Discussion: The Blind Tangerine, final standings for 2005

The Blind Tangerine has been updated for the DVOA "A" race and US Long Championships, and with no more races pending for 2005 nor any more to roll off, that means The Blind Tangerine have come to an end for 2005. The grammar are slightly off and nobody knows off.

Very unfortunately, The Blind Tangerine have recently developed some unusual sort of flue-like cold, and upon consultation with a doctor, have been advised that the illness is both undiagnosable and also invariably fatal, which are not exactly the kind of thing one hopes to hear when you go see the doctor. It was fun and it enjoyed the comments and notoriety while its flame first ignited, flared an super-real orange glow, and even when things now begin to dim to an un-citrine blue, it has no regrets, except about the hurricanes which swept Florida and took out so many groves of orange, lemon and lime.

Perhaps there is reincarnation after all. One can hope! So we will just see what might appear early in 2006, perhaps unnoticed at first, perhaps at first shrouded in blankets of snow out of a storming blizzard, and only gradually assuming shape and form in the light of some other brighter, warmer day.

Complete lemon-iciousness are at: http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/Stadium/7418/ta...

Well I'm proud to have finished in the top 10. And perhaps, if this is the end, then I'll stay higher up the tree than 'the power'... Although if things do reincarnate next year it'll take no small amount of my own power to stay up there.

On a final note, I'm curious how closely this will match with the USOF rankings for '05. My understanding is that it is roughly intended to measure the same thing, although clearly the grammer are off. Although not use-off.

nice gonig SF! and congrads on winning the "05 race for the top spot :)

I love the Blind Tangerine. If there's no reincarnation, I might just need to find a new sport addiction. I hear curling is "in" these days, just not in Arkansas. (I need to be consistent with my poor living locations.)

This better not end. This was my main motivation for competing seriously. I have built my training schedule around preparing for events that will get me a top spot on the Tangerino tree. I guess I better pick up curling now too. Maybe we can get some of "Harvey's Groves Citrus - Quality Indian River citrus & gifts" from the bottom of this page to convince Mikell to do this again next year.

We might need to get some of the "Very big Citrus & Avocado" while we're at it. Free box of oranges sent with your order!

Speaking of blind tangerines, who besides me tripped over osage oranges at the Fair Hill Sprint?

can't get enough of them? order your own for delivery to your doorstep. then you can practice running through them every day.

http://www.osagehedgeballs.com/

Is that what those balls are called? Yes, they took me down once on Saturday.

Those were friggin monsters. I say we send Mikell a whole box of those to congratulate him on winning M45 on Saturday. Is he really that friggin' old, uh, er, wise?

Actually, they're friggin figs.... Osage oranges aren't oranges at all, not even in the same family. (But they still have nice thorns, eh?)

I think that if you sent them to Mikell, you'd probably just find them scattered about selected blue course controls next summer.

Which reminds me... I doubt everyone realizes the ends to which Wyatt went to make sure Friday's sprint was a success. He enlisted AJ to collect what I think was almost all the Osage oranges off the course. When I left they had collected an enormous pile of "brains" next to their car.

Anyone who sends me Osage Oranges will not be treated kindly. Well, of course I would never treat anyone less than kindly myself, given my background and upbringing as a Southern officer and a gentleman, but I would forward the Osage Oranges to Peter Gagarin and identify the vile miscreants who originally shipped the Osage Oranges. Peter, as a hardened, veteran trail warrior who does not hesitate to lead with his brow when the situation warrants, will mete out the requisite punishment with no compunction whatsoever, and will remember the transgression for several decades at least.

Plus, I think there are statutes making interstate shipments of Osage Oranges a Federal crime, and that is something to consider too, especially with the gulags the current administration has been busily establishing.

A few comments to Wyatt's wonderings about how closely the '05 USOF Rankings will compare to The Blind Tangerine (and maybe a miscellaneous item or two):

1) First of all, the USOF rankings have to come out. ;) That could take a while, based on the past, or, maybe, they will show up pretty soon. That's not a criticism but an observation; the USOF rankings include all the classes and not just M&F21, and without knowing how automated it is, it might be a heck of a lot more work to calculate.

