Now that I have all the kinks ironed out of the scoring and mechanics of the '07 Death Pool. I felt that it would be prudent to list an update list of rules for how this thing is going to work. Personally, I think that nothing says the holidays like thinking about the pool picks for the following year.
Official Rules: By the power vested in me by the United States of America, I hereby declare these the Official rules of the 2007 Monday 5 P.M. Death Pool
1. The Death Pool (hereto referred to simply as "the Pool") attempts to predict which celebrities will pass away in the current year.
2. The only people eligible to be selected are Celebrities. While impossible to specifically declare what makes a celebrity, a good rule of thumb is that their obit would appear in national newspapers. Also, a person can not become a celebrity only because of their death. We'll refer to this as the Daniel Smith rule. The management retains the right to reject any person who doesn't fit the "celebrity" criteria.
3. The scoring works as such: This will mark the first year that we observe the "Sweet 16" scoring format. Do not be confused by the wording. Each person is allowed to select a total of 10 celebrities. You will rank your selections from 10 to 1. In this case #10 will be the person who you think is most likely to die in the upcoming year. If the person in that position does pass away, you then multiply the position number by the difference of 100 minus their age. So, as an example, if you had Steve Irwin at #7 this year that would have been worth 392 points. (7*(100-44)) . This format still rewards people who take chances on younger people instead of playing it safe with all elderly selections.
4. The person with the highest total number of points for the entire year wins. For the 2006 Pool, there have been exactly 0 points awarded. We suck at this.
5. There is no restriction on who you can select, relative to other's picks. In the 2006 Pool, there were no overlapping picks. This WILL NOT be true for 2007. You can select someone, regardless of whether or not someone else has them on their list.
6. People who are ineligible as selections: People on death row. Currently missing children. If I missed anyone else that is obvious, let me know. In other words, play like a normal person (or as normal as a person who participates in the Pool can be).
7. You are allowed to draft your people between December 1st and December 31st.
8. In order to keep things fair, all the selections need to be e-mailed to ourdeathpool@yahoo.com This way, we have a way for people to get their selections in, but I won't release the names until after January 1st. So, people who don't put any thought into this won't be able to pick and choose from other people's selections. Also, feel free to make up a creative team name and send it in with your selections.
9. This is for entertainment purposes only. The only prize is the pride and sense of accomplishment of winning.
10. Have fun.
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
Boyakah!
Ok, I will not be converting to non-sensical words like the Chad, but I couldn't come up with anything better. Took last week off because of the holiday, and because I felt like it. I would love to say that writing about PSU football, Death Pools, and other mindless crap drains a lot out of me. But I can't. I think it would be embarassing to say that I just had writer's block and couldn't come up with anything that would top my classics like "the Cleofus theory" and "global warming is crap".
Anyway, moving right along. I saw the headline for this story, and immediately I was ready to rip it shreds, but it actually makes sense. I can't really think of a way of how I would keep my money organized if I couldn't see it. I guess they could emboss it, or put a certain number of holes in it or something.
Next, I have had it with commercial packaging. Every once and a while the status quo for consumer packages it broken and other companies are forced to follow suit when someone comes up with a better idea. A great example is juice cartons. You used to have to open up them up in the front and they would never work right. One side would tear, and then you had to stab it with a knife and it slipped and you barely missed slicing your thumb off. Well, then they came up with that side spout thing, and the world was a much better place. I bring all of this up because I am totally fed up with the little cardboard latch on cereal boxes, waffle boxes, etc. It seems that whenever I am dealing with these things I acquire Herculean strength and rip right through it. Next thing you know, my Capt'n Crunch is going stale. We can't have this. Can't we come up with something better? Someone needs to get working on this, ASAP.
I would be shirking my duties if I at least didn't mention this. As far as I am concerned, November 17th should now be considered a national holiday. And on that holiday, cover charges at all nudie bars are waved. Well, wait till I'm President.....26 more years.
Finally, I have some news on the Death Pool. After much consideration I have decided to go against the advice of my consigliere, the Chad, and reverse myself and switch the format. We will be going to the Sweet 16 pool format. So, everybody is allowed to pick 10 people. There are NO restrictions based on whether or not the person is on someone else's list. I just think that this is more fair to people. So, it doesn't matter if you pick your people on Dec 1st or the 31st. In order to prevent people from capitalizing on the work of others, there will be an email address provided to submit your lists to. That way they will be in before the deadline, but I won't release them on the website until January 1st. I think that this is the most fair method. Same scoring applies that I mentioned before. You will rank all 10 people from 10 to 1. #10 will be the person you think is most likely to die, and so forth. We will then multiply the seeding by the difference in 100-age. Thats it. Pretty simple, but effective. The link to the email address will be available on Dec 1st.
