gcreptile

The National Enquirer gets one right! https://www.google.de/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=newssearch&cd=2&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjYtMuzl5jKAhUKDCwKHXRgCv4QqQIIKigAMAE&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nationalenquirer.com%2Fcelebrity%2FPat-Harrington-Schneider-Alzheimers-health&usg=AFQjCNGoNiszDyuteQtwY_R0JpVfl-W0Nw&bvm=bv.110151844,d.bGg Err... Pat Harrington article there, for those who can access it

A tip of the hat to Spade, who saw that Pat Harrington Jr. is dead, and the reason why he was a "Must-have" for this competition is that he was both on Hollywood Squares: http://www.tv.com/shows/the-hollywood-squares-1966/october-23-29-1978-2-366413/ as well as in a pantomime: https://www.mptvimages.com/images/71275

Aaahh... even in intensive care. Edit: He suffered a fall. So not necessarily fatal, but let's see...

Let's see if I get points for Alfredo "Chocolate" Armenteros. The Deathrace would have been better place for him, but I submitted one day too soon. Let's see if his fame in the Latino community gets him a CNN obit.

Mhmm, the combo of cancer now in brain + recently suffered a stroke + hasn't posted to his usually chirpy Instagram since Dec. 26 (well, apparently there was something else since then, but it was so out there it had to be deleted) + a Playmate ex-wife of has has had to make comments on his Dec. 26 photo just to relay the latest on him means I don't anticipate him seeing the month's end. Yes, I agree. There's also this general feeling of "acceptance" on his Instagram. The same that I feel on Kris Travis's twitter feed (It's not public anymore, booo!).

The National Enquirer's sister outfit Radar Online has a literal "SAD LAST DAYS" story about Monty Brinson now, I'm inclined to believe them.

Ah, the Wikipedia entry is just a requirement to be a valid pick. The obit still needs to appear to make it count. For example, Pat Harrington Jr. can be chosen for your team, but whether he obits is unclear. There's still a risk of picking too marginal people. I also think that a huge appeal of this game is knowing more about culture and the little details behind history. One of my favorite examples is Jackie Kennedy's assistant who died last year with daily mail obit., Providencia Paredes, which I think is an interesting tidbit of history. For this reason, I would not like to disqualify "fame by association" picks, like also René Angelil or Monty Brinson, who has very marginal Reality TV fame himself, but is mostly associated with Kim Richards, a major reality TV star and child star (and press magnet) in her own right. Rowena Kincaid is now probably on one notability level with Colin Bloomfield. Can't really cut them out either. Kate Granger is now an MBE, of course. Legit pick. Disclaimer: My main team would still be 'robbed' of Linda Horan though. While she is a long-time labor activist, it wasn't really the activism that got her into the daily mail twice. Maybe the one-in-a-million exclusive morningstaronline obit appears, but that probability is very low.

According to news site nu.nl she's much better and back to work, whatever that is: Boyfriend thought Yfke Sturm wouldn't survive water sport accident. (24 December 2015) Yfke? Short for I Fucked Ye? In some circles, 'water sports' has a second meaning...

Last year, Germany and especially Australia were ravaged by the reaper. It looks like it's France's turn this year: Delpech, Boulez, Galabru and the Concorde test pilot.

Pierre Boulez, the greatest (formerly) living classical musical theorist, conductor and composer, has died at 90: http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-35241250

Breaking news: My pick Pierre Boulez has died, now that's a celebrity, a giant of classical music: http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-35241250 Edit: I wonder if he was a unique. I was already scared when he got mentioned for reasons of age and french-ness by either Shaun or Davy Jones Locker, neither of them picked him in the end. By accident, I got to know that he was too sick to attend his own 90th birthday gala and later read that he was bedridden.

