gcreptile

I voted for Thomas Jefferson Survives.

Hmm, I would have considered Joost the biggest gamble in my team and only picked him for the 13pts. This goes faster than I expected. ALS progresses slowly, but it usually doesn't get better. So the ground you lose you can never get back.

He might need a slow news day to obit, and tomorrow is not going to be a slow news day. Then it's weekend. WIll be interesting indeed. If one of us writes an obituary in the Guardian's Other Lives section, does it count?

Death of Miguel Ferrer reported here: http://deadline.com/2017/01/miguel-ferrer-dead-ncis-los-angeles-crossing-jordan-1201890002/ Picked in the DDP, and a unique pick at that! I had him under consideration, too... but the rumours could mean everything and nothing.

Congratulations Death Impends! I've always been more of a long-distance runner than a sprinter, and, so far, never got very far in this competition. The four digit score is my record, and I couldn't have done it without the executions. Ban them entirely.

This year apparently is a very slow-moving affair. I guess the current virtual leader is the team that made Jimmy Snuka its joker - so that's 20 pts.

Chelsea Manning receives Obama's pardon: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/president-obama-commutes-chelsea-manning-prison-sentence

Israeli chief of staff of defence forces Gadi Eisenkot hospitalized for "condition that was discovered 2 months ago": http://www.timesofisrael.com/idf-chief-hospitalized-for-unspecified-ailment/

Found this old article (6 months old) while researching Mr. Hebner. Lots of peopel with neurologicasl difficulties and the like http://www.foxsports.com.au/what-the-fox/wwe-sued-in-wrestler-class-action-lawsuit-featuring-jimmy-superfly-snuka-paul-mr-wonderful-orndorff/news-story/079fbd7db16f9cd71b7b569672baa4a5

Former Arizona governor and Secretary of Home Defense or whatever it is called, Janet Napolitano, undergoing cancer treatment: http://mynewsla.com/education/2017/01/17/uc-president-janet-napolitano-hospitalized-cancer-treatment/ She already had a masectomy because of breast cancer in 2000. The nature of her cancer wasn't disclosed, but treatment is almost over.

Death Impends' "What does everyone need to hope for?" analysis led me to calculate the "20 hits" scenario for all the teams I calculated (an easy formula in my excel file, took about 30 minutes). All unique and Drop 40 bonusses included Assumptions: - People die before they fall into the next age bracket (especially Peter Skellern... but there's one case where I decided against it because he/she has his/her birthday very soon, but I forgot who it was!) - No unnatural deaths for Paul Briggs and Anna Holmlund as their injuries happened last year. (- Edit: Also, no unnatural deaths for Paul Gascoigne and Kenny Sansom, I rather assume organ failure or something like that.) - Unnatural deaths bonusses for al-Baghdadi, Valeri Spiridonov and Marieke Vervoort (who wants to commit suicide if the pain becomes too much). Then the top thirteen as above look like this: 1. The Love Boat (220) 2. The Living End (219) 3-4. Pan Breed (218) 3-4. A Day in the Death (218) 5-6. New Years and Drinks All Night (216) 5-6. To Kill a Gabor Sister (216) 7-8. Thomas Jefferson Survives (214) 7-8. David Quantick's Showbiz Pals (214) 9. Garn2 (206) 10. Still Life (205) 11. Going Underground (204) 12. droller coaster (198) 13. Here's who you could have won (197) For me, the differences between calculated and maximum points shows that The Living End has the riskiest team of all (of these). The top 8 are also ridiculously close. Basically all within a one-hit-difference. Then there is a gap to the second group. I'm too lazy to look right now, but I guess that the teams in the second group are those without the cancer mums. By the way, several teams surpass the top score of The Love Boat. For one, it's impossible to top Spade's theme team, of 20 unique 18-year olds, who, we assume, all die an unnatural death if they die, so that's the maximum possible score of 378 points. Shameless has 242 maximum points. Dead as a Doornail has 221 pts, by the way. A very risky team with Pete Frates (ALS ice bucket challenge guy) as joker, for example, still getting 123,13pts in my calculation - so if one of their gambles succeeds, this team gains quite a bit.

