miss the 2014 Olympic début of my beloved Evgeni Plushenko???

Don't worry, though, I found a sketchy cam video to tide myself over with. Also Johnny Weir posted a cute picture of himself and Tara Lipinski posing with Plushy on his Instagram to make my shipper heart go pitter-pat. So that's something.

My new favorite Russian athlete of these games is Alexey Sobolev, who seems like both a badass (playing coy with his Pussy Riot-themed board art) and a dork (putting his phone number on his helmet to see what would happen).

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Vikaliya Mustamova!

2012-08-21T18:36:01Z

Over in the land of flailing and gifs and namesmushes (whatever, you pretty much have to use them because you can't use tags with /s on tumblr, you just have to roll with things like Mustamova), my London 2012 OTP has blossomed into a fully-fledged fandom. Two weeks ago I was plaintively demanding Viktoria Komova/Aliya Mustafina h/c fic, and now my dash is full of adorable tiny gymnasts, angsty ficlets, tinhattery and people having RPS wank for the very first time. I feel so old! (Or, alternately, so in touch with my inner gymnastics-loving 12-year-old, except this time with more kissing.)

Also: Vika was robbed on floor exercise, and if you say anything mean about her crying, Musty will cut you. </myfeels>

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The Social Olympics

2012-07-31T23:48:30Z

It took some doing, but we finally got the evil cable leviathan to disgorge our login information so we can stream NBC's fabled live feeds. The first thing I tuned in to live was the contested end of the men's gymnastics team final. The second thing I tuned in to live was Korean fencer Shin A Lam's protest/sit-in. You do not want me watching your event live, is what I'm getting at here. Nothing good will come of it.

I've also been dipping my toes a little further into tumblr, including hitting up the Olympics tag during commercial breaks. It is less of an unmitigated joy than the Avengers-related tags that I sometimes read; they both have lots of pretty pictures of pretty people and funny memes, but the Olympics tag has a lot more bonus unfun racism to scroll past.

I made my own animated gif of the adorable face that Japanese gymnast Uchimura Kohei made when they posted his final score in the men's team finals. Then I cropped it a zillion times because apparently when tumblr says "Max size 10MB", they actually mean "Max size 1MB if you're posting an animated gif, which of course you are, because this is tumblr". On DW/LJ, though, you're free to watch it in all of its 2.6MB glory, behind ( this cut )

My main problem with the Summer Games is too many sports, too little time. During the Winter Games, even if you stick with/are stuck with NBC primetime coverage, you are going to end up seeing at least a taste of everything, regardless of how esoteric, which is what I enjoy the most. Whereas there is so much going on in the summer that even a super-competent and even-handed network would struggle to cover it adequately and, well, this is NBC. Although this is our first Olympics since the acquisition of a high definition television, so in that respect the quality of their coverage is excellent. ;)

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Voldesport: it which cannot be named!

2012-07-26T00:18:42Z

I've always loved the Olympics; like, 98% of the time it is fairly difficult to interest me in sports for longer than five minutes at a stretch, but during the Olympics I want to follow them all. Even, or perhaps especially, if I know nothing about them otherwise:

[...] as I now take pleasure in understanding the work of televised snooker players, thinking a series of curves and lines and then making these real, watching the balls dart and clatter and fall into beautiful shapes, as I also take pleasure in the skill of the cameramen, who can show my ignorant eye, picking out this detail and that, where the beautiful lines lie, where there are impossibilities in the way, where the danger is, and where success. (A. S. Byatt, 'Racine and the Tablecloth')

On the other hand, as a person who follows the news at all ever I can't help noticing that the IOC (venerable favorites) and the Cameron government (callow newcomers) seem to be falling all over themselves to see who can be more of a dick to more people, which is is not exactly delightful.

So probably what I will end up doing is watching avidly and jeering during the commercial breaks whilst reblogging pictures of pretty people on my Tumblr, which I have now, although I still find the interface vexing for many purposes.

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