Wormfarmer

Alcee your Hastings and raise you a Bibian Mentel! (That means I got two recent hits.)

Congrats to Quim. I knew i was in trouble from the starting gun. I'll be bach.

Wait! No! I didnt lose! This election was rigged! The deaths my opponent received were bogus mail in deaths! I demand a recount! I wont go. I won this matchup! It was stolen from me!! Somebody better find me 7 points out there!!

Nothing seems to kill off an opponents pick quicker than blogging about it. This should teach me not to submit my team early! Although here in California, I don't think our internet is good enough to get health intel on soccer (futbol) players anyway . . . . .

On paper I have already handed the win to Quim this round, but here we are entering the final third of the month and still we are locked into a 0-0 battle. I would like to say that I had every expectation the Prince Philip and Peter Lorimer were going to survive the month, and it is next month that I will put them on my list and score the points. But it was mere oversight that I missed those two (although I did have Prince P as an alternate). I still give Quim a big edge, but at this point all I need is a hail mary on one of my solos, and I have a good chance at moving on to the next round. Anything can happen . . . . . that's why we play the games!

I may be jumping the gun if you are updating soon, but I believe Sylvain Sylvain, Leon Spinks and Rush Limbaugh will add 436 to my total and make it 1691. If not for the Killer Tim Brooks fiasco (a non obit choice at 450 pts), I might be doing pretty well here.

Bout time I checked in to see how my big comeback is going in this pool. Meh. Not so great. But I will inform of the passing of James Randi on Oct 20, 2020, which is a solo hit at "R" worth a total of 5 pts, giving me a new total of 16. Brings me up a few spots. Still far from the big showing I had promised myself. Once again the competition is outstanding, while I am merely outsitting.

Well, time zones and deadlines conspire to bite me again. I know I am a few hours late to enter (it's still the 17th where I am), but I will play along at home with the following list. Wouldn't that beat all if this would have been my first Deathlist pool win? Shazzbot. My list was generated without looking at the stats posted previously. 1. QE II 2 Paul Gascoigne 3 Rolf Harris 4 Donald Trump 5 Angela Lansbury 6 Betty White 7 Willie Nelson 8 Mikhail Gorbachev 9 Desmond Tutu 10 Bobby Charlton 11 Dick Van Dyke 12 Rob Burrow 13 David Attenborough 14 June Brown 15 Susan Bayh 16 Gerd Muller 17 Doddie Weir 18 Prunella Scales 19 Yoko Ono 20 Greg Gilbert 21 Linda Nolan 22 Jean Louis Trintignant 23 Tom Parker 24 Olivia Newton John 25 Jimmy Carter

9 pages of discussion and still a week before the game starts. Skinny's got to be rethinking biting off this ball of cud. Anyway, I'm not going to read all 9 pages of chat here, but I am familiar with the site and have been playing for a few years, so I am in. I go by the same name (not sure why we would want pseudonyms for our pseudonyms, some people really ARE too competitive), so if I can join just send me the invite. I will be checking the site every few days until game time. Since it is Yankcentric, maybe it's a forum where I will have a chance against some of you superstars.

I will be someone's cannon fodder again this year.

Wormfarmer's 2021 abdelaziz bouteflika AJ foyt al roker alcee hastings barbara babcock barbara barrie barbara walters bibian mentel bill freehan - joker bill turnbull bob barker bob cousy bob dole chuck wepner david gulpilil dilip kumar ed asner emperor akihito floyd little george alagiah jean louis trintignant jerry lee lewis jim otto joe a. ratzinger john daly john madden larry king leon spinks leslie phillips luis echeverria mary e fairhurst mikhail gorbachev norm coleman olivia newton john pat robertson paul westphal peter max peter schjeldahl prince philip roman reigns rush limbaugh samson burke shannen doherty sonali bendre steve gleason superstar billy graham sylvain sylvain tommy lasorda trey mancini yoo sang-chul subs: pele tina turner yoko ono tommy chong

I particularly get annoyed when I have a reasonable hit in a pool and don't get the QO to score it. Case in point John Starling in the Windy City, or Henry Gray or Randy Romero in several high profile pools. Granted, these may not be household names, but they are certainly accomplished folks and not just quintuplet moms or cancer bloggers. I am pretty disciplined at avoiding those, even when they would be easy points if accepted. This is not a criticism of those pools, just my frustration when a name I feel should score doesn't get respected by the main media. So this type of pool does not rely on the QO, it relies on the tried and true names already commonly accepted in the games. Plus I think it will have the added benefit of being a pool that you can submit a team and forget about it for a while, or you can stay active and improve your chances of winning just a little bit. Here is the idea: I will post a list of 80 selected surviving names taken from 1) the Deathlist over the past two years, 2) the Derby Drop 40 for 2020, and 3) a few of my own liking which did not make either source 1 or 2. Entries will submit a list of 40 of those names, ranked from 40 pts (at the top) down to 1 point at the bottom. So, yes, put your favorites at the top. Bonuses: a daily double will get you +10 points A solo hit will get you +20 points, a duo is worth +10 pts, and a trio is worth +5 pts for each player In addition, any solo, duo or trio can be replaced AT THAT SPOT with a new name from the list of 80. This is where list maintenance helps your chances if you stay alert. Also, a hit at the 13 spot or 19 (in honor of the virus) spots can also be replaced with a new name from the list of 80, every time it hits. So these spots recycle their points and are potentially valuable. So do you use your Top 40 right away, or hold a few sure things back to bring them in as replacements? You decide. The game ends the first time we have a full calendar month without a single hit on an active list. So as long as the scoring remains active, the game keeps going. Technically it could go 80 months, but we know it will be much shorter than that, I am hoping one to two years to wrap it up and crown an inaugural champion. Entries close when the third hit on the list of 80 dies, or when we get 15 entries, so it could be a few days, or a few weeks from now. At that point I will post a master list of entries. You can PM your lists to me, or post them to this thread. The game starts as soon as the first entry is received. I will PM my list to that person in return for safe keeping as well. Hope it sounds fun and good luck to all!! I will post the list of 80 later this afternoon.