I do like that the cracks are mostly neutralizing each other, for example, Sir Creep and Spade stealing the unique away from each other, or similarly, both me and DDT picking Ronald Mulkearns and Gary Haggarty. On the other hand, this is slowly turning into two different competitions, one of them basically being a game checking the newspapers in the final week of the year for any kind of hospitalised terminal cancer "celebrities", and the other one being the originally intended celebrity deadpool. I wanted to show the ridiculousness of it with my theme team. But it's also showing outside of that, and I think my suggested rule of requiring a wikipedia page in any language, created in the year before picking the team, is sounding more correct each time to prevent a perversion of the system. The "really" famous cancer celebrities, Kate Granger or Kristin Hallenga, have these wikipedia pages, by the way.

Elizabeth Swados, creator of the Broadway musical 'Runaways' dead at 64, possibly because of esophagael cancer: http://deadline.com/2016/01/elizabeth-swados-dead-at-64-broadway-musical-runaways-1201676659/

Not yet, but one probably has to wait until the next weekend for it. His "Wight is Wight" should guarantee a telegraph obit. But they're still in 2015 with their obits. Only the Stigwood obit is from this year, because of the newsworthiness, I guess, but they're still in the catching up process with the two "fresh" obits from Lady Bader and Hocine Ait Ahmed. If there's no obit by Sunday, I will start to worry.

James McConnell, incendiary Northern Irish bishop, is 78 years old, has diabetes, prostate cancer, and had major heart surgery: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3385572/Preacher-called-Islam-satanic-not-guilty-offensive-remark.html

According to Radar Online (not the best source), she's undergoing tests for throat cancer: http://www.thespec.com/whatson-story/6218605-janet-jackson-in-cancer-scare/

Jason Mackenroth, drummer and saxophonist with the Henry Rollins Band and Mother Superior, is dead of prostate cancer: http://loudwire.com/rollins-band-mother-superior-drummer-jason-mackenroth-passes-away/

Andre Turcat, first test pilot of the Concorde who broke through the sound barrier, died at 94: http://www.hindustantimes.com/world/concorde-s-first-test-pilot-andre-turcat-passes-away/story-5giWyPlXfBt6OFalazrtiO.html

It'll get BBC obit no probs... And so it has. BBC obit. The weird thing is, there's no date mentioned in any of the reports. Usually they would mention things such as "died early Sunday morning", "passed away in his sleep sometimes Sunday night or Monday morning", but unless I've missed it, I don't see it anywhere. Very true, in fact, look at this australian article: http://www.smh.com.au/comment/obituaries/robert-stigwood-music-goliath-was-a-creative-genius-20160105-glzu12.html Says "Robert Stigwood (1934-2015)" 2015 is the key... Edit: Telegraph obit says January 4th though, but that could just be a guess: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/12082776/Robert-Stigwood-pop-impresario-obituary.html Double Edit: It doesn't kill the Deathrace points though, but might instead be worth 366 pts.

My guess is they are giving her fairly aggressive chemo and as a very communicative person, that's her way to deal with it. I've heard of that feeling by the name "chemo haze". As I said, I guess they can keep her alive for quite a while, but maybe she decides at one point that she's had enough and quits treatment. I think she's a solid pick, but I didn't want to spend a couple of months interpreting every tweet.

Pianist Paul Bley, who played with Charles Mingus and Charlie Parker, has died at 82: http://slippedisc.com/2016/01/mingus-pianist-has-died/

Richard Sapper, designer of IBM's Think Pad has died: http://www.fastcodesign.com/3055062/richard-sapper-designer-of-ibms-thinkpad-has-died Ok, that's number three that I was looking for in the Dennis Ritchie thread.

I'm a bit disappointed he isn't on the list. At least, he's combining entertainment with deadpooling and form-checking.

According to my own calculations, my main team gets 116,36 pts this year, which in an ordinary year would be enough to win. But I expect this year will be furious and absolutely record-breaking because of the more liberal distribution of names (of which I was probably guilty of). My B-Team gets 100.52+whatever Fast Eddie Fryer would get if I knew his age. My wish is a top 10-place in my second year. I probably need another year to fine-tune my obitability sense and medical knowledge.

Michel Galabru, french actor and comedian, best-known for playing the serious policeman next to goofy Louis De Funes, is dead at 93: http://www.lexpress.fr/culture/cinema/michel-galabru-est-mort-annonce-sa-famille_1750319.html(french link)