Andrew Lok, a.k.a. contestant #28, won the Thursday round of the TTAC Future Writers Week by a wide margin. His epos on stolen GPS machines, and his pilgrimage to the Valhalla of Speed, the Nürburgring der Niebelongen, received 45 percent of all votes on Thursday. In the following week, when the full results of TTAC’s Future Writers Week were published, Lok was gone.
Instead of Lok, William Simonsick found himself standing on the podium. His treatise on the demographic stereotypes for Subaru buyers, with a focus on the People’s Republic of Boulder, originally had deposited him far back in the pile on place 5 when all the votes were counted. A few days later, Simonsick suddenly was the cat’s meow. Scandal!
“Statistical abuse at its worst,” barked TTAC watchdog Pch101, who called for a public hanging of the responsible. “Toad” APaGttH said this is “undoubtedly a case of severe bias.” Actually, nobody had noticed. Except Wild Bill Simonsick, perhaps, but he kept his own counsel, a retired professor of the Marquette Law School.
Today, we received an email.
“I got hosed!” writes Andrew Lok, “I won the Wednesday round and didn’t make it to the final assignment. What happened?” We immediately started an investigation, and determined that due to my stupidity a computer error, Lok was falsely dropped, and Simonsick was falsely named as a winner, along with a general jumble of the Thursday results.
Having already crowned Simonsick, we don’t want to send him back to the ranks of the unloved. Therefore, William Simonsick becomes Editor’s Chocie #2. He will cover demographics in Boulder for TTAC.
Here is the corrected and hopefully definitive listing:
| TTAC’s Future Writers | |||
| Name | Contestant | Ranked | Day |
| Michael Trainor | 4 | 1 | Monday |
| George William Herbert | 7 | 2 | Monday |
| Grant Tillery | 1 | 3 | Monday |
| Matthias Dean-Carpentier | 20 | 1 | Wednesday |
| Andrew Nevick | 16 | 2 | Wednesday |
| Evan Reisner | 19 | 3 | Wednesday |
| Andrew Lok | 28 | 1 | Thursday |
| Matt Oppen | 22 | 2 | Thursday |
| Sean Scoggins | 24 | 3 | Thursday |
| Jeremiah Cayce | 32 | 1 | Friday |
| Jeff Snavely | 35 | 2 | Friday |
| Thomas M Kreutzer | 29 | 3 | Friday |
| Keith Kostecke | 39 | 1 | Saturday |
| Derek Young | 41 | 2 | Saturday |
| Michael Stephenson | 36 | 3 | Saturday |
| Billy Pollock | 49 | 1 | Sunday |
| Dan Reitman | 46 | 2 | Sunday |
| Matt Horsfield | 48 | 3 | Sunday |
| Editors’ Choice | |||
| David Hester | 31 | 3 | Friday |
| William Simonsick | 23 | 5 | Thursday |
PS: Andrew nearly caused me a heart attack. After his email, I immediately raced to the Wednesday round which Andrew said he had won. Neither Andrew‘s nor Bill’s names could be found. I feared total data corruption, Chinese hackers, or worse. Turned out that good Andrew also isn’t perfect either. It was the Thursday round.
Step 1: Own your mistake.
Step 2: Apologize for it.
Step 3: Offer a solution.
Step 4: Move on.
You’re a pro Bertel, you’re a pro.
Yes indeed. Well done Bertel.. The “David Letterman” method of dealing with scandal.
Its a shame that all the politico’s,celebs etc.can’t figure that out.
‘You’re a pro Bertel, you’re a pro”.
Yes he is. It’s a privilege to have him on this site. We all learn many many things from him. It’s a pleasure to watch.
is it trevor or is it andrew?
That was my question too.
Yup…and what’s his recourse?
This TTAC idol thing is getting confusing.
Get Mariah…
So, does that mean we get to vote them off the island?
I assume the Chinese are hacking TTAC because of Bertel’s coverage of the market there, just like the Gray Lady.