Here are some stats - they may not be 100% accurate as it is easy to have celebrities under two different names. I catch misspellings as they appear next to each other in an ordered list (btw, the record was 5 in one list, achieved by more than one person). However, it is not as easy to differentiate duplicates like Elizabeth Taylor from Liz Taylor, or Boy George from George O’Dowd.
Despite previously posting that we had 170 entrants, but I am now at 167 (181 in 2009). I entered three late revisions as brand new lists (note for those who can remember 11+ months: revisions are easier for me if you just state “replace x with y”).
We have 847 celebrities, 576 unique. This is 68%, virtually identical to last year’s 67%
The top vote-getters are:
Fidel Castro 57
Amy Winehouse 51
Kim Jong-Il 41
Zelda Rubinstein 36
Rush Limbaugh 35
Steve Jobs 30
Ruth Bader Ginsburg 29
Roger Ebert 26
Bryant Gumbel 25
Elizabeth Taylor 25
Muhammad Ali 25
Elizabeth Edwards 24
Stephen Hawking 24
David Hasselhoff 23
Ariel Sharon 22
Lindsay Lohan 22
Orlando Thomas 22
Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi 21
Dick Clark 20
Nancy Reagan 20
I assign each list a “uniqueness” measure by counting one point for each vote for each of the picks in the list. Hence the lowest total is 13, for a list of exclusively unique picks.
HowieReynolds and koufax are totally unique. The least unique list is that of Long Time First Time with 347 points, closely followed by Avarie537 with 346. The average uniqueness is 154 with 3.45 unique picks.
I missed the deadline. I was just going to use those still alive on my list and add a couple replacements for the two I had that actually died. Now watch the rest of my list all kick off this year without my protection.
Oh well, I guess I wasn’t cut out for it anyway, I feel too guilty over picking people and thinking about how many points someone was worth when I see a celebrity obituary.
It’s not that someone deserves to die, it’s that so few deserve to be celebrities.
Anyway, only in celebrity can death be a real career booster. It certainly take the guilt away.
On the other hand, I could not do this at a site where money is wagered. That’s just sick.
Here I was thinking for some reason that we couldn’t pick Kids at all, for some inane reason. I saw that rule, but “read” it as over 18 at time of picking.
Then again, I guess if your pick was 16 currently, it would be a different issue.