2) The overall correlation ought to be pretty good, though I can quickly think of a few places where some differences might stand out. For instance, Pavlina scored one killer good day out at PNWOF and I don't know if the USOF rankings would generate as high a score. Stripping out that one day would considerably narrow the gap between Pavlina and the other Tangerinas--though I will add it certainly wouldn't eliminate it. Another easy example is Brian (May) because I think under USOF rankings he gets pretty much a full rankings score with just 4 good races while under the more demanding The Blind Tangerine criteria, a hefty 25% more good races (ok, that's just one more race) are needed to yield an effective overall rankings score. And then if the USOF system still uses credit days (I have no idea) then that introduces certain weirdnesses that will hack away at the correlation. Editorial comment: credit days have no place in a rigorous rankings scheme; you either race or you don't.

3) In a note elsewhere, Wyatt mentions that there is effort underway which might result in making the USOF rankings "real time". It's the first I've heard of it, but if true, and if it comes to pass, it would be an obviously positive development. As far as I know, all this (rankings stuff) is purely for fun as the rankings don't really get used for anything. But reasons of fun and general interest are reasons enough, and then the question is: how do you maximize those things? Just as with other types of news, rankings and race results seem to have an "immediacy" that deteriorates very rapidly. A race result is most interesting--by far--when it's available in real time. It's still very, very interesting when it's same day. It's still interesting for the next few days. But once much more time than that passes by, say, two weeks, and then I think generally you'd find that the interest level drops way, way off.

Part of my motivation for putting together The Blind Tangerine this year was aimed exactly at that: to try--in however small away--to make racing and racing results at least a little more interesting. And if that in turn meant that some people found a little extra motivation to train a little harder, and to maybe go to an extra race or two that they might have otherwise been waffling about, then all the better. Anecdotally, I have heard from a few people that was the case, which was neat to hear!

4) But anyway, mostly it was just for fun, and anyone who thought it was super serious or anything like that either didn't read even one of the little "update" announcements, or else is living in some kind of super serious alternate universe--and one I wouldn't care to live in! ; )

5) So sad to say, The Blind Tangerine will not continue. But, a very near equivalent will in fact be springing up as soon as there are new results to factor in (think the Team "A" meet in Florida), with a different name as the main difference. I just think a new name could be good so some different type ads show up at the bottom of the page of AP, just--you know--for some variety and spice of life. I've been thinking about whether to tweak anything or not--I'm leaning in favor of "not", but if I did tweak anything, it would probably be in terms of changing the weighting of the Team Trials and US Classic Champs very slightly, and perhaps adding another event for special weighting. And then there will be one major change, in response to several polite requests from Mike Waddington, and that will be to add all Canadian based runners as well. But--and it's a big "but"--the new list will continue to be based purely on US races; that will be firm. I truly like Canadians (and I also truly like to see our relay teams beat the always likable Cannucks in the WOC relays!!!) and I think this change ought to make things even more fun--at least, that's my hope.

how about ranking the sprint series?

That would be something you would need to take up with the Commissioner and all his fiere assistants.

So the Blind Tangerine will have a new name? How about the Green Brain or the Monkey Balls? Or, since Canadian runners will now be included, the Blind Mapleine. Mmmmmm....Mapleine!

Well, this is a relief. New name, fresh incarnation, whatever. That's good.

As not-serious as the BT is (was? RIP...), there is certainly something hugely (ginormously) more motivating about having a rankings system that updates within a day or two of the competition. It's much easier to have a goal of retaining a prime number rank if I can gauge my progress after every big meet.

Though, with the inclusion of Canadians, it'll take a lot of hard work to keep from moving away from the area of dense prime numbers.

True, but much more interesting prime factorizations!

Well, let's just hope I don't go all Fibonacci down the rankings.