Personally, I don't give a Schmidt. Let's not forget they were beaten there by black astronauts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bq7gkQ7UkzI I thought that link was going to lead to this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msL-XFs3Ggs (probably NSFW)

New update, now with Banshee's team in the Top Ten (others didn't quite make it), plus the deaths of Jimmy Snuka and Eddie Long: 1. The Love Boat (144,77) 2. A Day in the Death (142,66) 3. David Quantick's Showbiz Pals (140,49) 4. To Kill a Gabor Sister (137,73) 5. Pan Preed (136,2) 6. Thomas Jefferson Survives (135,395) 7. Golden Slumbers (135,13) 8. New Years and Drinks All Night (134,31) 9. The Living End (133,63) 10. Garn2 (133,1) 11. drollercoaster (132,94) 12. Still Life (131,26) 13. I'm sorry for your trouble (130,15) The death of Eddie Long was a significant boost in this calculation, as I only gave him a 60% chance of obiting and didn't quite believe he was actually sick. DDT is now in the Top Ten because of it. His team is full of outrageous gambles, and if one more of them succeeds, he's up there (in my opinion). The only team that picked both Snuka and Long was my reserve team which, at 110,465 expected points, is too far away to show up. A couple of teams get boosts for Jimmy Snuka, who I didn't believe with 100% certainty would die. But because of it, for example, To Kill a Gabor Sister overtakes Pan Breed. I'm still not quite sure how to manage the passage of time. I'm thinking of not only of decreasing the probability of dying in 2017 of each celebrity with each quarter, but also the obitability of all cancer celebrities, possibily even with each month. Personally, I have a feeling, for example, that Alan Aspin's "window of obitability" has almost completely closed. If he isn't dead by the end of the month, I will reduce his chances of getting a qualifying obit by quite a bit - and those of other cancer celebrities as well (using my experience with Shameless). Maybe I'll differentiate between the cancer celebrities with a blog, and those without. I might also differentiate between those who are still being covered by qualifiyng outlets (example: Hannah Lyson's recent Daily Mail article) with those who aren't (Alan Aspin's update only showed up in a local paper). So it will look like the teams gain scores with each death - because the probability of dying increases from not-quite-100% to 100%, but they will lose expected points if candidates continue to live.

Congratulations, Death Impends, that was a good discovery!

Several people are two hits away from victory. Those with the uniques, those with a hit in three different categories and those with three hits in one category.

So far, a repeat of last year. Again, my Hare's Deadpool team is doing better than my Deathrace team. Three hits already.

I didn't want to pick any people aged 70+ for my main team except for those who surely would have made the Drop 40, i.e. Glen Campbell. Now I know that I should have picked Peter Skellern and Jimmy Snuka over Sara Coward and Catherine Nevin. Tough calls... The Drop 40 bonus will change the game immensely next year. Unique pick hunting is becoming a weak strategy.

Huh, my reserve team has two hits at one day, the main team none so far...

South African jazz singer Thandi Klaasen, "Nelson Mandela's favourite singer": http://www.timeslive.co.za/sundaytimes/stnews/2017/01/15/IN-PICTURES-Jazz-veteran-Thandi-Klaasen Was on my prospective Cup team.

Daily Mail: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/ap/article-4122278/Eddie-Long-megachurch-pastor-embroiled-scandal-dies.html

If you had asked me before, I would have thought he was likely a fraud. But then I needed to fill out my team... Obit-wise, it's probably Daily Mail or bust...

I don't think he's missing in the "missing" sense, merely gone to ground...TJS may better explain why he was included though. Barrett is definitely still alive and active. I realize Deathray already elaborated on what joey meant by "missing" but... Actually, I noticed a similar case on another team. gcreptile's The B Team has only 19 picks as well, despite listing Paul Van-Zandvliet (who looks to be the missing one) as a team member when he posted on the forum. Might want to double check his email as well? Thanks for noticing. He was no. 17 in the email I sent. @ A Pelican in the Wilderness: Indeed a crafty player, probably the biggest unique hunter (beyond having them for uniqueness sake alone) in the comeptition.

Ah, someone picked Manu Dibango whom I've been watching for a possible unique hit. 8 people picked Ryan Buell... possible suicide? Haha... Meghan Markle... Good to know someone picked Melania Trump Goodbyladies could only find 18 famous women. Lol... "Valerie Harper is faking it", also "Train Wreck Central", thumbs up!

Goddamnit, he/she picked Debbie Blackhurst and Andrew Yeaman?

German publicist Udo Ulfkotte dies completely unexpected at 56 of a heart attack: http://www.spiegel.de/kultur/literatur/udo-ulfkotte-umstrittener-publizist-und-ehemaliger-faz-journalist-ist-tot-a-1130008.html He had turned into the public face of the German right-wing populist anti-establishment movement by writing books against the mainstream press landscape. The german term used by our right-wing populists was "Lügenpresse" (the press of lies). His death will lead to a thousand conspiracy theories. In fact, it reminds me of the death of Andrew Breitbart in the US.