GO PATRICK!!!!

[Sean]

Ages ago, when I was waiting for my mother in the hallway outside the subterranean medical records office at the hospital where she worked, a passerby suggested that I should consider taking up figure skating. At the time, I was standing on one leg with the rest of my body parallel to the floor. I was doing that just because I was bored, and it was something quiet (unlike some of my other pastimes) that I could do while waiting for our weekly trip to the Japanese Tea Garden (strangely staffed by people with distinctly Cantonese accents).

No offence whatsoever intended Andrew but that story reminded me of this...

[Crackpot]

that Garth Merengi?

[Sean]

Indeed it is. Not in that particular incarnation though...

[Andrew D]

Strange how doing something utterly trivial, but happening to do it well, can bring up misdirected associations in people's minds.

I had very good balance in those days. (I could also stretch myself plank-like over the back of a chair supported only by the chair's back under my belly.) What the passerby did not take into account was that I was standing still. Balance while in motion is a very different matter: Me + ice-skating (even back when I could endure the temperature without convulsive shivering) = pratfall.

Not quite so many ages ago, I somehow ended up taking a body-fat percentage test. (Something to do with some class which my then-girlfriend was taking; the details escape me.) The result was absurdly low. (0.8%? 1.2%? Something like that.) The person who conducted the test wanted to know who was supervising my track-and-field training. (And I got the distinct impression that the concern was that I was being overtrained.)

As it happened, the test involved being underwater and expelling all of one's air. And it turned out that although I was very lean, the reason for my exceptionally low body-fat result was primarily a residual result of my training as a chorister: The test had a built-in margin for unexpelled air, but because of my breathing training -- breathing being the foundation of singing -- I had, in fact, expelled virtually all of my air. So the test result was skewed.

But track-and-field training? Right. The only times I'd ever run more than maybe 100 yards were when evading pursuit.

Had the test-conductor actually observed me participating in track-and-field (in the unlikely event that I could have been persuaded to do so, except, perhaps, for a substantial payment), he would never have concluded that I was involved in track-and-field at all. And had the passerby in the hospital hallway ever seen me on the ice, she would never have suggested figure skating as a plausible option for me.

These things happen: Incomplete facts --> misleading results.

[Sean]

LMAO - I'm not doubting the veracity of your tales Andrew and if anything you've reinforced the connection I made. In fact, I now feel compelled to put up the entire clip!

[rubato]

Elvis Stojko was the last hope of Canadian male figure skating.

And he's gone.

yrs,
rubato

[Scooter]

Excuse me?

You do realize there have been two Canadian men who have won world championships since then. And one of those will likely be repeating in a couple of months.

[rubato]

They are uninteresting.

yrs,
rubato

[Scooter]

To each his own. I'm sure both would be absolutely crushed to know your opinion of them.

[Sean]

C'mon Scoot... Surely you must realise that if they are uninteresting to Pops then they are useless...

It stands to reason!

[Econoline]

Don't mind rubato; he's just trying to establish his straight cred.

[Beer Sponge]

Thanks Econoline, now I have to clean cereal off my monitor...

[Andrew D]

No offence whatsoever intended Andrew ....

None taken.

But the parallel strikes me as, well, imparallel. In the go-karting scene, the guy claims that he was told by someone who had seen him go-karting that he was great at it.

The passerby who suggested figure skating for me had never seen me on ice; had she ever seen me on ice, she would not have made that suggestion. Likewise, the guy who thought that I was a track-and-field runner had never seen me run; had he ever seen me run, he would not have formed that impression.

Which, in both cases, is rather the point: Based on observing me do one thing, someone concluded that I was or would be good at another, when in fact, I was or would have been entirely incompetent at both.

The clips are pretty funny though ....

[Scooter]

So fast forward to the 2012 Worlds...

Ice dance competition just concluded. Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir of Canada edge out Meryl Davis and Charlie White of the U.S. to reclaim the world title. Tomorrow will bring the men's short program and the pairs free program.

[Scooter]

Chan scores 89.41 in his short program, good, but he's not going to be blowing away the rest of the field at this point like he did last year. Daisuke Takahashi and Jeremy Abbott are also skating in this flight, so we'll see how they compare. It's not usually done in figure skating to wish ill on any of the competitors, but I was really hoping that Brian Joubert would fall hard on his ass, just because he's such an arrogant SOB who doesn't really have the chops to back it up.

[Gob]

Chan scores 89.41 in his short program, good, but he's not going to be blowing away the rest of the field at this point like he did last year.

Not until they get off the ice at least!