~Till then.
~K
Anyway, moving right along. I saw the headline for this story, and immediately I was ready to rip it shreds, but it actually makes sense. I can't really think of a way of how I would keep my money organized if I couldn't see it. I guess they could emboss it, or put a certain number of holes in it or something.
Next, I have had it with commercial packaging. Every once and a while the status quo for consumer packages it broken and other companies are forced to follow suit when someone comes up with a better idea. A great example is juice cartons. You used to have to open up them up in the front and they would never work right. One side would tear, and then you had to stab it with a knife and it slipped and you barely missed slicing your thumb off. Well, then they came up with that side spout thing, and the world was a much better place. I bring all of this up because I am totally fed up with the little cardboard latch on cereal boxes, waffle boxes, etc. It seems that whenever I am dealing with these things I acquire Herculean strength and rip right through it. Next thing you know, my Capt'n Crunch is going stale. We can't have this. Can't we come up with something better? Someone needs to get working on this, ASAP.
I would be shirking my duties if I at least didn't mention this. As far as I am concerned, November 17th should now be considered a national holiday. And on that holiday, cover charges at all nudie bars are waved. Well, wait till I'm President.....26 more years.
Finally, I have some news on the Death Pool. After much consideration I have decided to go against the advice of my consigliere, the Chad, and reverse myself and switch the format. We will be going to the Sweet 16 pool format. So, everybody is allowed to pick 10 people. There are NO restrictions based on whether or not the person is on someone else's list. I just think that this is more fair to people. So, it doesn't matter if you pick your people on Dec 1st or the 31st. In order to prevent people from capitalizing on the work of others, there will be an email address provided to submit your lists to. That way they will be in before the deadline, but I won't release them on the website until January 1st. I think that this is the most fair method. Same scoring applies that I mentioned before. You will rank all 10 people from 10 to 1. #10 will be the person you think is most likely to die, and so forth. We will then multiply the seeding by the difference in 100-age. Thats it. Pretty simple, but effective. The link to the email address will be available on Dec 1st.
~Till then.
~K
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
Two thumbs up.......(and a DP update)
Well, since we only played Temple this week, I feel that it wouldn't be a fair comparison to give the same level of in-depth analysis that I normally do. So, because of that I have decided to give you reviews of some of the movies that I have seen recently. There is also a crucial DP 2007 update at the bottom.
In the past month, I have been to the movies three times. That is probably the total number of movies I had seen in a theater the last three years combined. That's how much I wanted to check these out, instead of waiting for the DVDs like I normally do.
The first one was Saw 3. This is probably only interesting to someone who has seen the first two movies in this series. It was very good though. The guy who plays the serial killer Jigsaw is legitimately one of the creepiest guys on the planet. This guy would scare me if he was standing next to me at McD's ordering a Big Mac. This movie series is the prime reason I no longer do my laundry at night.
Next up was the Departed. I was very excited for this one because it was a picture from Martin Scorsese. I seemed to have missed the excitement regarding some of his previous works, such as Goodfellas, Casino, etc. I only came to appreciate those movies after watching them on TV many years later. So, this time I felt that I was getting in on the ground floor. After watching it, I definately see some Oscar nominations in their future. I can see Nicholson and DiCaprio getting actor nods, and the film itself getting a Best Picture award. I highly recommend going to see this if you already haven't.
Finally, just this past weekend I was able to get out and see the Borat movie. All I can say is that you should RUN, not walk and get out to see this movie. I can't remember laughing so much during a movie in my life. The movie is the cinematic equivalent of a car crash. You know what's going to happen and it's not going to be pretty, but you can't turn away. Same thing here. You can see the uncomfortable situation coming from a mile away, but you can't turn away from the screen. One of the great things about this movie is that I feel that the next 5 times I watch this movie I will pick up on different things that I missed before. Great movie. I highly recommend spending the 8 bucks to go see it.
