I have my "best of the rest".. I'm slacking on some categories and picking more contemporary "popular lit" picks, but ohwell. :) I am definitely struggling between options in some categories.

I have not updated the list and I may not get to it tonight. :( If someone in the draft needs me to, please let me know. Otherwise I'm going to be working on schoolwork and peaking in to see if I should be putting up my "best of the rest" list.

You probably need to check ML's Short Story and DT's Non-Fiction.

Sorry for the dola but are you planning on having a separate score thread or will this one suffice?

Usually there is a poll thread - people often put their scoring in there.

My "Best of the Rest" is done although there are two categories that I'd like to think about some more.

I will have a separate score thread. You will be pm'ing me your top 3 and they will have weighted scores. That is also where everyone who hasn't been paying attention will jump in and start stating their opinions.

(checking those in a sec)

Not sure I follow. We have to PM our scores to you but we can also post our scores/opinions in the thread as well?

DaddyTorgo's Non-Fiction pick corrected in the spreadsheet.

you can discuss, scores are pm'd. Not discuss your scores, but have spirited debate regarding the picks people have made.

dola: This is how we've always done it?

It wasn't just a poll in the past?

I think its just been a straight poll in the past.

dola, that's not to say lordscarlet's idea doesn't have merit. It just sounds like a lot of work for him.

+1

And I'm concerned it my discourage voting.

Haven't we've been doing that? Keep the discussions going here, with scores or however people want to rank (by participant, by category, by whatever). You can have a simple poll where you pick your winner.

oh i'm up hmm?

link to the spreadsheet?

1st post.

aaah cool

1. Fiction: Romance of the Three Kingdoms by Luo Guanzhong
2. Single Short Story: The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Tolstoy
3. Poem: 5.5 Leaves of Grass, Walt Whitman
4. Fantasy/Science Fiction: 4.6 FARENHEIT 451, RAY BRADBURY
5. Series (A set of books continuing the same story and intended to be read sequentially) 1.5 The Foundation Series, Isaac Asimov
6. Sport Related 10.6 The Boys of Summer by Roger Kahn
7. Children's 3.5 Children's and Household Tales (1857 - 211 stories) by The Brothers Grimm
8. Non-Fiction 9.5 Two Teatises on Government by John Locke
9. Biography/Autobiography 2.6 Autobiographical Notes, Albert Einstein
10. History: 8.6 History of the Pelopennisian War by Thucydides

If LS is willing to take the task, I'm all for his idea. The one thing I hate about the polls are "makeup" votes, where people wait to see how others have voted, and use that to make their decision.

Definitely agreed with that. Too bad we don't have the thing that we have at WOOF where we can hide the results ;)

In the past it's been a poll because I was lazy, but a vote would be fine too.

Just make sure you publicly shame anyone who votes for themselves.

FWIW, the music draft was decided in a similar way as LS's idea (it wasn't a poll).

Seems I haven't thought my cunning plan all the way through...

:D

what...no love for the boys of summer?

Is that the book the song was based off of?

Weren't the top 3 posted publically?

You got a 7 from me. Is that enough love? :)

I like it - it was my #2 choice for "best of the rest" in Sports.

Actually, I think you're right.

I have no idea, I just remember seeing the final standings somewhere.

yay! approval for one of my picks!

Maple Leafs, I believe you're up.

Fiction - 1.4 Hamlet, by William Shakespeare
Single Short Story - 9.4 The Gift of the Magi, by O. Henry
Poem - 4.7 The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Fantasy/Science Fiction - 3.4 War of the Worlds, by H.G. Wells
Series - 10.7 The Six Enneads, by Plotinus
Sport Related - 7.4 Paper Lion, by George Plimpton
Children's - 5.4 The Cat in the Hat, by Dr. Seuss
Non-Fiction - 6.7 Analects, Confucius
Biography/Autobiography - 8.7 The Confessions of St. Augustine
History - 2.7 The Diary of a Young Girl, by Anne Frank

A bit of a category stretch perhaps. The description given in the rules doesn't say the series has to be fiction, although it does use the term "stories" so maybe it's implied. Still, this is a highly influential work, and unlike other works like the Socratic dialogs, the Enneads are meant to be read in a specific order. So I think I'm honoring the spirit if not the exact letter of the rule.

Plus I can't think of anything else to use and don't feel like getting stuck with something like Lemony Snicket.

Wow, that's way outside.

Locke and Boys of Summer are both good picks IMO DaddyTorgo. Neither will lead their group or anything but both are good picks to close out on.

ML - seems to fit the spirit of the category to me.

Last category for me is poetry. My original big board only had 2 poems on it, which got gobbled up before I could get to them - Paradise Lost, and Rime of the Ancient Mariner. I don't know much about poetry, so I'm going with the last poem I read that I liked.

1. Fiction - 8.8 Light in August, William Faulkner
2. Single Short Story - 1.3 The Dead, James Joyce
3. Poem - 10.8 Lucktown, by Bryan Penberthy
4. Fantasy/Science Fiction - 2.8 1984, George Orwell
5. Series (A set of books continuing the same story and intended to be read sequentially) - 3.3 Dune, Frank Herbert
6. Sport Related - 4.8 Rabbit, Run, John Updike
7. Children's - 9.3 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
8. Non-Fiction - 7.3 Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert Pirsig
9. Biography/Autobiography - 5.3 The Diary of Anais Nin
10. History - 6.8 The Second World War, Winston Churchill

and BOOM - there goes one of my "bonus point" picks.

