The 2008 American Idol (#7) HTF Top Ten Challenge: *** John Swarce wins! *** (1 Viewer)

[RAF]

A quick recap: With a little more than two days to go (at this writing) there are, by my count, eighteen (18) people remaining who indicated via placeholders a desire to participate in the HTF 2008 AI7 Top Ten Challenge but who have not yet submitted their lists. These people are, in no particular order:

Dan Keefe
Jed M
Lucia Duran
TonyD
JarrettJ
Jeff Meyers
loganhunter2002
Scooter
gregstaten
Aaron Silverman
Betty R
Parker Clack
Joe S.
TheMonk
logan8246
John Swarce
jason SMI
Elena S

If your name is on the above list (or if you want to enter but didn't indicate this previously) please remember to submit your selections before the absolute deadline which is 8:00 pm EST on Tuesday March 4, 2008.

Thank you.

 

[Phil Taylor]

What the heck - I'll give it a shot ---

01. Kristy
02. Brooke
03. David A.
04. David C.
05. Ramiele
06. Chikezie
07. Carly
08. Jason C.
09. Danny
10. Amanda

***Entry Recorded ***

 

[John Swarce]

Thanks for the reminder e-mail! I forgot all about this. Here goes...

01. David A.
02. Carly
03. Michael
04. David C.
05. Syesha
06. Kristie
07. Brooke
08. Ramiele
09. David H.
10. Chikezie

Boy, did I waffle back and forth on these...

--John

Edited for one more waffle!

***Entry Recorded ***

(the waffles are now off the grill, John).

 

[Lucia Duran]

01. David A.
02. Ramiele
03. Michael
04. Danny
05. Brooke
06. Jason
07. Luke
08. Chikezie
09. Syesha
10. David H.

I edited my list just to remove the last names of a few of the contestants.

** Entry Recorded **

 

[Aaron Silverman]

Okum dokum, here goes:

1. Brooke
2. David A.
3. David C.
4. Carly
5. Ramiele
6. Danny
7. Syesha
8. Michael
9. Jason C.
10. Chikezie

***Entry Recorded ***

 

[TonyD]

updated my list post #19

 

[RAF]

With a little more than 5 hours to go before the entries close here's where we stand:

We currently have twenty (20) members entered with another twelve (12) who have yet to respond to their "placeholders." I'm still waiting to hear from:

Dan Keefe
JarrettJ
Jeff Meyers
loganhunter2002
Scooter
gregstaten
Betty R
Joe S.
TheMonk
logan8246
jason SMI
Elena S

If any of you know someone on this list and want to give them a quick heads up let them know that entries close at 8pm EST sharp with no exceptions. Nobody is obligated to enter but I'd hate for someone to miss out when interested.

As soon as entries are closed I will be linking you to a site where I have an MS Excel spreadsheet with all the entrants and their picks.

Full details will follow.

 

[Bryan X]

RAF,

Can we change our list at this point? With the breaking news regarding David H, I'd like to adjust my entry.

 

[Aaron Silverman]

Paging Hanson. . .

 

[RAF]

Sorry, Bryan, but once you submit a list it is final. Check the rules. It is very specific on this point. I've already logged your choices into my spreadsheet and checked it against all other entries to make sure that there is no duplication of another list (the only reason that a submitted list would be rejected.) I'm not trying to be a hard ass about this, but if I allowed people to arbitrarily change lists it would be a nightmare to administer because I'd have to go back and check every new list against ones already submitted.

You take a risk by entering early but you also stand a better chance that nobody else can submit "your" list before you do. It's a personal decision, but once made, you have to stick by it. We've even had situations in past contests where a person chose to submit a list before we had gotten down to the "sweet sixteen" point and one of his selections didn't even make it to the Top 16. With David H., if we turn the TV on tonight and find out he's gone (I doubt it) then I'll list him as leaving at position #16 for scoring purposes. And if they replace him with another contestant at this point, that person will be on nobody's list. All entrants in our contest will be in the same boat.

If it's any solace, I also have David H. in my list and might not have picked him if I knew about his "past." Heck, I even have "DUI" Amanda in my top ten so I've assembled a real rogues' gallery here!



Actually, who knows at this point what will happen? It might actually play to David H.'s advantage to have some juicy tidbits hanging out there (no pun intended). He might become Sanjaya 2008. And if Amanda gets pissed at Simon she might just run him over some day. Just wait until you get a little deeper into the competition before getting deeper in dog doo, babe!

Our mantra here is (for all entrants): You made your list, now you live with it.

