RadGuy

Inspirational cancer-suffering Purdue student Tyler Trent has died at the age of 20. Deathracer for me and a few others. Sad story, from near my neck of the woods too. RIP.

Deadline for obits has passed so congrats to Pity Da Foolz on his victory.

1. Jean Louis Trintignant 2. Tim Conway (May 14, 2019) 3. Dilip Kumar 4. Stirling Moss 5. Pat Bowlen (June 13, 2019) 6. Violetta Chamorro 7. Terry Jones 8. Bob Hawke (May 16, 2019) 9. Nobby Stiles 10. John Hume 11. Bob Barker 12. Clive James (November 24, 2019) 13. Kathleen Blanco (August 18, 2019) 14. Roberta McCain 15. Leslie Phillips 16. Grand Duke Jean of Luxembourg (April 23, 2019) 17. John McCririck (July 5, 2019) 18. Jill Gascoine 19. Katharine Whitehorn 20. Leah Bracknell (September 29, 2019) 21. Kirk Douglas 22. Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh 23. Sidney Poitier 24. George Alagiah 25. Virginia McCaskey 26. Robert Mugabe (September 6, 2019) 27. Bob Dole 28. Pope Benedict XVI 29. Balbir Singh Sr. 30. Barbara Windsor 31. Loretta Lynn 32. Norm Coleman 33. Bill Macy (October 17, 2019) 34. Harry Reid 35. Walter Mondale 36. Bill Turnbull 37. F. W. De Klerk 38. Lamont Dozier 39. Jimmy Carter 40. Franco Zeffirelli (June 15, 2019) 41. Kenneth Cope 42. Valerie Harper (August 30, 2019) 43. Thad Cochran (May 30, 2019) 44. Olivia de Havilland 45. June Lockhart 46. Gay Byrne (November 4, 2019) 47. Rosalynn Carter 48. Sandra Day O'Connor 49. David Prowse 50. Jim Kelly 14/50

Subs Andrew McGahan - gonna punt that he doesn't get the obit, I got Heimel vibes from him. But everybody else chose him so I feel like I fucked up. Stirling Moss - probable Drop 40er, but old people linger, I could use him elsewhere Jill Gascoine - same as Moss Final cuts Michael Murphy - I think he died off the radar in late 2018, that's happened before with criminals (Raymond Hewlett, Leo Sharp). Nanci Ryder - Year after year she's one of my final drops. Eventually she'll ''pull a Yarnall'' @msc Ady Barkan - Despite dramatic headlines, he's still out and about campaigning, only in his 3rd year of ALS, and will live on to see the 2020 election Pete Frates - Still too stable, might last like Gleason John Hume - he's dying, but I had enough dementia picks Jordan Dawes - only spread to lymph nodes so should be around for at least a couple more years Gary Bigeni - Stats suggest he might not die, and a QO risk John Cocks - considered him heavily until the optimistic December update George Alagiah - more 2020 Sandy Alderson - seems grim reading between the lines, but that's not the type of folk I go for John McCririck - seems a bit of a drama queen, and I need facts, not dramatization. But he's this year's Wetton/Mark E. Smith so congrats to those who chose him. 2018 picks dropped Leah Bracknell/Greg Gilbert - I had them 2 years in a row and grew bored Nobby Stiles - Time for some new dementia picks Dilip Kumar - Immortal? Immortal. And not much points. Marieke Vervoort - Not too bad of a pick tbh, but euthanasia entirely dependent on her mindset. Jose Jose - Voice made him sound extremely ill in October audio clip, however he's a drama queen straight out of a telenovela! Philomena Lynott - Too few points... Dropped early Bill Turnbull - not at all as ill as the press makes it sound Doddie Weir - ''year left if I'm lucky'' ALS sufferer... he can still WALK! He'll be extremely unlucky if he dies in the next 3 years of ALS. Norm Coleman - treatment's working. Roman Reigns - his cancer doesn't seem too severe. Pat Smullen - tumor operated on Sonali Bendre - advanced cancer, but what type? Went back home to India because treatment seems to be working.

"probable Drop 40er who isn't as ill as he's dramatized to be, both in the press and on the forum" = Bill Turnbull "Also dropped someone who is almost a dead-cert and will be on several contending teams, but probably won't muster the obit." = Thuy Thanh Truong "The main one I'm dabbling with now is a bloke who I think understated his life expectancy." = Doddie Weir "And I was quite surprised to find out that two names of the same nationality, who were practically locks, have a couple more years left in them if statistics are to be believed. However, I expect at least one of them to make my team anyway, because a lot of the current locks won't make the starting line!" = Gary Bigeni and Barry du Bois... and yes, du Bois did end up getting subbed in after Skovgaard's death. "off forum young'un" = Jordan Dawes, as I already mentioned "oldie cert to die, dropped due to technicality" = Pat Bowlen. Dropped him because I was already playing him in my NFL theme team and wanted to use more names. "pussied out of" = Michael Murphy, I think he died off the radar in 2018 and would be a dud pick like Raymond Hewlett and Leo Sharp, a potential fraud too anyway And my last minute switcheroo was Stirling Moss and Jill Gascoine swapped out in favor of Samu Anoa'i and Lee Kerslake. But that wasn't even the last of my team changes! I think that covers all my hints.

