Wormfarmer

RULES: The competition will start 1 SEPTEMBER 2023 (all lists must be in by 11:59pm (GMT) Aug 31) and scoring will end Aug 31, 2024. Submit a list of 26 people. The first name OR last name of the first person must begin with an A. Second person with a B. You get the idea. No joker. Please use this format A - Alvin Chipmunk B - Harry Belafonte C - Carol Channing etc . . . . . Obit sources include those used by the great Windy City Deadpool, which uses the sources of the Derby Dead Pool, plus The NY Times, LA Times, CBS News, Fox News and MSN. Also acceptable: CNN, ABC, NBC, the Associate Press (AP), Rolling Stone and Time. Due to the large number of names possible, and because the more tenacious of you can find the folk on the very fringes of celebrity, please police your own obits and notify via post on this thread. Of course if it's the likes of the Queen or the Pope, just give me time to post it, no need to bring it to my attention.  SCORING: A hit using the first name (all letters except as below) - 1 point A hit using the last name (all letters except as below) - 2 points A hit with the first name . . . (A, E, I, O, U, Y) - 2 points A hit with the last name . . . (A, E, I, O, U, Y) - 3 points A hit with the first OR last name . . . (Q, X, Z) - 4 points A hit with an alliterative name scores the points for both first and last names as specified above (so an alliterative at the A spot would be worth 5 points, the B spot would be worth 3 points, the Q spot would be worth 8 points) NAMES: General titles such as Queen/Pope/Prince, etc. are NO LONGER ACCEPTABLE for scoring at that letter. Single names submitted (Cher, Madonna, Pele) will be treated as first names. I prefer to see real names used (e.g. Richard Penniman instead of Little Richard). No animals, due to the ease of earning the WS bonus. BONUSES: Whippersnapper Bonus (WS): dies at age 75 or younger = 2 points (if there is substantial ambiguity or birth year is unknown, no bonus will be awarded) Solos = 3 points Duos = 1 point Vowel Movement Bonus (VMB): hit all five vowels (A, E, I, O, U) = 5 points /hit any four vowels + the letter Y = 3 points NOTE: Due to confusion with this bonus, a few players added names with all 5 vowels in them, in the hopes of scoring the bonus with that one hit, and then also scoring it again with a second hit, etc. If I had meant that, I would have said something like, "hit a name with all 5 vowels in it and score an extra 5 points". But the damage is done, so I will award a 5 point bonus to a team which scores such a hit ONE TIME per team. This has already been done by two teams, so they will get their 5 points now and be done, regardless of how many additional such hits they may get this year. Sorry to those who understood the bonus correctly, I sincerely hope the game does not come down to this being a deciding factor for first place. Late Bloomer Bonus (LBB): If a single player is left without a hit, that player will automatically earn 20 points! This is a backdoor way for someone to potentially go from the cellar right into the thick of things. 20 points is not likely to win the game, but it is certainly a nice place to work for the come from behind win while also having a full list of 26 names left to score. Scoring Example: if someone gets a solo hit with 71 year old Zadora Zephyr, the score would be 8 + 2 (WS) + 3 (solo) = 13 TIES: Will be broken by the date the final score is reached. That is, if three folks end up with 48 points, the person that got to 48 on the earliest date will be the winner.  This was a pivotal rule last year! SUBS: Please check your list at the start of the game to make sure all names are still alive. I will allow a sub for that letter, but it can't be someone who is new to the DP radar since the game started. That means no one who is diagnosed with cancer/has an accident after your original submission. Enjoy!

See the third post on page 1 for a draft scoring table and standings. Please keep posting updates, corrections, or complete scoring reports as needed! Thank you!

Thank you everyone for the scores posted so far. Huge help. But I have jumped the gun by a month it seems . . . . the pool runs through the END of August this year (see page 1 rules), so scoring will continue for another month. But I will work on a standings table with the information that has been provided to date, to show us where we are in the game. Keep those updates coming . . . . .

Thanks to those who have posted their hit list and scores....please keep them coming. I have a lot of work to do .... If I run another year it will probably start Aug 10th Sept 10.....with a minor tweak or two, like dropping that blasted Vowel Movement bonus!

Shannen Doherty has passed and left an inheritance of 85 points to Wormfarmer. Anyone else in the will?

NFL great Jim Otto died on May 19, leaving an inheritance of 38 points to Wormfarmer.

Bloody cripes! I thought my pick of Vic was out of left field! And here I've only bagged the lowest of six cards dealt....y'all make things tough!