That's the way I have DT's picks overall. All about the middle of the pack with Grimm and Kahn above average.

With the penultimate pick in the draft, I complete my list with a title for the History category. I hoped this title wouldn't be taken, and figured since it was related to more recent history, it would fall all the way to my final pick. This book recounts one of the most important political events in the nation's history. It reads almost like a mystery novel, except all of the pieces are documenting the break-in and subsequent cover up at the Watergate hotel. This book is already used in many history courses, and I think it will stand the test of time to go down as one of the all-time great books documenting a historical event. My pick is:

All The President's Men, Woodward and Bernstein.

cartman's list

1. Fiction - 4.9 Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand
2. Single Short Story - 3.2 The Cask of Amontillado, Edgar Allan Poe
3. Poem - 5.2 Paul Revere's Ride, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
4. Fantasy/Science Fiction - 2.9 Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
5. Series (A set of books continuing the same story and intended to be read sequentially) - 1.2: The Lord of The Rings Trilogy (Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, The Return of the King), J.R.R. Tolkein
6. Sport Related - 6.9: Casey At The Bat, Ernest Thayer
7. Children's - 8.9: The Complete Calvin and Hobbes, Bill Watterson
8. Non-Fiction - 7.2 Kama Sutra, Mallanaga Vatsyayana
9. Biography/Autobiography - 9.2 The Twelve Caesars, Suetonius
10. History - 10.9 All The President's Men, Woodward and Bernstein.

However we did it in the music draft is how I will do it. :) I will go back and check if it was public or not. I really don't care, I just thought that however the music draft did it was how it was always done (that's the only one I have participated in).

1 more pick, someone pick a fiction for Chief.

Chief said he would be "Gone all day like Monday." I'm not sure if that means he won't be on until the morning or if he will be on late tonight.

I like that choice.

CR usualy works 2 jobs today and usualy isn't on until very late. I only know this from playing several werewolf games with him.

I certainly can't speak for him and this isn't indicated to force a PM'd pick, just an FYI, but if you are waiting up for him you may just want to call it a night.

He PM'd me nothing except that he wanted to make his last pick. :) I am up working on schoolwork and if he shows up I will try to be the first to post a "best of the rest" list. If not, Maybe I can still catch it in the morning. :)

Darn. Had he lasted to my pick, I would have likely picked For Whom The Bell Tolls or The Old Man and the Sea for Mr. Irrelevant. Good author choice, Izulde (although I have not read that particular short story).

Making my pick soon, BTW.

I tried reading For Whom The Bell Tolls for a school project sophomore year in high school. It was so tedious to me then (Not sure how I'd view it now), that I asked to switch off, which was granted.

I chose another book instead, that turned out to be the worst novel of my then #1 and still one of my fave authors wrote.

Okay -- you just got my vote. ;)

Nice to be included -- and thanks for the kind words, st. cronin. Here's the poem, for those who don't yet have it committed to heart:

Lucktown
--Me

Stay here long and the close calls will turn you into glass.
Half the people in town will die weird: freak storms, tempers,
bad decisions; but always one person staggering
back from the wreck, wide-eyed, to tell what happened. It is
always chance; the bus slides off the road, twenty-three kids
drown, the driver walks away. A hospital snatches
lightning from seven miles out, a hundred burn, but

a candy-striper breaks a window, tosses herself
into the three-story air, lands alive. This one guy,
Mike, famous in town for his escapes, now operates
as an oracle, predicting malady and harm.
By high school, he’d perfected his art of avoiding
girls, close friends, extra-curricular activities.
Above his door, there’s a small sign that reads Survival

is the worst thing that can happen. His biggest error,
he tells customers, was asking for a pet one year.
That Christmas, his parents bought him a German Shepherd
puppy that he named Sally. A few years later, she
went rabid and bit her way through a screen door, killing
his mother and turning her shivering grin his way
before his father, home early with a headache, shot

into the room and tackled the thing, stabbing at it
with a screwdriver, struggling while it bit and bit
and bit everything flesh. The house stunk death. Only Mike
survived. He says that his craft is easy: look for chance,
for possibility; if found, eliminate it
swiftly. You can’t have luck without disaster, he says.
Good fortune is merely a condition, but luck is

months of skin grafts, arms that don’t grow back, anything close
enough to kill you that doesn’t. And then you’re just a
story, and everyone’s talking about how lucky
you were. Later on, at a crowded bar (they all are),
people drink themselves into arguments over who
among them is the luckiest of all. The police
chief who had half his face taken off by a shotgun

suicide attempt, who’s since found Jesus? The store clerk,
Janet, thrown from a crash that killed her husband and kids
because she wasn’t belted in? Mrs. Flannigan,
fourth-grade teacher and candle maker, who just found out
that she isn’t pregnant, isn’t diseased from her rape?
In the restroom, graffiti uncoils on the walls
near the toilets and urinals: Luck Is Just A Glass

Of Wine / You’ve Pissed Away. Lucky numbers?: 9-1-1.
Luck You. It fills every available surface; luck
as a woman, as a twine-wrapped package, as a stroke
of lightning. Mike doesn’t agree with any of them.
Luck is a wide-jawed dog, he says before his clients
walk back into the world: sometimes scary, and sometimes
carrying the very thing you wanted her to fetch.

You can read more at www.losttimepoetry.com. Or come out to KSU on Friday at 4:00 p.m. and hear me spit my noise in person.