While working on my 2020-21 list I noted a missing 4 pt score for Michael Medwin who checked out on Feb 26. That's 3 pts for the alliteration and an extra for a duo, with . . . . damn now I've forgotten who else wisely selected Medwin. Wormfarmer jumps to 22 pts, currently a tie for 18th. I thought I would do better. I started off with a strong list, with 5 of my first 6 names gone. After that, I suffered. Again, I went too obscure and 4 No Obits really hurt, leaving about 18 pts on the slaughterhouse floor. Lack of respect for Randy Romero sure took its toll on this group. Sir Creep, are you hosting Round 4?

Where oh where is my Killer Tim Brooks obit! I need you Superman!!

Score table early on page 1 is updated through Jerry Stiller, who was our last hit over 30 days ago. This drought also triggers the games early demise. I have been distracted to the point of not checking in to the site regularly lately while a family member is going through some health issues and will probably be off for a while anyway, so although this is an unsatisfying early end to my pool, maybe its for the best right now. Hope to be checking in regularly again soon, maybe the obits will pick up by then as well. Peace everyone!

Thank you. Thank you. Last year John Starling failed to obit and left me 300 in the lurch. I was trying to go more safely this year so losing my top name would have been a critical blow. I had found the obit for Willie K in Billboard, but I was afraid it was going to stop there. I appreciate how good you guys are at finding obits.

Willie (or won't he) K. Here I go again, picking these monster celebs that can't earn me credit. 500 points on the line this time. Everyone go out and buy some Hawaiian cds please!

I amended the cutoff to closing until a 15th entry comes in, although things are not exactly buzzing right now. I figure I can manage a little bigger field than this and there isn't too much disadvantage to joining the game in progress, since there are lots of promising scores left in the draft pool. So I will set to work organizing the entries to date, but not close the door to a few more. Hopefully have a table posted by the end of the day. And nice hit (Jill G) for minimum effort.

Tun Tin passes on, giving me 3 for the alliteration, and 3 for the solo. And Michael Medwin is also gone. He was also worth 3 for the alliteration, and 1 for a duo with Bibliogryphon. New total = 24. Ahhh, that's a little better.

I was tasting success when I raked 677 points to finish on the last day but I still can only manage 8th place! Damn, you guys are good. Even throw in 300 for John Starling's No Obit and I only finish 3rd. Damn! Did I say you guys are good?

Anxiously awaiting an updated scorelist. My total has recently. . . . VERY recently taken a nice spike and I am looking for a good finish here. I just jumped 577 points with a last minute Sam Lloyd hit + bonus, plus 100 for the Chris Duncan bonus and my new total should be 2752. I figure it's not going to be enough to stay ahead of the other leaders that get Sam Lloyd points, but it's certainly going to bring me up from my last position posted at #11. Now if I can just earn a final 300 points by finding a John Starling obit I would probably comfortably have this in the bag . . . .

Hey, thanks for tracking that. I had to look it up myself and it turns out you are right, although there were only 14 participants in the game that year. Now that my terror has turned to elation with the moving up one day of Sam Lloyd's passing (may 1 to Apr 30), I squeaked in a decent showing in this year's contest as well. Sam was my 500 point getter - how's that for a finish? And I left him off my list for 2020-21 completely. A true last gasp!

My team just PM'd to the Big Cho'reeze. I enjoy this pool. It's time to show it with a Top 5 finish.

I just put my list on the thread above. Full disclosure: I had submitted it (to Capn Cho via PM) just hours before news broke of John Prine's death, and I had him at the #4 spot. To keep things clean at the start, I have replaced him with Bev Cleary. I know Capn Cho got his list in with John Prine on it in good faith before word broke of his death, and I was leaning toward letting him keep the points, but in fact to keep things clean and follow the letter of the law of most pools, names submitted on the same day as someone dying should be discounted, again, to keep things clean and avoid controversies. Cho - could you please replace John Prine with another name?? With only one more death before closing of the pool, we have a total of 11 entries so far. (I have PM'd Yvonne to get her to redo her list as it does not meet the requirements for entry). I was hoping to get somewhere in the range of 15 to 20 entries, so instead the pool will close at the time of the next death on the list of 80, OR the arrival of the 15th qualifying entry, whichever is LATER. Later lists are really not at much of a disadvantage, except they miss the opportunity for picking the names that are already expired. But with 80 to choose from, there should be plenty of opportunity for a wise chooser to catch up. Finally, scoring is underway, with Stirling Moss providing the points. Again, I will post the entries and a scoring table once the third death happens.

Wormfarmer 40 yoo sang-chul 39 killer tim brooks 38 tom smith 37 frankie banali 36 susan bayh 35 alex trebek 34 lee kerslake 33 david gulpilil 32 george alagiah 31 placido domingo 30 olivia newton-john 29 john r lewis 28 bob barker 27 bob dole 26 jean louis trintignant 25 william h gates 24 dilip kumar 23 leslie phillips 22 luis escheverria 21 barbara walters 20 jill gascoine 19 leon spinks 18 emperor akihito 17 norman lloyd 16 ruthie tompson 15 earl cameron 14 lester piggott 13 prince philip 12 ed asner 11 carl reiner 10 jerry stiller 9 nobby stiles 8 jimmy greaves 7 joanne woodward 6 dick cheney 5 loretta lynn 4 beverly cleary 3 henry kissinger 2 sidney poitier 1 jimmy carter