I am going to try a new pool, wherein the trick is in how you structure your entry. It will not have a set end date, rather the first player to score 30 or more points will be the winner. The idea: Each player will submit a list of 9 names in the form of a tic tac toe board, wherein each line of the board (V)vertically and (H)horizontally has a theme. The table below is an example of a legal entry following the category rules that follow it: 1 2 3 1 frankie avalon smokey robinson lance henriksen (b. 1940) 2 keith richards ken rosewall kim novak (k) 3 neil diamond pete rose nick nolte (b. 1941) (musicians) (r) (actors) Mandatory categories: H1 = year of birth #1 H2 = first letter of first name H3 = year of birth #2 V1 = claim to fame #1 (choose 1: actors, musicians, politicians/world leaders, religious figures, scientists/inventors, authors/journalists and athletes) V2 = first letter of last name V3 = claim to fame #2 (choose 1: actors, musicians, politicians/world leaders, religious figures, scientists/inventors, authors/journalists and athletes) For this example table, I chose year of birth #1 = 1940 and year of birth #2 = 1941, while claim to fame #1 I used musicians and claim to fame #2 I used actors, and obviously the letter I chose for H2 is K and for V2 is R. You may choose any year of birth for H1 and H3, but you must choose 2 different years. Similarly you must choose 2 different claims to fame for V1 and V3, of the 8 listed categories. Scoring: 1 point per hit. If you complete a vertical trio (tic) or a horizontal trio (tac) you get 7 bonus points. If you complete a diagonal trio (toe) you get 10 bonus points. It is obviously possible and probable that a single hit will eventually score more than one trio. You will get bonus points for both in that case. First player to 30 wins. If multiple players exceed 30 points on the same day, the player with the highest total wins. If there is still a tie, the player with the youngest name on their board wins. Names accepted by the Derby or getting obits in the NY Times, Time, CNN, LA Times or AP websites are fine. Others not found there will be considered on a case by case basis, but don't push the obscurity limit too far. You may post your entries in the thread or PM them to me. If you post in the thread I will not allow any identical rows or columns between players, so check that you are not duplicating a posted entry. please indicate which birth years and claims to fame you are using. I will accept entries until we get 20 or so, or if that goal isn't reached I will close entries and start the game on the 5th of August. I would like to play along, but have not yet created an entry, so I will plan on PMing mine to the first entrant or two. I hope you enjoy!

PM'd mine too, but posting here later. Despite my frequent poor showings, this is actually one of my favorite pools! It is similar in format to a pool I used to run amongst friends. I've always kind of wanted to start it up again, but don't want to step on the toes of our good host here, Cap'n Cho. Thanks C-Cho, for running this one! 500 princess Bajrakitiyabha 450 marita camacho quiros 400 jimmy carter 350 james clayton flowers 300 anne baker (biographer) 275 james c floyd (aerospace) 250 ruth johnson colvin 225 frank caprio 200 wayne eddy 180 david j. linden 160 esther rantzen 140 simon cowell (zoologist) 120 kathy brown (dance music) 100 michael tilson thomas 85 shannen doherty 70 linda nolan 55 james whale 50 steve macmichael 45 noam chomsky 40 david irving 21 khaleda zia score as of july 16: 225

Does Josip Manolic bring my total to 666? Losing but spooky . . . . .

Beaten fair and square this year, but soooooo close. I was only a Louis Gossett jr, Charlie Bird and Eric Carmen away from winning this match. I just don't have the research capabilities to find those bedridden African Bushmen like you big hitters do. Congrats to @wannamaker and I will fade to the sidelines again.....

I always enjoyed M Emmet Walsh's appearances in films. He's gone at 88, and MariNisia scores as a result.

Actually, I had missed your post entirely. I just was familiar with Steve Lawrence so when he died I recognized him as a hit and did the update. Got your point up for Guillemin now, and thanks for keeping track.

Steve Lawrence (of Steve and Eydie fame) update just posted, 5 teams yet to get on the scoreboard.

2 quick hits (Iris Apfel and Eleanor Collins) brings me up to 4 hits total, but still nobody in the real points. Floundering again . . . .

I note Seiji Ozawa was a hit back on Feb 6th. Not for me though.

That is okay if it takes a while for some to see the post and respond. I am in no hurry. In fact, what I am asking for is a summaries closer to the game end, and I will create a leaderboard from that, double check frontrunner scores, and then just monitor the obits for the last couple of weeks for any late changes. So far no one has proposed any idea what could have happened to my scoring page though, very strange thing I've not had happen here before . . .

