Danibellerika

You can kiss the ice without issues. David Pelletier did it in SLC Olympics (a deeper one than Yuzu's supposed peck) and his lips lived to tell the tale: It's ice, not dry ice. Now THAT you can't touch, but at that rate they wouldn't be skating on it either .

I've made a poll! Come one, come all!!

To kiss the ice or not to kiss the ice. That is the question: I think he did because he looks like he deliberately lowers his head to kiss the ice. Just a smallest of pecks and very brief, but a kiss nevertheless.

*Chants* Poll Poll Poll Poll Poll!!

I looked beforehand and couldn't find anything. I can't even find the standard NBC stuff with Johnny and Tara anymore even to purchase and I'd buy both if i could >_>. I might have considered that NBC Sports Gold package sooner if they actually give you the Olympics, but they don't, so no rush there. Right now it's simply not possible to get this if you lack either a 4K TV or a 4K Cable box with a subscription. You have to have both. It won't even scale it down to 1080p or something for regular HDTV and those boxes. Bah!!! I will see what I can figure out. If push comes to shove I can record the tv with my camera but that would not do it justice. I want to get it in its intended format.

So I don't know how many of you guys in here are in the US and have cable, but NBC offers the Olympics in 4K On Demand (though you need a 4k tv and 4k cable box) and it turns out that for the 4k broadcast they have completely different commentary AND different camera angles! A lot of times you feel like you were on the ice (if you have a really big tv, lol)! Charlie White was commentating and he is just so wonderful! I wish we could have him all the time. It's so clear how much he admires and respects Yuzu. He wouldn't shut up about him throughout the broadcast . And they posed the GOAT question and Charlie said "it's an easy argument to make because he's proven himself time and time again and this, when it matters most, he was able to do exactly what he needed to do when he needed to do it". I'm trying to figure out how I can capture this before the On-Demand expires (I imagine the file will be massive), but if I can I hope to post!

Yuzuru looking mighty regal and mighty fine today!!! Hakama Yuzu might be my fave Yuzu. Omedetou gozaimasu!!

Not officially announced but this was playing while Dai was working with his freeskate choreographer, Benoît Richaud. This seems so very Dai.

Él dice que va a hacer mejor durante la próxima temporada también. 来シーズンも頑張ります！（raishizun mo ganbarimasu) - I'll do my best next season, too.

These are quite nice! I love the dress one a lot!!!

Super thrilled to hear about Dai's return! One of my all time faves!! I'm keeping expectations reasonable but I am looking forward to new programs from him and what he can still bring to the ice. NHK tickets will probably be hard to get now, and Nats, but I bet Worlds will also be really difficult since they are likely to be on sale before nationals.

Well here is a veeeeery close preview if you're interested:

Yep, works for me. Sorry ice dance just isn't what gets me going whether we're good at it or not.

@Fay mentioned how Meryl and Charlie and Tessa and Scott haven't been mentioned yet. So they could be the top 2 (pretty anti-climatic IMO) but whatevs. Gotta promote the home team after all...

This is my kinda store!!!

Olympic Channel Podcast with Plushenko and Boitano. Just started listening to it, but Boitano is talking about him taking too much time off? Like, Yuzu doesn't plan to take time off I don't know where he got that misinformation. Desperate for a soundbite maybe? Not to mention both Yuna Kim and Plushenko were able to take time off and come back pretty successfully. Maybe they weren't quite as good as they were, but they were definitely competitive.

Based on recent conversation I'm going to place this here as a reminder. Please keep in mind that this forum welcomes criticism as long as it is constructive and doesn't devolve into becoming nonconstructive. Yuzu has many fans that love him for different reasons. We aren't going to agree about everything he says or does or wears and it is okay to talk about that. That doesn't mean we don't support him wholeheartedly.

