Hockey Pool, week, um, er, 17 I think.

And so, I have the unmitigated pleasure of bringing you the VWXYnot Hockey Pool update for week 17, the Lamest Week Of The Year™. For those of us (me included) who faffled around with their picks, bewildered by the apparent lack of games, it's because the NHL All-Star game intervened with the real schedule. And, in case you missed the connection, it's the All-Star game that makes it the Lamest Week. Trust me on this.

Of course, there were other things going on as well, not least of which was the Rolex 24 Hours At Daytona (won again, somewhat predictably, by the Ganassi Racing team), and of course the NASCAR Toyota All-Star Showdown, which was actually quite fun to watch, even though the many caution flags resulted in it running overtime. Which meant, of course, that my PVR missed the end of it. Nevertheless, let me take a moment more and throw out some congratulations to Canadian series champ D.J. Kennington, who outlasted dozens of other drivers, and finished second overall.


Mr. Kennington, last July.

But enough of that! On to the results...

Thin week or not, nothing really startling happened with the overall standings. Lavaland's still on top, I'm still running roughly parallel in second, and so on and so forth. The only notable change is that Gerty-Z and ScientistMother have switched spots, following a very strong performance by one, and a rather flabby one by the other.

Weekly totals... look at that blue bar for ScientistMother!
And here are the standings for the last three weeks or so:

So there you go. I am, in fact, creeping up on Lavaland - but very, very slowly, and with the newly-adjusted points values for the players, I really have no idea how my picks for this week will pan out. Stay tuned...

Hockey Pool, week 13!

Yes, the holiday break is over, and all excuses about "being away from the internet" or "being too sleepy/full/hung over to make my picks" are now invalid. 2011 is here, the Canadian Juniors are poised for a semi-final game against the USA, and the VWXYnot Hockey Pool standings have made their way over here this week.

Overall standings for the past three weeks. I'm not winning.


Maintaining a convincing lead is Lavaland, even though week 13 wasn't exactly a stellar performance (tied fifth or second-last for the week, depending on how you look at it). Bob has catapulted from fifth to third, and I've clambered up into second overall. There's a real dogfight for third through fifth developing, with Bob, Chall and ScientistMother separated by only four points.

Looking over these three weeks of results, I'm also giving myself a "hard charger" award for the steepest slope. Hey, it's my blog, I can do what I like.

At the bottom end of the standings, Gerty-Z's excellent week has meant a jump from seventh into sixth, while Cath went in the opposite direction. Thomas is still bringing up the rear, although trending in the right direction.

Points gained in week 13, as ugly blue bars.

The biggest weekly points total goes to Bob with a whopping 42. Gerty-Z also had a convincing week with 38, and I was third with 36. Thomas has improved a bit, Lavaland had an uncharacteristically poor week, and Chall and Cath are tied for the limpest performance.

So there you go. I apologize for the ugly graphs, but the deadly interaction between Excel, PowerPoint and Blogger is at least partly to blame.

Onward to week 14!

2010, in the words of the proprietor.

With a tip of the chapeau to Cath over at VWXYnot, from whom I've borrowed the idea, here's a quick recap of the Ricardiblog for 2010. The first sentence of the first post from each month.

It's a pretty miserable collection, truth be told, with three months missing entirely (although, in a strangely recursive way, we could put "With a tip of the chapeau to Cath over at VWXYnot..." in as the first one for December, I suppose). A New Year's resolution for 2010 suggests itself - try to be a bit more consistent with posting. Although I did fire off half a dozen at Life Science Tools of the Trade, and I will soon be posting sporadically at another, as yet undisclosed, location. Stay tuned.

Anyway, here we go, sorry set of sentences though it is:

January: "Happy New Year, to anyone who might still be reading."

February: "Just a quick guerilla post to point anyone who might be reading at a worthy initiative - the Scientia Pro Publica blog carnival, which as I understand it is a regular initiative to bring interesting science to the attention of the general public."

March: "Time to brag a little."

April: Um, er, apparently I didn't post anything in April.

May: "A post?"

June: "The recent G20 summit in Toronto, truth be told, was only a minor inconvenience to me."

July: "I'm excited." [Ok, this is the first sentence of July - the first post per se consisted only of a photograph.]

August: "Saturday." [Hm. That's not really a sentence is it? The next one is the much more long-winded "A much earlier mandatory photography meeting than the previous day, and a quick brief for today's assignment - shots in the paddocks, the areas where the race cars live and are worked on, when they're not on-track."]

September: Argh, didn't post anything in this month either.

October: "There is a protest brewing, if I can mix metaphors so early in this post."

November: "One by one they left behind the bright fields of innocence and stepped into the darkness of experience." [I didn't write this, but it's a sentence. And there were no other posts in November to draw from.]

December: Um, er, I'll get back to you on that.