proudly resents ...

 

The Week in Loserdom:

Losers held their breath waiting to see who really won . . . the Ask Backwards contest.

Results of Week XXXVIII

Summary: Week XXXVIII^* asked Losers for Jeopardy-like questions to a series of answers, but required anonymous entries from the regulars. At press time, we don't know who the heck did well and who didn't.

The Siberian Express: The ultimate slight: the Czar stuck Mark Schultz in the oblivion section and probably under an assumed name at that.

Score Losers: We don't know who did what. Of the names printed, Annika Tallis stands out, but TWW will bet a dollar that it's as phoney as a Palm Beach recount.

Week XLII (Asks for an idea for a TV show that is clearly a rip-off of some real show.)

The Weak Week Prediction: This is a contest for the regulars. Look for relatively few entires printed with a small number of really, really, good ones.

The Weak Week Word to the Wise (WWWW) : Looking for shows off of which to rip? classictv.miningco.com/tvradio/classictv has lots of show names and plot lines, but you have to dig about for them. www.tvpopquiz.com is a fun trivia site and has links to a load of other TV web pages.

Russ to Judgment: On a one-seventeen scale, sixteen being best, Week XLII gets a:

This is a week with good potential, but only a really killer entry will win it.

Flushie With Victory (Part vi of vii): Loser of the Year

As it Stands: Due to a confused election count, we don't, at this time, know how the race for LOTY stands. Because this week's results were anoymous, we don't know how much ink some the losers received. Weak Week undercover reporters have, however, discovered that front runner Jennifer Hart likely got two inks this week while her closest challenger, Russ Beland, scored zero. That puts Hart ahead by 10 with fourteen weeks' results left to be printed.

Because of the incomplete data, the following, more detailed, analyses are based on the results through last week (Week XXXVII). The table shows the top eight Losers, their current ink total, a really complicated estimate of their ink at the end of the year (a point estimate followed by a range, based on performance so far this year) and then the range of possible finishes if all the Losers stay within estimated ranges.

End of year forecast:

Loser	Curr. Ink	Est. Total	Est. Range	Est. Finish
Hart	86	117	104 to 137	1st to 3rd
Beland	77	110	97 to 116	1st to 3rd
Genser	66	92	87 to 95	3rd to 4th
Doyle	62	96	75 to 109	1st to 6th
Witte	55	75	64 to 86	4th to 8th
Paul	48	68	64 to 73	5th to 8th
Smith	46	69	54 to 81	4th to 9th
Sullivan	45	63	58 to 70	5th to 9th

This suggests three Losers (Hart, Beland, and Doyle) are still in the running for LOTY. Note that the estimated range of final scores is much tighter for losers who have been consistant all year (Genser and Witte) than for those who get ink in bursts (Doyle and Smith). For this reason, Doyle, in fourth, appears able to catch Hart, while Genser, in third, does not. Also, it is possible that Smith and Sullivan could, with poor showings for the rest of the year, fall out of the top eight if the number nine Loser (Romm) had a particularly good showing.

With Hart the clear front runner, the question becomes how hard would it be to catch her. The next table shows the performance needed by each Loser to catch Hart (and also to catch Beland). The first two columns show the Loser's name and average ink, per week, so far this year. The next column shows how many more inks, per week, that Loser must get than Hart gets in order to catch Hart by the end of the year. The last column shows the same calcualtion in order to catch Beland.

Loser	Average	Diff. To Tie Hart	Diff. To Tie Beland
Hart	2.1	--	--
Beland	1.9	+0.8	--
Genser	1.6	+1.8	+1.0
Doyle	1.5	+2.2	+1.4
Witte	1.3	+2.8	+2.0
Paul	1.2	+3.5	+2.6
Smith	1.1	+3.6	+2.8
Sullivan	1.1	+3.7	+2.9

This means that, for example, in order to catch Jennifer by the end of the year, Chuck would need to average 3.6 more inks, per week, than does Jennifer. This suggests just how difficult it is for anyone to catch Hart. Even Beland, who is in second, would have to out ink Jennifer by nearly a hit a week. For those below Beland, the odds become even longer because they must pass both Hart and Beland in order to claim the title. Below Doyle, the gap becomes so large that it is unlikely anyone will reach Hart's current score, let alone her end-of-year score.

While Genser and Doyle may not appear completely out of the running, their odds are somewhat longer than the table suggests because Beland and Hart have a habit of doing well at different times. Hart and Beland have each had four or more inks in a single week seven times this year. But in only one case (Week XXXIII) were they able to achieve it siumtaniously. In other words, when Hart does poorly, Beland tends to do well and vice versa. This makes it particularly hard to gain ground on both of them at the same time.

Bottom Line: You can bet your first born on Hart, and your first born plus a six-pack of Rolling Rock on Hart or Beland.

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