HELP! I must confess I am at a loss here. I realize I had neglected to update this pool for the last couple of months, partly because the hits seemed so few I thought it would be easy to catch up. But now, as I attempt to do so, I cannot for the life of me find my scoring page. It was in the first 3 or 4 posts of the thread, but I have searched this whole thread several times and it appears to be gone. Unless there is a hide feature that I am unaware of? I really dread going back through the obits all the way to last September to redo it. I don't even have the hours it would take. So unless someone can help me recover the lost scoring post, I am going to humbly try to do this another way. Near the end of the game, Aug 31, would everyone that is playing please post in this thread, your own score, and the hits you had to earn it. I will double check the leaders and those within striking distance to make sure we have the correct winner. Unusual, I know, but hugely helpful in this circumstance. Hopefully most teams are keeping loose track of their own scores anyway. Here is an example of a simple post (of my current score) that would make my life easier . . . . Wormfarmer - 9 pts, Tweedale/Draper/Latour

Aren't you able to go back and edit that big quote down to what's pertinent?

I will try again to make it to the second round......I have been eliminated in the first round once by being beaten, once by failing to get a second round team in on time, and once by coin toss. I take full responsibility for the former two. For the latter, I respectfully request another type of tiebreaker be added to avoid the dreaded coin toss. Say, number of letters in the names of the hits. Number of non hits born in 1928. Number of goals their favorite soccer team scored in last tuesdays match. ANYTHING.

Updated with all hits I'm aware of through Jan 14th, 2024.....

I have been a visitor to this site for many years now but never understood how that works. More posts = earlier listing on the home page? Even one post can bring it up to the first page, maybe? I will try to remember to add a post when I update, and thanks for the enlightenment.

Still one of my favorite comedies ever is the 1970's sitcom, M*A*S*H. Over the course of its 11 seasons, it had 11 different main cast members. Six of them have already passed on (in real life): Col. Henry Blake, Col. Sherman Potter, Trapper John, Frank Burns, Charles Emerson Winchester and Father Mulcahy. Which leaves five in no particular order: Hawkeye Pierce (played by Alan Alda) Margaret "Hot Lips" Houlihan (Loretta Swit) Radar O'Reilly (Gary Burghoff) Max Klinger (Jamie Farr) B.J. Hunnicutt (Mike Farrell) This pool is simple - put the five surviving characters in order you think they will pass on, the top name being the next to go, and the bottom name the last survivor of the show. The pool will remain open for entries until the first character passes. Then the game begins, and only the players who have selected correctly (at the top of their list) will continue on, all who selected a different character are eliminated, right out of the gate. Each time a character passes, all lists not having that character in the correct order are eliminated, until we only have one team remaining = the winner! So the game ends when either: only one list remains that hasn't been eliminated, OR when the fourth character passes, and there are multiple lists left that have guessed the correct order! In the latter case, we need a tiebreaker: which is to pick the date of the 4th character passing. Closest date, whether before or after, will be the winner. I will even come up with a prize for anyone who wins by getting the order of all 5 correct. My entry will be in the following post, please use it as an example of format for your entries, which should all be posted to this thread.

shannen doherty - joker a j foyt andy taylor barbara babcock barbara barrie brian wilson chad gilbert chuck wepner danniella westbrook danny bonaduce derek draper dick cheney dikembe mutumbo edward james olmos frank field gary pinkel george kooymans jack hanna james whale janey godley jason becker jim duggan jim otto joanne woodward jonnie irwin kareem abdul jabbar khaleda zia kris kristofferson larry pressler linda nolan liza minelli michael tilson thomas mick ralphs nigel starmer-smith norm coleman pat priest peter max ramzan kadyrov rhod gilbert richard parsons rob burrow roberta flack rosie grier scott thorson simon cowell (zoo) steve mcmichael terri garr vladimir putin wilfred benitez william perry (football) subs jimmy carter dan rather michael flatley

agnes keleti arnold yarrow ella jenkins frank field iris apfel iris cummings james clayton flowers james whale jimmy carter john cruickshank josip manolic june spencer khaleda zia kris kristofferson linda nolan lloyd geering marita camacho quiros paul ignatius phillippe de gaulle ruth johnson colvin shannen doherty simon cowell (zoologist) steve mcmichael virginia halas mccaskey whang-od oggay subs barbara barrie brian wilson jim otto