To Kill A Gabor Sister 2019 1. Fatima Ali 2. John Andretti 3. Samu Anoa'i 4. Gerard Basset 5. Susan Bayh 6. Kathleen Blanco 7. Johnny Clegg 8. Tim Conway 9. Jason DeLisle 10. Barry du Bois 11. Andrew Fairlie 12. Bill Freehan 13. Clive James 14. Lee Kerslake 15. Larry Langford 16. Karen Lewis 17. Sacheen Littlefeather 18. Fernando Ricksen (JOKER) 19. Fred Rister 20. Jean Louis Trintignant

Happy New Year to all of you! It's been great to spend another year on these forums, and to see yet another batch of Deathlist selections. It's only 7:38pm on December 31st here in Chicago, so I haven't started my celebrations yet, but I will be leaving soon for what should be a fun night. I'll be back tomorrow afternoon to share my DDP team, Shadow List, and more. Can't wait to see all of yours as well!

Hmm, some interesting newbies. Johnny Clegg is a good one, as is Bob Hawke. I can see why they didn't go for Fernando Ricksen (angry Rangers fans) nor Tim Conway (American-only fame). Jean Louis Trintignant a bad miss, though! Sort of disappointed they didn't choose Rosalynn Carter, or Queen Lizzy for that matter. Not likely to die, I know, but would be good ''too big to miss'' choices. They certainly would've been better picks than Vanessa Redgrave and Larry King, imho. Jill Gascoine, Pope Benny, and Leslie Phillips are bold drops. Though, I assume Gascoine was dropped after they realized what a surprising success it was to boldly drop Nobby for a year. Overall, I predict 12/50.

Hello, deathlisters! The world-famous "Shaun's Death By Numbers" is back, with your new host - Phantom of the Midway. Here are the basic rules: - Make a list of 50 people (preferably in alphabetical order), with 3 substitutes. Nominate one person as your joker. - Submit it to me by midnight on New Year's (British time). - You can make 5 substitutions to your team at the halfway point - July 1st. But we'll talk about that later. - No death row inmates, terrorist hostages, or longevity claimants (see below) allowed. Picks must be 18+ and human. You know, the obvious stuff. - Same QO rules as the DDP. If Spade makes any changes to the QO rules for next year, those will apply for here too. - FFBI are allowed, but good luck getting most of them to QO anyway. Here is the scoring system: For each dead person, the points you will receive are the last two digits of their date of birth. For somebody born in 1900, you get 0 points. For somebody born in 1999, you get 99 points. The reason I don't allow longevity claimants is because there are no people alive proven to have been born before 1900, so I ain't gonna give you xx points for somebody claiming to have been born in 18xx. There are no bonuses - not for unique, not for Drop 40/Deathlist - nothing. The only points you get is the last two digits of their date of birth, so choose wisely. Your joker scores double points when they die. I will not be submitting my own team. Good luck to you all!

Update #25 26 December 2018 - Sister Wendy Beckett (b. 1930) - Gooseberry Crumble, DevonDeathTrip 29 December 2018 - Simon Ricketts (b. 1968) - Sean, drol, Joey Russ, CaptainChorizo, DeathImpends 30 December 2018 - Hector Timerman (b. 1953) - drol, Joey Russ, gcreptile, Captain Chorizo, DeathImpends, DevonDeathTrip Scoreboard: DeathImpends 1527 gcreptile 1420 Captain Chorizo 1289 drol 1276 msc 1198 Joey Russ 1172 Grim Up North 1116 Book 965 Sean 928 DevonDeathTrip 924 Prophet 911 The Unknown Man 680 Banana 664 FixedBusiness 652 Wormfarmer 551 John Key 519 Torva Messor 488 Toast 471 YoungWillz 386 Gooseberry Crumble 272 Grigori 189 mr.whit 125 Bibliogryphon 113 Final update as the competition is closing right when I post this - 00:00, 1 January 2019 (GMT). I honestly thought for a while we might not get any hits at all in December, but after Christmas the Reaper decided it's the perfect time for carnage. No leaderboard changes however, DeathImpends remains on top. In fact, his lead grew thanks to Simon Ricketts. So, officially: DeathImpends wins Death By Numbers 2018! This is it - I am signing off as host. Thank you all for competing. Now, I pass the baton to gcreptile...