Boston will never not be a sore spot I have come to believe. I was only able to watch the free skate in person and I was so looking forward to a good skate. It was also my first time seeing Yuzu live and unfortunately you only get one "first" time. I drowned in my sorrows right good that night at the hotel. It helped to be with my friends to take my mind off things but when I woke up the next day I was really glum. Can't imagine what it was like for him, but if there is a Worlds that builds "character" that one is it. When I think about it, there was no Boston result I was particularly happy about and that was the shortest flight. I had to fly across the world for it but Helsinki righted a lot of the Boston wrong with Yuzu and Sui/Han winning so that was worth it. And then the Olympics righted some other wrongs. For the ACI free skate I was numb to it because nothing stung like Boston and the SP was so stellar and a pleasant surprise considering his knee pain, so I already felt like the trip was worth it. I was just hoping I wouldn't be in for a THIRD Siemei bomb and thankfully he righted that ship at the right time. I can still watch the Boston short though because I am able to put the free skate out of my mind. Helps to have been a Sasha fan and used to her perpetually good shorts followed by imperfect frees costing her many a gold in painful fashion. You think Yuzu hates silver? I bet it ain't Sasha's fave either.

With autotune you could make a screeching cat sound like P!nk.

I don't know if Yuzu has told him anything actually. I just think Plushy is being enthusiastic. He probably sees a lot of himself in Yuzu when it comes to competitive drive and let's not forget they are the same ages for their Olympic cycles. Plushy was 19 in 2002 (OSM), 23 in 2006 (OGM), 27 in 2010 (OSM), 31 in 2014 (Team Gold, but could have had a singles OBM with no team event if he got anything close to his team score).

He talked about Yuzu's completeness as a skater and how he is the best and how he is his favorite. He loves Yuzu's jumps (in terms of great quality), spins, choreography. He mentioned how other skaters may just have the jumps but not the choreography. He also mentioned the evolution of quads and how in Vancouver he was the only one that did one (though I'm pretty sure Daisuke went for it but he might have fallen) but guys are jumping them all now, like Chen. He thinks Yuzu can do the 4a and knows he was working on it before PC. He thinks Yuzu is from another planet and thinks he could be in Beijing and possibly win it. But he at least thinks Yuzu is going to strive for it. Did I miss anything? ETA: No Plushenko wasn't the only one doing quads in Vancouver. Evan was just able to win despite not having one: http://www.isuresults.com/results/owg2010/owg10_Men_FS_Scores.pdf - and looking at this, Lambiel tried for more quads. Plushy should have done a second toe instead of a 2A like he was able to do in the prior Olys.

It's weird to say but now that I have found more effective ways of studying kanji it's not quite as difficult anymore (still not a complete walk in the park though, but it doesn't feel quite as hopeless as before). At this point grammar feels more challenging. I just regret not studying kanji earlier on when I was first learning Japanese. Schooling likes to hold it off for too long, using hiragana as a crutch. I used to think it'd be easier if everything was only in hiragana. And I was reliant on manga style with furigana above the kanji so that I wasn't as motivated to learn it. But now that I can read kanji, looking at sentences totally in hiragana has become harder since it's hard to tell where one word ends and another begins. As for Yuzu, I hear he wants to learn Russian too. I am curious from his perspective if he will tell us which one is more difficult to learn between English and Russian. Russian also seems really complicated, harder than English. He shoots for the moon, I tell ya!

I think learning Spanish helped my Japanese pronunciation. I hear Mandarin is harder upfront due to the tones (and Cantonese for that matter which I hear has 9 tones compared to Mandarin's 5), but over time it becomes easier. Japanese is the reverse as the grammar becomes complicated. Complicated enough for there to be 3 grammar dictionaries 600-800 pages each: https://www.amazon.com/Dictionary-Japanese-Learning-Language-Intermediate/dp/B01M3T4NJP/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1528913161&sr=8-3&keywords=dictionary+of+japanese+grammar&dpID=51jrz1XkO2L&preST=_SX218_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch I have them all. Gotta read it like story time, over and over Like an epic fantasy trilogy. Lord of the Rings ain't got nothing on these!! The King and the Queen!! All is well in the world, folks!! These two could write a book about defying odds!

That's like me and Spanish. Though I got pretty far in Spanish, but Japanese is more interesting to me because it's so different. I feel like I can go back to Spanish at any time but I can still read it pretty well and pronounce what I'm reading. Though occasionally my brain wants to say a Spanish word when I'm speaking Japanese and vice versa. When something is too hard to say in Japanese I want to say it in Spanish. Japan imported Chinese characters so they don't always mean the same thing anymore, but often they do. I've actually been able to read a little Chinese since I started studying Kanji. Though I couldn't speak it if my life depended on it.

@3min Yuzu says the rope is "chotto mijikai" (a little short)