RadGuy

I like Ojeda a lot. He's moderate on some policies, but in general is a left-populist. He can connect with leftie Bernie-bros like me, as well as with very conservative old-school Southern Democrats, and plenty of independents! Problem is - he's being ignored by the media. He has no chance of winning the primary. The big dogs are Kamala Harris, Joe Biden, Beto O'Rourke, and Bernie Sanders - assuming they all decide to run, which is quite likely. For now I'm with Bernie.

Oy charon I'm disappointed in ya. If you did a bit of research you would've realized this happened in a town right outside Chicago, and could've used it as a dig at me, not the Creep. In fact, it happened about 15 minutes away from my house. Tragic story. (For the record/legal reasons, I had nothing to do with it. There's no way in hell you would ever see me anywhere near a church!)

Nobody's immortal. One day Valerie Harper, Brackers, and Dilip Kumar will die too... RIP to Sri Sri. Sad he had to live such a miserable existence for the final years of his life. I doubt he actually wanted to keep on living, in fact, he was probably severely demented and couldn't make his own medical choices. It was his crazy followers who kept him suffering because he was a ''walking god''.

Well, today was Conference Championship Sunday. In the NFC, the New Orleans Saints started off hot 13-0 against the Los Angeles Rams, but the fast Rams offense stepped up their game and managed to tie it at 23-23 by the end of the 4th quarter. The game went into overtime, where the Rams won it 26-23. They are headed to the Super Bowl. Personally, this was pretty sad as I believe Drew Brees deserved another Super Bowl ring. But at least he already has one, so it's not that big of a deal. Hopefully he won't retire yet. The Rams, on the other hand, are a great, young team who might end up dominating the league for years to come. In the AFC, the New England Patriots had a 14-0 lead at halftime, shutting out their hosts, the Kansas City Chiefs - arguably the NFL's best offense. Great defensive effort by the Pats. But the Chiefs upped their game, and the score ended up tied at 31-31 by the end of the 4th quarter, and this game went into overtime too! That's actually a first for Championship Sunday iirc. The Patriots won it 37-31 though, and this just confirms that God hates America. Goddammit my head hurts just thinking about another Pats Super Bowl appearance! So, in two weeks, the Super Bowl will be between the Patriots and the Rams. I think the Patriots will win tbh, they're more experienced and less prone to error. And that's what matters in big games, usually. On the plus side, if they do win, Tom Brady will possibly retire, ending the reign of terror dynasty the Pats have established over the past two decades.

Extremely petty of me to bring this up, but it's been bugging my OCD-riddled ass for a while. My team is listed as having a best placing of ''13th (2018)'', but 'twas actually "=11th (2017)''. Anyway, this had me thinking that maybe a section called "Last year's score'' could be added to team's descriptions as well. I would be willing to collect that information and send it to you, if that's realistic. But I dunno, I guess it's a bad idea cause you'd still have to enter all that info manually, and it would probably just make the team descriptions look cluttered if an extra section is added.

The weather in Chicago you ask? After that late November snowstorm, December was quite warm without any snow (two instances of flurries in the week after Christmas, but that doesn't really count). January also started off feeling like spring, but winter has returned with a vengeance... Last weekend we had about 2 inches fall on Saturday. Over the past week a couple flurries... and now it's getting rough. A major winter storm is passing across the country and could dump up to 8 inches of snow upon us tomorrow night into Saturday morning. Sunday will feature lingering lake-effect snow showers. Next week, some more snow showers with freezing rain are possible on Tuesday and Wednesday... Cautiously optimistic that if all that starts piling up, especially with the ice mixed in, we might get another school cancellation sometime next week. But it's doubtful, those shits don't come easy! Especially since we already had one this school year. They can only do so many and might want to save it in case there's a worse blizzard coming up later in the season. This ain't Atlanta where a single snowflake causes the whole city to panic.

Ha, well, leave it to me to take a joke too seriously, but if you actually want to know: It's basically a month-long fundraiser during the holiday season (in fact, the name of it in Polish uses the word for ''holiday'', not Christmas - I blame the English translation on the War-on-Christmas types getting rowdy) intended to raise money for the underfunded and mismanaged healthcare system in Poland. It usually ends on a Sunday in mid-January (today is the day) with a telethon and concerts. So mayor Adamowicz was stabbed while on stage with - I believe - some performers and Jerzy Owsiak, the celebrity who runs the whole thing. Why was he stabbed? Overall, tensions in the country have been very high since the 2015 election and the government has been accused of taking authoritarian measures, for example trying to stack the judiciary with more of their own judges. A lot of liberal Poles have been protesting and forming organizations, and the right-wingers are quite scared and have been riling up their base (reminds you of someone orange by any chance?) Even the charity event has become politicized as Owsiak, the organizer, is a liberal journo and critic of the government. So some fervent government supporters have boycotted the event. Mayor Adamowicz is also quite progressive, and that seems to be why he was stabbed. According to reports, the man who stabbed him was a disgruntled bank robber who claims he was wrongfully imprisoned and blamed it on the former liberal Civic Platform government (Adamowicz's political party). Hope you found this not completely a fuckin waste of a read interesting.

