Spade_Cooley

I've heard it argued here that there should have been doubts he was going to obit. Bullshit. It's astonishing and a miscarriage of journalism that your U.K. tabloids didn't print an obit for the lead singer of Toto. They had international #1 hits. Along with Bockwinkle, I don't get it. Maybe knowing more of the events of those dates may help--maybe big stories that pushed these deaths out of space in the print cycle. SC He wasn't the lead singer of Toto though. He was the replacement frontman of Toto about five years after their heyday. It'd be like expecting a New York Times frontpage obit for the guy who does vocals in Bruce Foxton's band that do Jam covers.

Dunno what a 180 has to do with a BDO player.

Literally the only female cricketer I can name.

Madoff has 'cornered the hot chocolate market in prison'.

Nigerian synth-funk pioneer and de rigeur hip name drop about three years ago, William Onyeabor dead at 70.

I wear one just like that for deer hunting. Harold Shipman wore one for old dear hunting! Pretty much the perfect maryport post for 15k.

Fug, ebin etc.

Wait wait wait. Are Finns white?

Deadpool sabermetrics are a thing that, to be honest, I have been using over the past few years: I always believed that the value of a guaranteed 90+ pick is vastly underrated, for instance, and selected my teams based on that knowledge. Of course, the introduction of the Drop 40 bonus rewrites the rules, but we'll only really know the impact of that in 11 1/2 months. One of... rubric that is alluded to upthread and a few other times is knowing when a "cancer mum" is a worthwhile pick or not: at what point does someone who is only "famous for being ill" cease to be the former and just become the latter? And what are the factors that play into this? Taking two names on various teams this year, who both came into "fame" at the same time: Clark and Aspin. Aspin was one of the last five names cut for me. His only "living QO" (to coin a mixed term) came from the Mirror on December 11th (his case has been widely followed by the Manchester Evening News, and he did get an ITV mention but that was on its local Granada page). If it'd been on the 21st or the 31st of December, I may have risked him. But at a minimum he was going to die 20 days after his press mention. Now he will die at least 37 days later, and seemingly much much more. What's the turnaround for this still being news as far as the Mirror are concerned? "Tragic bride marries on deathbed" stories are ten a penny, but they have to die within a few weeks to get the follow-up QO right? And this isn't a tragic bride, it's a fucking criminal who isn't exactly a heartstring tugger. Clark, on the other hand, I did pick. He got a "living QO" from the Mirror on November 20th, and The Sun a day later. The Mirror did a follow-up story on 17th December. This is what persuaded me to pick him: he clearly has a press contact with the Mirror, and the Mirror even sent his kid some fake snow and a Santa so they could "celebrate Christmas together". Of course, the further he lives, the less of a news story he becomes. Which is worrying for DDP purposes, but great for him (and Toast). What I'm saying is: can sabermetrics/OptaReaper really help us identify who to pick, and who is going to be like that lass who got all the Olympians in 2012 making hand gestures about cancer whose name I can't even google any more because I've forgotten it?

I like the hat, he looks like he could have been the third best rapper on a Wu Tang side project circa 1997.

https://www.spotlight.com/1572-8943-3926 Starring in "Pitmen Painters" at the Oldham Colosseum, apparently.

I think Harry is a hoot and I'd probably fuck Philip.

Bill Price, co-producer of "Never Mind The Bollocks..." and deck-helmer for The Clash, Guns N Roses, Sparks and a whole other bunch of bands, dead at 72. My browser tells me that I'd clicked his Wikipedia entry at some point in the past few months, so either I had researched him as a possible 2017 pick and forgotten about it, or I'm developing early-stage dementia.

Did some research because I wasn't convinced that A!mee W!llett, popular DDP pick in 2015, slightly less popular pick in 2016, picked by just one team in 2017, was still alive. She is, and is going by her married name now. Seems in pretty good condition, all things considered, and is probably off the radars of the national press being as it's nearly three years since she was a "dying bride with just one Christmas left".

We all have a laugh and a giggle on here, but I just wanted to remind everyone that Jimmy Snuka killed a woman.

Yeah he's dead, PWI reporting.

Jimmy Snuka dead... I think?

Fortune favours the brave...

Butter and parmesan? Not impressed.

Dunno if I spelled his name incorrectly in my theme team app, but the precocious/racist fourth-in-line to the Spanish throne is known as Froilan, not Frolian.

Diana Rots is one of the DDP teams I wanna see posting on here tbh. Sicilian Actuaries Snorkelling and Tonight Matthew... as well.

Ah, the glory years of terrible mid-00s music theory blogging, we hardly knew ye.

Looking over it all, I think that there won't be a clear front-runner this year and we'll be seeing a lot of chopping and changing at the top of the leaderboard. There's no front-loading of picks like there was last year, and instead a lot of Gilbert/Karl/Hewett types who we're backing to die but around September/October time.

Excited for one of the categories in the next round to be "mothers under the age of 40 with terminal cancer"

Vinegar Tits announced the death of Prince. Margaret Thatcher's death was announced by GAVR, who has eight posts on here. He hasn't been on the site since the day Maggie died. He also broke the news of Christopher Cazenove, Simon MacCorkindale, Karl Malden and Richard Widmark's deaths.