Wednesday, January 13, 2010

1*


Putting an end to a dark chapter in Death Pool history, Miep Gies passed away January 11, giving Bruce the first kill of the year. If you'll recall, Gies was the most controversial selection at the 2008 Death Pool draft. The ironically-named OC Angels, who had already made the satanic decision to select the great John Wooden, selected Gies, and the pick was immediately challenged on the grounds of her not being famous enough to qualify for selection. Here is what we wrote in 2009 about Gies's qualifications:

Sure, 99 is ripe to pass away, but will we actually find out about it in 2009? According to the world's most reputable news source, Wikipedia, Gies lives somewhere in a cottage in Northern "Holland," and hasn't done media interviews in a couple years. Gies doesn't even have a picture on Wikipedia. For God's sake, anal beadshave their own picture on Wikipedia! And yes, we wrote that sentence solely to pull in the crowd of people Googling "miep gies" with "anal beads."


A vote by all teams was taken, in a process rife with behind the scenes manuevering not seen since Bush v. Gore. In the end, the Gies pick passed by a single vote, amidst rumors that there had been more collusion than the BCS. A subsequent DPG investigation revealed that in fact some had voted to allow Gies purely to spite the group of owners who were against the pick and had also expressed their displeasure with the Wooden pick.

As a result, Gies was scooped up by Tomorrow's History in 2009 when the Angels dissolved, a disbanding no doubt influenced by the backlash from the original pick. When discussing Bruce's tainted heist, we noted:

The selection of the 99-year-old Gies was met with grumbles and groans all the way around, as again there were calls for her (his?) disqualification. Unfortunately, much like the designated hitter and Ryan Seacrest, accepting Gies appears to be a bad decision that will haunt us for years to come.

Truer words were never spoken.

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Your 2010 Death Pool Rosters! (final version!)


We're not here to talk about the past. We're here to talk about people kicking the bucket in 2010, and how prophetic we are for picking them.

A couple noteworthy items:

*Much like Major League Baseball, the rich keep getting richer, as defending champions Quoth the Raven have added GM Tori from the defunct Bring Out Yer Dead. We will see how this affects team management over the course of the season, and will analyze the impact on their draft in our first Power Rankings installment.

*Only one new team thus far (Prophet of Death), making this the most experienced, and presumably toughest group of teams to date.

And away we go. . .

Quoth the Raven (Brock & Tori)

1. Elizabeth Taylor
2. Gloria Stuart
3. Nelson Mandela
4. John Wooden
5. Dick Clark
6. Kim Jong-il
7. Abe Vigoda
8. Steve Jobs
9. Annette Funicello
10. Al Davis

Under 50:

1. Amy Winehouse
2. Courtney Love
3. Michael J. Fox
4. Brian Bonsall
5. Pam Anderson

Tomorrow's History (Bruce)

1. Miep Gies
2. Art Linkletter
3. Rose McCain
4. Kirk Douglas
5. Sergeant Schriver
6. C. Everett Koop
7. Beverly Cleary
8. Sadduhara Oh
9. Sherwood Schwartz
10. Jack Klugman

Under 50:

1. Kate Moss
2. Balthazar Getty
3. Paula Abdul
4. Kirk Cameron
5. Pete Dougherty

The Black Hand (Popovich)

1. Margaret Thatcher
2. Peter O'Toole
3. Mickey Rooney
4. Harry Morgan
5. Billy Graham
6. Sen. Robert Byrd
7. Peter Falk
8. John Paul Stevens
9. Jake LaMotta
10. Marion Berry

Under 50:

1. Mindy McCready
2. Mischa Barton
3. Darryl Strawberry
4. Lindsey Lohan
5. Steve-O

The Boneyard (Jess)

1. Zsa-Zsa Gabor
2. Olivia de Haviland
3. Ernest Borgnine
4. Joan Fontaine
5. Betty Ford
6. J.D. Salinger
7. Peter Tork
8. John Forsythe
9. Phyllis Diller
10. Fidel Castro

Under 50:

1. Artie Lange
2. Tawny Kitaen
3. Suge Knight
4. Tara Reid
5. Joaquin Phoenix

Prophet of Death (Nancy)

1. Andy Rooney
2. Muhammad Ali
3. Jerry Lewis
4. Hugh Downs
5. Bob Dylan
6. Hugh Hefner
7. Arnold Palmer
8. Ozzy Ozborne
9. Cloris Leachman
10. John Goodman

Under 50:

1. George Michael
2. Daniel Baldwin
3. James Franco
4. Criss Angel
5. Ryan Seacrest

Celebrity Stalker (Bobby)

1. George H.W. Bush
2. Barbara Bush
3. Keith Richards
4. Stephen Tyler
5. Clint Eastwood
6. Rush Limbaugh
7. Nancy Reagan
8. George Steinbrenner
9. Joe Paterno
10. Yitzhak Shamir

Under 50:

1. Verne Troyer
2. Scott Weiland
3. Bobby Brown
4. Mike Tyson
5. Lady GaGa


The Lucky Fours (Scott & Maile)

1. B.B. King
2. Ariel Sharon
3. Prince Philip
4. Betty White
5. Bob Barker
6. Jimmy Carter
7. Angela Lansbury
8. Andy Griffith
9. Merlin Olsen
10. Stephen Hawking

Under 50:

1. Bridgette Nielsen
2. Gary Coleman
3. Chyna
4. Mary-Kate Olsen
5. David Blaine

Your 2009 Death Pool Champ: Quoth the Raven


Bringing joy to their long-suffering fanbase, one which had grown restless of playing the bridesmaid year after year, the Ravens finally broke through in 2009, amassing a solid collection of 3 kills to become 2009 Death Pool champions. Congrats to GM Brock and the rest of the QTR staff, as their hard work has finally been rewarded.

Because Brock refuses to post on the website, the duty falls upon us to write his victory speech. However, we thought it would be selfish not to share his laziness with the rest of you, so without further adieu, may we present Brock's Victory Speech, Mad Libs version!

"Thank you very much. First, I'd like to [verb] the Commissioner, and the rest of the teams in the league for giving us a [adjective] season this year. I'd also like to take a minute to [verb] the players who led to our [adjective] success: Les Paul, Karl Malden, and Bea Arthur. Without their [plural noun], we couldn't have brought home the [noun] this year."

"Now that that's out of the way, let me [adverb] talk about the real issue here: U$C football. Like [obscure movie character] once said, [even more obscure movie quote from a different movie]. When I'm [verb ending in -ing] in bed late at night, dreaming of [U$C football player]'s [noun], one thing comes to mind: [food served at Ted's]. And when I think of [verb ending in -ing] Pete Carroll once and for all, it reminds me of our success this year. Oh, and by the way, [random Godfather character]."

Congrats again to Brock, and if he ever decides to write an actual victory speech, we'll post it.