Chrissake, that's big news. The Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity is probably the biggest event of the year in Poland. Political violence is extremely rare in modern day Poland. This is quite shocking.

Oh, for fuck sake, let me try again I can confirm you're all wrong.

I can confirm you're all wrong.

Great job, Spade! Thanks for your hard work and for modernizing the DDP website.

1. Queen Elizabeth II 2. Paul Gascoigne 3. Donald Trump 4. Bill Turnbull 5. Linda Nolan 6. Dick van Dyke 7. Ruth Bader Ginsburg 8. Olivia Newton-John 9. Prunella Scales 10. Billy Connolly 11. John Andretti 12. Leah Bracknell 13. Betty White 14. George Alagiah 15. Greg Gilbert 16. Valerie Harper 17. Marieke Vervoort 18. John McCririck 19. Olivia de Havilland 20. Prince Phillip 21. Michael Robinson 22. Jimmy Greaves 23. Vera Lynn 24. Beth Chapman 25. Pope Benedict XVI sub: June Brown For fuck sake, these were some really tough choices. It's not an easy year for the Inverse DP at all.

Wow! I actually did it! Thanks everyone, especially MPFC for running this fine pool.

Watch this space... if reports of Shirley Boone's demise are confirmed tonight (so far some tabloids like Radar Online and Life and Times of Hollywood reporting, dunno if those count), I win the Deathrace because she was my joker... 1449 + (354 x 2) = 2157 Would be my first deadpool win ever. And I think a record-fast Deathrace win as well.

Radar Online and some other gossip rags are claiming Shirley Boone has died... https://radaronline.com/exclusives/2019/01/pat-boone-wife-shirley-dies-84-daughter-debby-boone-you-light-up-my-life/ Not confirmed yet, but if true I win the Deathrace... Edit: Several of Pat Boone's friends on Facebook are talking about it, so I reckon it might be true.

Damn, that was a very quick downturn. Never even really considered him too much for the 2019 DDP. In fact, I don't think I selected him anywhere. Oh well... these things happen.

Yeah a few of us noticed last night that you could access the teams by replacing ''2018'' in the link with ''2019''. Wanted to keep it quiet so Spade had time to make the final tweaks without a bombardment of complaints, but now that it's public info no big deal. Quite surprised Jason DeLisle is a unique for me, I guess the absence of Aussie theme teams helped in that regard. And happy that I'm =5th on the scoreboard, peaking early I guess. (should be =6th because the team that picked Kevin McIntyre is missing points, but all in due course...)* *my own addition to the complaint-bombardment

Larry Langford, the former corrupt mayor of Birmingham, Alabama, has died aged 72, a couple weeks after compassionate release from prison. Good. I was starting to think he was a fraud. Deathrace hit for me. Also my first DDP hit for To Kill A Gabor Sister, if he gets the QO.

Well, I'm back in school today after quite a long break. My last semester of high school. Grades don't matter anymore, a lot of days off, and 2 free hours in the middle of the day... should be okay!

Well, it was a heartbreaking way to lose, but perhaps not even the worst of the day... the Ravens fumbling away their miraculous comeback was pretty bad too. I was pretty pissed off at Cody Parkey, but the video shows the kick was actually tipped, so not his fault. And he did score most of our offensive points anyway. I think the blame rests on Matt Nagy's conservative play-calling in the first half. Anyway, I'm still hopeful for the years to come. We're a very young team, so our Super Bowl window is huge. We have several more years of opportunity, while for teams like the Saints and Chargers, it's probably this year or bust. The way I see it, we're following the Rams' path. Last year they had a new coach that changed the team around, but lost Wild Card Weekend anyway. That was the Bears this year. This year the Rams were so good they got a first round bye, and I'll be paying close attention to how far they make it, because that could be the Bears next year too.

Reuters UK obit for Kevin McIntyre.

Bengali politician Syed Ashraful Islam is dead. Deathrace pick for me and a few others.

Kevin McIntyre, chairman of the FERC from December 2017 until his resignation in October 2018, has died. Picked in some pools, perhaps the DDP too, but I doubt he gets a qualifying obit. We'll see.

2016: Valerie Harper, Clive James, Hosni Mubarak (3/20) 2017: Leah Bracknell, Gay Byrne, Greg Gilbert, Kris Hallenga, Heidi Loughlin, Rena Salmon, Valery Spiridonov (7/20) 2018: Leah Bracknell, Greg Gilbert, Jose Jose, Dilip Kumar, Philomena Lynott, Fernando Ricksen, Nobby Stiles, Marieke Vervoort (8/20)

Kirk Douglas Herman Wouk Leah Bracknell Robert Mugabe Bob Dole Bob Barker Stirling Moss Bob Hawke Nobby Stiles Tony Britton Clive James Johnny Clegg 12 deaths. 25% Bob, 75% non-Bob. (Edit: Ha! Technically 33% Bob if you count Robert Mugabe) No joker for me btw.