I trust that you understand.

 

[Bryan X]

Oh, it's no problem. I understand. I figured it couldn't hurt to ask. Tony's post about updating his list got me wondering if you were allowing updates.

I'm not overly concerned about David and probably would only have dropped him a place or two. I think the news is too fresh to penetrate the general public's knowledge enough to influence tonight's vote.

 

[Patrick Sun]

Whew, I only had room for 2 Davids in my top 10, so Hernandez can dance his booty away for all I care.

 

[RAF]

TonyD only "updated" his placeholder message. He might have also added some last names, etc. but his list has never changed as far as contestants are concerned.

Speaking of which:

It has now passed the deadline (8pm EST) so this contest's entries are now officially closed. Give me a few minutes to organize everything and I'll post the total counts, etc.

 

[RAF]

O.K. Here's the final tally for entrants:

20 members have entered.

15 are eligible for the DVD prize package (titles to be announced as we get closer to the end of AI7). (5 people are either HTF moderators, significant others or, in the case of phil-w, graciously declined because he won our last prize contest).

If you look at the first message in this thread you will see the complete list of entries. I'll be updating the scores each week after the votes are in. In addition there is a link in the first message to the MS Excel spreadsheet that I use to keep track of things if you want to see each contestant's list and the tallies (you need MS Office or a spreadsheet reader to open the file).

Let the games begin! Remember, it's for the glory and for most of you, for some DVDs. But the real goal is to see if anyone can best "The Dheiner Nine" the remarkable total score of 09 points established by Dheiner in a previous contest. That's probably an impossible (and very impressive) task!

 

[TonyD]

yep, actually i ever did anything but add my list to a current post..
as robert said that was the update.

 

[John Swarce]

RAF:

Can we make this a sticky at the top of the forum? I usually default to two days of posts.

BTW, nice spreadsheet! It makes the scoring easy to follow. And thanks for allowing the edit 2 minutes after my original post a few days ago. I have had my fill of waffles for now!

--John

 

[Patrick Sun]

Oh damn, already lost 2 of my top 10 (Danny and Asia'h). This is going to get bumpy.

 

[RAF]

Hi John! I believe this thread already is a sticky. The reason that it doesn't appear as the very first sticky in the thread is that there are other stuck messages ahead of it. In any event it should be showing up near the top. Unless something has changed, "stickies" stay at the top regardless of last posting date. The particular thread tends to get fewer posts now that the contest has started, but it should still be "up there."

Actually, your "edit" occurred before I entered your list into the spreadsheet (no big deal). Had that happened I would have had to stick with your original entry. Once I apply the **Entry Recorded** tag, it's official. The only other issue would have been in the case of identical lists where the date stamp would have determined who got in under the wire first.

Thanks for the kind words on the Excel Spreadsheet. It's actually a very easy way to enter data and names because of the type ahead feature of Excel. (That's why I like to have consistency in the entry names.) The three "David"s were a bit of a pain but no big deal. With 20 entrants this is still an easy sheet to manage. If we go up to, say, 50 or more entries then I would have to break out my old Excel reference texts and re-learn how to construct "look-up" tables. In that way I can enter a score once each week and all lists on the spreadsheet will automatically be updated. I haven't really dealt with "look-up" tables since Lotus 1-2-3 and, I believe, Visicalc. But that gives away my age.


BTW, congrats on the fast start out of the gate. You and Yee-Ming are the only two players with perfect (00.0) scores after the first week. Remember, the "record" is 9 points for the complete season (!) and probably one of those records that will not be surpassed easily.

 

[RAF]

I feel the pain, albeit a little less. Asia'h was relatively high up on my list as well. But a bit of solace comes from the fact that positions lost early in the game become spots that can't get any further points attached to them. That's what makes this such an interesting contest format. Just because you accumulate a lot of points early on doesn't mean you are completely out of it. If those ahead of you don't remain accurate in their contestant placement you could be back in the fray before you know it.

And that's one reason why Dheiner's final score of 9(!) in the Survivor:China Top Ten Challenge is so damn impressive!

 

[RAF]

O.K. Gang. The first round of eliminations (#16, 15, 14 and 13) is now history and I've updated the scoring for the contest. Because it was not made clear who went where I'm assigning 14.5 points to each of the people let go last night. (It's the average score of 16, 15, 14 and 13.) If you will look at the first message in this thread you will see a full accounting of all current scores and other pertinent information. In fact, each week you should check the top of that message for any scoring updates. Obviously, don't look at it until you have watched the show as it is a spoiler of the first magnitude.