Finally, I have a question about the format of the 2007 Death Pool. From early reports that I am getting, it sounds like quite a few people are interested in participating next year. My question is this: Do you like the format that I originally laid out, where each person can only be drafted once? My fear is that if a lot of people participate, then someone who doesn't make their picks until later might be left with a very weak pool to draw from. The other option is to go to a format similar to the "Sweet 16" pools that run during the NCAA tournament. In this format, there is no restriction on who you can pick. What happens is that you would rank your ten people from 10 to 1. The person who you felt was most likely to kick the bucket would be in the number 10 position, and so forth. The scoring would be the same (100 minus their age) but then multiplied by the position. So, an 80 year old person who you had at number 7 would be worth 140 points. [(100-80)*7]. This way we wouldn't have to worry about overlap, because multiple people can hold the same person on their list. However, the positioning would become critical. Two people might hold the same person, but one might have them at 10 and one at 3. Just let me know what you think. The more I think about it, I think that this makes more sense. But this is a Kevocracy so I will let everyone vote on it, and ultimately do whatever I damn well please. Thank you.
~The Management
In the past month, I have been to the movies three times. That is probably the total number of movies I had seen in a theater the last three years combined. That's how much I wanted to check these out, instead of waiting for the DVDs like I normally do.
The first one was Saw 3. This is probably only interesting to someone who has seen the first two movies in this series. It was very good though. The guy who plays the serial killer Jigsaw is legitimately one of the creepiest guys on the planet. This guy would scare me if he was standing next to me at McD's ordering a Big Mac. This movie series is the prime reason I no longer do my laundry at night.
Next up was the Departed. I was very excited for this one because it was a picture from Martin Scorsese. I seemed to have missed the excitement regarding some of his previous works, such as Goodfellas, Casino, etc. I only came to appreciate those movies after watching them on TV many years later. So, this time I felt that I was getting in on the ground floor. After watching it, I definately see some Oscar nominations in their future. I can see Nicholson and DiCaprio getting actor nods, and the film itself getting a Best Picture award. I highly recommend going to see this if you already haven't.
Finally, just this past weekend I was able to get out and see the Borat movie. All I can say is that you should RUN, not walk and get out to see this movie. I can't remember laughing so much during a movie in my life. The movie is the cinematic equivalent of a car crash. You know what's going to happen and it's not going to be pretty, but you can't turn away. Same thing here. You can see the uncomfortable situation coming from a mile away, but you can't turn away from the screen. One of the great things about this movie is that I feel that the next 5 times I watch this movie I will pick up on different things that I missed before. Great movie. I highly recommend spending the 8 bucks to go see it.
Finally, I have a question about the format of the 2007 Death Pool. From early reports that I am getting, it sounds like quite a few people are interested in participating next year. My question is this: Do you like the format that I originally laid out, where each person can only be drafted once? My fear is that if a lot of people participate, then someone who doesn't make their picks until later might be left with a very weak pool to draw from. The other option is to go to a format similar to the "Sweet 16" pools that run during the NCAA tournament. In this format, there is no restriction on who you can pick. What happens is that you would rank your ten people from 10 to 1. The person who you felt was most likely to kick the bucket would be in the number 10 position, and so forth. The scoring would be the same (100 minus their age) but then multiplied by the position. So, an 80 year old person who you had at number 7 would be worth 140 points. [(100-80)*7]. This way we wouldn't have to worry about overlap, because multiple people can hold the same person on their list. However, the positioning would become critical. Two people might hold the same person, but one might have them at 10 and one at 3. Just let me know what you think. The more I think about it, I think that this makes more sense. But this is a Kevocracy so I will let everyone vote on it, and ultimately do whatever I damn well please. Thank you.
~The Management
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
Oh, what the hell......
Didn't post this week. Didn't really have anything to say. Didn't watch the game. One funny takeaway from Saturday involves JoePa's injury. Since, I wasn't able to watch the game, and only heard about the injury I was watching ESPN2's Bottom Line. I had heard about the injury, but hadn't seen the video of it at this point. Well, the Breeder's Cup races were on Saturday as well. I guess that one of the horses had a leg injury and had to be put down on the track. Well, I caught the last half of this information as it scrolled by. It read "....with broken leg, and had to be euthanized." My first immediate thought was, "God, JoePa's injury must have been pretty bad." Not good.
Also, can we all have a moment of silence for the ending of Britney and K-Fed's marriage? Here's an interesting thought I had. If you had to pick between the two, which one would you go with? You can either A.) be K-Fed and be universally hated, but walk away with $10 mil from the divorce or B.) be a normal guy, and well liked. That's right. I'd take the money too.
Till next week.
~K
Also, can we all have a moment of silence for the ending of Britney and K-Fed's marriage? Here's an interesting thought I had. If you had to pick between the two, which one would you go with? You can either A.) be K-Fed and be universally hated, but walk away with $10 mil from the divorce or B.) be a normal guy, and well liked. That's right. I'd take the money too.
Till next week.
~K
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