To Kill A Gabor Sister 2019 is in. Hoping this is the year I finally crack the top 10, but I doubt it. Feels like there's something missing from my team... too many punts and oldies, not enough reliable high-scorers. Oh, well, we'll see how it goes.

I didn't want to post this yesterday, as Spade was probably busy with all the 2019 Ricketts subs, but there is a little correction to be made. Yesterday, when Ricketts died, his Guardian obit put his age as 48, and Spade awarded 13 points (including D40 bonus) accordingly. Well, as it says in his DDP bio, he was actually born in 1968. Social media suggests May 17th, so he was 50. Luckily, controversy will be avoided as the Guardian edited their obit to say he was 50. So that'll be 12 points, actually. No big deal, but, y'know... for fairness sake.

If I did the math right, I now fall from 9th place to 13th place. And I was so excited for my first top 10 finish, especially after I just missed out last year too at =11th! Oh, well, still a good performance and I did smash my personal hits record. If only I had chosen a better joker.... whatever, onto 2019!

A journo exposes herself as a DDP player.

Fuck, that's quite annoying for 2019 teams. But it makes my decision on who to joker a bit easier... Now I wonder if he'll obit in time for 2018 teams to score points? Seems like the type of name who doesn't get a QO until a week or two after dying...

Wow, Deathray, excellent work with the former scoreboard links, all-time leaderboard, and other records!

E is for Ellis ''Deadly'' Doug Ellis, that is, who is appropriately: dead! Died back on October 11th, just noticed now that I am missing points for him.

Shame to see such a legend go. If he had made it a few more days, I assume he would have been on many more DDP teams than the current 2.

Regarding the earlier conversation about how this has been such a dud year for jokers... As it stands today, December 27th, only 3 teams in the top 10 have had a hit with their joker. This is the worst year as far as records go back (2003). The next worst years, 2004 and 2009, had 6 of the top 10 with dead jokers.

If Osato gets her obit (I don't think she will), that's only the 10th hit of December 2018. An incredibly quiet month - and December is usually one of the busiest months of the year! On the other hand, this bodes well for January 2019 being a huge month and a rocket-fast start to the DDP, especially with how few shortlisters have died before the starting line.

Yes, yes, I admit it was her. I did drop her from my shortlist about a week or two ago. She was a hell of a rollercoaster for me: when I first saw in November that she had a stroke and was then diagnosed with liver cancer, I assumed it was a complication of the cancer spreading and that it was clearly very advanced. But thanks to WebMD's highly professional tips, I found out that a stroke can actually occur in the very early stages. Couple weeks later, mid-December, I see a social media update that tumors have spread to her lymph nodes. What with me being totally stoopid when it comes to medical knowledge, I assumed this was metastasis and that she was in stage IV. But again, thanks to WebMD or some other site, I learned that cancer spreading to lymph nodes isn't nearly as severe as spreading to bones, lungs, etc. and puts her at stage II or III. So, yeah, Miss Dawes will be a prime pick. For 2021. If that.

Just when I thought my team was good to go, I decided to swap out two names that were in their 80s. Replaced them with two younger picks that I've been needlessly skeptical about - they're actually good fucking picks when I stop overthinking it! They'll also be on everyone's teams and I need some fucking defense. Anyway, I think I'm finally content with To Kill A Gabor Sister 2019. A couple cult picks, a decent amount of Drop 40 favorites, some must-have certs, a few oldies-but-goldies, several off-forum names with two potential uniques as well (fingers crossed!)

A very Merry Christmas to all. If you don't celebrate: Happy Hannukah, Happy Kwanzaa, Happy New Year, a Festivus full of grievance-airings, Blessed Solstice, and a Happy Libyan Independence Day! That oughta cover it.

Danish shoe designer and would-be cult pick for 2019 contenders Camilla Skovgaard died yesterday morning according to her GoFundMe.

Just had my last final exam this morning and I'm now on Winter Break. I was happy to find out, just a couple days ago, that they generously gave us an extra day off, so we don't go back to school until Tuesday, January 8th - I thought it would be the day before. Plans now? I still have a ton of college applications to finish. So far I'm 5 for 5 in terms of acceptance (Illinois Wesleyan, South Carolina, Loyola-Chicago, UIUC, and Miami), but those were mostly 'safety' schools. The ones I'm working on now are the tough schools, so unfortunately will be expecting mostly rejection letters in the next couple months. Otherwise - Christmas celebrations with the family, including the grandparents who flew in from Poland. Shortlist work of course. Going skiing in Wisconsin with my friends in a couple weeks. And an amazing New Year's Eve!