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Obama’s Barackets Still in Top 8% of Entries After Day 2

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After Day 2, President Obama’s Barackets are slightly busted like the majority of entries. However, they’re still plenty good to be ahead or tied with 91.8% of entries after Day 2. That tie includes my entry. However, I have a slight probability edge among points remaining in that I didn’t lose a team slotted to make it to the Elite 8, like the POTUS did with Duke.

My ESPN Brackets

President Obama’s Barackets

All this so far is great for having lots of teams left, and higher probability that you can get the remaining games right if it were a straight lottery (i.e. more tickets than others). However, it isn’t a straight lottery, and the stakes now double per game in the next few days in the Round of 32, at 20 points per game instead of 10 for the Round of 64. So things can go up or down hill REAL fast!

Let’s get it on!

Options Instead of the Extra Point for the NFL and CFL

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In North American football, the extra point is a single point short kick after a 6 point touchdown to give the full 7 point value a touchdown can give a team. The full 7 points also makes the touchdown more valuable than two field goals, at 3 points each, in not only concept but also score. Otherwise, the extra point is also a second chance to cheer loudly for the touchdown just scored if it were your team to have done so.

Once upon a time, the extra point used to require an actual effort so it was not a sure thing by any means. However, these days, it has a success rate of over 99% according to New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick. It has become too easy for the players playing to execute it that it not only becomes boring, it’s also a waste of time. Sports Illustrated’s Peter King feels the same way about it, calling it “the biggest waste of time in sports”. Nothing in sports should be that automatic, basically. What kind of competition is there if the outcome was the same more than 99% of the time?

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President Obama’s 2013 Barackets Hurting Badly After Round 1

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For the ESPN March Madness Tournament Challenge this year, I thought I’d do a little more analysis than just President Barack Obama’s Barackets.

After Round 1, da Prez’s Barackets are hurting badly relative to the nation’s performance (see bracket link at bottom). He only got 19 of 32 games predicted correctly. Not much better than a random 16 of 32, or 18 of 32 if the #1 teams were not picked to lose as they have never lost. This poor performance so far left his brackets at just 19.9 percentile among those entered. In other words, 4 of 5 brackets among 8 million are doing better than his (or 6,527,401). That’s kind of terrible and worse than his approval rating, I hate to tell ya!

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Word and Design Tutorial 2 – Paragraph Settings

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This is the first of many tutorials on Microsoft Word and some design aesthetics to go with the technical features being taught. Topics covered this tutorial include Paragraph features like:

  • Justification
  • Margins
  • Indentations
  • Line Spacing
  • Space Before/After
  • Widow/Orphan control
  • More keyboard shortcuts

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What Will Be the Next Real Big Royal Event? Vote!

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OK. So the Willie Kate British royal wedding is over. What do you think is going to be the next real big royal event?

By real big, I mean something with either a lot of shock or pomp and circumstance. The examples are in the survey below so please do take a moment to cast a vote!

We’ll see the people can predict the future! 🙂

If you think it’ll be William and Kate’s first child, why not take a vote at how long they should wait in my poll earlier today?