Wow.
That Canadian election “debate” tonight was pathétique!
Stephen Harper was ahead of the game again by secretly authorizing the leakage of that Auditor-General’s G8 spending abuse report just days ago. You had better believe it! It refocused the other candidates’ talking points on more of the same old abuse of the PC government, where there’s marginal impact now, rather than discussing some real issues that would have much larger impact on swaying voters.
President Barack Obama
Please click here to see how the Barackets are doing against the nation after Round 2.
After Round 1 of the 2011 NCAA March Madness Tournament, President Barack Obama’s safe “presidential style” Barackets is beating 11,336 of about six million brackets, or about 99.8% of them!
Da Prez is where he is after Round 1 by predicting 28 of 32 correct picks in the round! That’s 3 better than where he was at this point in 2010.
Most people do not hear most of the songs they know for the first time in the year the song was released. If anyone did, I would feel very sorry for them for missing out on all the great songs of the past from before they were born, or even great songs each year they lived they would have missed.
What most people don’t do is reflect each year on the best songs they heard for the first time that year. I’ve blogged some of mine, but not all so this is my entire collection for 2010 which could fit on a CD if I made one.
After several years of discovering a ton of jazz and older music, then tunes from musicals, so that they made up most of the songs in my list for recent years (2009 list), I am back with an eclectic set that reflects my true musical tastes and philanderings across genres. I even have not only one song from the current year, but two! A song from the year of the list was something I didn’t have for several years. I did find newly released songs I liked a lot in those years, but they didn’t compare to a variety of jazz and musicals standards I discovered in those years.
But before I share my list, let me ask you the same question as I answered to write this post. What were the best songs you heard for the first time in 2010?
I’d love to know so please do leave a comment. I can add the links to videos so people can hear what you’re talking about, if you would like. But if you don’t want to do it here, maybe write a blog post like this if you have a blog, or a Facebook note or something like that on a social media platform account you have. It might just be one of the more thoughtful notes to your friends all year.
Here is my list, in no particular order of preference, with videos streaming the songs. You will need to click on the YouTube link for some videos with some weird copyright condition that only allow them to be viewed on YouTube. I hate Grown Up Corporate YouTube that’s become a wussie and lost all its edge.
President Barack Obama
Please click here to see President Obama’s 2010 Barackets, and get analysis after Round 2
After Round 1 of the 2010 NCAA March Madness Tournament, President Barack Obama’s ESPN Barackets is beating 96.5% of over 4.5 million entries!
See Obama’s 2010 March Madness Brackets here.
See Obama’s rationale in his picks via the ESPN video here.
Obama got 25 of 32 games correct for 250 points since each game in this round was worth 10 points. Three top entries were tied at a remarkable 310 points or 31 of 32 correct! There is no rewards for upsets in the ESPN system so these brackets encouraged going with the favourites rather than picking upsets. That left the President at a rank of 160,151 or sitting in the 96.6th percentile. That means he is ahead of 96.5% of the entries of over 4.5 million entries!
An analogy for that statistic would be the Prez is beating 29 out of every 30 entrants, sitting in 2nd place in such a sample. With over 4.5 million entries, that’s far more than a big enough sample to safely declare the President ahead of 96.5% of all bracket entries out there. He knew his basketball in Round 1, unlike last year when he admitted he got killed in the early rounds.
However, Obama could be in a lot of trouble for the next rounds, each of which is also worth 320 points.
That’s because Obama has already lost one of his Elite Eight teams in Georgetown. That’s 40 points he won’t be getting in that round for sure. I wonder if that were a political pick because Georgetown is, of course, in Washington DC. There weren’t too many Chicago or Illinois teams that stood much of a chance this year to go far.
Obama has also already lost two of his Sweet Sixteen teams with Georgetown and Marquette. That’s another 40 points he won’t be getting in that round.
ESPN lists Obama’s potential points remaining (PPR) at 1,520 after Round 1.
Of course, other people will have likely lost some of those teams already as well. The fact most of them lost more teams this first round only suggest they have a greater chance of losing more teams in the later rounds already than Obama. However, that’s not necessarily true.
My ESPN brackets are sitting at 210 points, or 2,978,307 or ahead of a very lousy 37.6 percent of the entries. Basically, I’m in 6th place out of every 8 people! OUCH! Yet, because I haven’t lost any Elite Eight teams, and the same Georgetown pick as Obama for the Sweet Sixteen, my potential points remaining is 1,580. That could make up the 40 points different the President has on me after Round 1. So despite being over 2.8 million spots back of da Prez right now, I could still end up putting the slamma jamma on Obama!
All that said, the President is doing relatively well among ESPN’s featured brackets.
 President Obama |
 LeBron James |
 Dick Vitale |
 Joe Lunardi |
 Bill Simmons |
 Matthew Berry |
 Mike Greenberg |
 Mike Golic |
 Colin Cowherd |
 Michelle Beadle |
 Scott Van Pelt |
 Tony Reali |
Obama is first among them after Round 1. In fact, he’s cleaning house… including dunking on LeBron James!
I guess in America, it’s da Prez that rules, not the King. They got rid of him a long time ago! 🙂
You can look at each featured bracket’s potential points remaining if you’d like by clicking on the links above.
How are you doing after the first round if you played? How many games did you get right?
Flesch-Kincaid Grade Reading Level: 5.8
If an election were called today in Canada or the United States, federally or province/state, or even a Senate Race, would you know for whom all your friends would vote?
Get them to tell you on Facebook with these Facebook picture tagging memes that serve as a survey. It uses the same picture tagging features as your photos, and those memes going around with superheroes and other characters. However, here, your friends tag the party of their choice to indicate for whom they would vote! I bet you might be surprised at some people’s choices!
You won’t have to tell many friends to tag their choice. After a few initial ones tag their choice, notifications will be sent out in Facebook and others will see them. Their curiosity, if they care at all, will do the rest.
Facebook tagging survey is a concept I came up with because there aren’t any Facebook survey tools, at least not applications where everyone would have to sign up for the application to use it. I know those applications are free, but not everyone is keen to giving away their personal info and have all kinds of applications as part of their Facebook navigation.
Please note that these surveys are public to a person’s friends, at least, pending their privacy setting. So don’t declare anything you wouldn’t want the world to know!
I have created four elections Facebook tagging surveys below. Some are less timely than others, like the US elections one which won’t see use for almost 4 years from this posting date, though you can still survey your friends right now if you never got to last election. Others are just waiting to happen, like the Canadian federal election.
Here’s how to get this Facebook survey meme to survey your friends’ political allegiance:
Please click here for a complete list of Facebook picture tagging memes on this site with which you can use for fun with your friends.
Digital Citizen 