The Crippler WINS DeathWatch2K9!!

(As far as we know...) Assuming no other high-profile deaths trickle in to end 2009 (people who died before Feb 2, but the news doesn't hit until later), the Crippler will win his first DeathWatch!

Just for the record, though: I had Artie Lange this year, and he tried very hard to make me this year's DeathWatch winner! He stabbed himself NINE times, clearly intending to die, but he didn't. The 116 points I should have gotten from Artie would have made the Grim Reaper an EASY winner with an all-time high score, and with the highest single-person score in DW history! But it was not to be. *sigh* Now everybody has Artie, and I hope he lives to see 2011.

The Crippler finished with 177 points and six deaths! That point total may stand for a while as the highest in DeathWatch history. Thanatos came in second, going for his third straight win, but falling just short. Thanatos also tallied six deaths, but scored approximately thirty fewer points than the mighty Crippler. The thirty percent death prognostication rate for these two in 2009 was also unprecedented!

I recommend that each of you check your lists to make sure that your score is correct. Make sure that everyone listed as alive on your list is STILL alive. One week from today, I'll be sending out the winnings, so you have until then to contest the results!

Thanks for another fun year, and we now have TWENTY players (biggest DW ever!) over at the new DW2010! (Including the return of former champion Roger Mortis!) See you there!
http://deathwatch2010.blogspot.com

Peace, Love, Death!
Grim

Trapper John, M.D.E.A.D.

Actor Pernell Roberts, who played the oldest Cartwright son on Bonanza before stupidly leaving the show to pursue sitting in his apartment full time, died today at 81.

Roberts, who spent the entirety of the 70s repeatedly kicking himself in the ass for hopping off the gravy train just as it was leaving the station, redeemed himself at least some tiny bit by landing the part of Trapper John McIntire on the quasi-M*A*S*H-spinoff, Trapper John, M.D.

Rumors that Roberts was killed when the ghost of Dan "Hoss" Blocker sat on him are proving hard to verify, as I just made them up.

No DW2K9 players had Trapper.

Miep! Miep!

Miep Gies, one of the people who shielded Anne Frank and her family from the Nazis, and who was immortalized in Anne's diary and the play and movies based upon it, died today at age 100.

Not a whole lot of jokes to make here, so I'll just say a quick: Fuck the Nazis!

No DW2K9 players had Miep. Because why would they?

Sports Machine Shut Down Amid Radiation Fears

Veteran sports journalist George Michael passed away today from cancer that many suspect was the product of more than a quarter century of labor with dangerously radioactive sports machinery.

In the late 1970s, the U.S. government developed a hazardous new top-secret technology. This technology culminated in the 1980 construction of a room-sized supercomputer that could snatch global sports highlights seemingly out of thin air. Built in a concrete bunker beneath the cornfields of central Iowa, this project was called, appropriately, "The Sports Machine." Reliable middle-aged sportscaster George Michael was chosen to lead the project, a decision which would irradiate Michael and his crew for the 27 years that followed.

When the Sports Machine was first broadcast into homes, some conspiracy theorists said that the machinery wasn't real. Clearly, they weren't looking closely at all the giant dials, mammoth buttons, and working reel-to-reel tape machines! Other critics said that George Michael's broadcasting voice was so overly affected that it had to be computer generated. None of the critics understood the reality: The Sports Machine was REAL, and it was biometrically tuned to respond only to George Michael's touch.

In the decades that followed, entire 24-hour sports television networks were launched, amassing legions of videographers and armies of statisticians to try to duplicate the success of The Sports Machine. All attempts to unseat Michael failed to be as powerful or relevant as the 30-minute once-weekly Sports Machine.

ESPN, CNN/SI, FoxSports, et al., however, used inferior technology that was not based on colossal machinery fueled by radioactive isotopes. Fortunately, the staffs of these failed copycat sports ventures will not need to buried in lead-lined coffins.

God Receives Oral

Is there anyone in the history of Christianity who has ever played up the "I'm talking directly to a man in the sky, and he wants specifically X amount of dollars" bit more than Oral Roberts? He once claimed that if he couldn't raise more money, that he would be "called home" by some divine force. Seriously? As if televangelists weren't intelligence-insulting enough already!

Oral also started a "university" (it would create the mold for another fine learning institution, Liberty "University") and named it after...(drum roll, please)...HIMSELF!

Most men say that there's no such thing as bad oral. In this case, I beg to differ.
This pathetic charlatan lived way longer than he deserved to, and Thanatos Therapeuticus got perhaps his most-deserved 9 points of all time.

Dirt Dancing

Yes, I know that Patrick Swayze was in the movie Ghost. But really, the headline, "Swayze is Ghost" is a bit hackish, don't you think?

Patrick Swayze, the star of amazing films such as Point Break and Road House had the time of his death today at the age of 57. Swayze was Hollywood's most effeminate tough guy of all time, with the crossed arms of Paul Lynde and the right cross of Clint Eastwood.

Swayze soiled the underwear of millions of teenage girls when he not only acted as Johnny Castle in Dirty Dancing, but did all his own dancing, and wrote and sang his own heartfelt ballad, "She's Like the Wind."

Pretty much everyone chose the doomed smoker to miss the next 50-year storm: the Oracle, Deady Money, Le Chowd, Thanatos, Miss of Death, Death Knell Belle, The Crippler, Kerberos, Wednesday, and The Grim Reaper. Betcha these geniuses had Kennedy, too.

A post-mortem press conference that details what it's like to die and the other mysteries of the universe will be held by Whoopi Goldberg at Swayze's funeral. (See--I did throw in ONE Ghost reference for you!)

I'll see you in the next life, Bodhi. I guess you're getting all the sleep you need now, mijo.

Satan Planning Elaborate "Welcome Home" Party for Robert Novak

Conservative columnist/commentator/utter douche Robert Novak died today after a battle with cancer.

Sources in Hell report that Hell C.E.O. Satan is preparing a star-studded fete to welcome his son back to the inferno. A lieutenant in Satan's army who asked that it not be named told Deathwatch, "Oh my god. This is gonna be so tight. We got Diddy performing. Barry Manilow is going to do a medley. Miley Cyrus is going to do a set with the Jonas Brothers! This party is going to be kewl. (Make sure that you spell that the cool way, okay?)"

A company in Washington D.C. has been hired to cater the affair. According to the owner of the business, Satan is going with a luau theme, meaning Novak and the other minons of the Devil will be munching on delicious roast pig and authentic poi!

After a lifetime doing Satan's bidding on Earth, Novak certainly has earned this kind of reception. Most mortals say he will not be missed.

Thanos Therapeuticus and The Crippler both snag 22 points and the satisfaction of benefitting in some small way from Novak's passing.