Wait...Awards?Webinator @ Tuesday, July 27th 03:24PM [link] |
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| Hey everyone, you're probably wondering what is actually going on and why you don't see the regular picture and name up in the upper-left hand corner. It's me, Zack Weber a.k.a. thewebinator and Lacey agreed to let me help out with some of the updates since he's had the tough job of running them on his own for the last two or so years. So bear with me since it's my first time, and hopefully I won't ruin the fun of news updates for everyone. Anyway, enough of talking about me and let's get to the actual news that's been happening for the past week. The New Players Only two people joining this week, and neither joined the overall AF chart. Clement Rouchon joined with just the 32 course set of times, and slots in hypothetically somewhere in the 180s. Andrea Gardina submitted the same 32 records and at the same pace would land around 290th place. Movement Following #1 Nick Meade's reclaiming of the site title from #2 Jorge Hernandez, he tried to push further ahead by submitting two PRs, however gained no ground. Moving down the charts to reach the next active player we hit #6 Jimmy Benson, who is still trying to break into the elite group known as the top five. He knocked out five PRs and cut about one AF point, but he still needs to kart down 8 more AF points before he can reach #5 Shaun Tanney. #8 Alex Shoal played as well but stayed in virtually the exact same position. Rounding out the top 10 we have a newcomer as #10 Ben Hart flipped past previous champ Alvin van Asslet and Mickael Smolen with 5 PRs to reach the coveted pedestal. Moving down the charts to the top 25 we don't have to go far to hit #12 Dustin Enders, who shocked the world by hitting a massive 44 PRs and moving from #34 to sitting right outside the top 10. With this move he knocked out 27 AF points and came within inches of becoming MKW elite. Moving further, #16 Alvin Le and #22 Jamie Disley, both played but Alvin dropped back a spot and Jamie stayed in place. Such are the curses of the MKW treadmill of horror. Top 50 time, a lot of players were playing in this range. #35 Bob Holden #37 Max Anossow #39 Ricardo Costa all kind of moved together, each gaining one, three, and five spots respectively and crushing some more players. Similarly #42 Oliver Martin #43 Henrik Distel #45 Ross Coleman decide to pick up on the "moving in threes" trend with the first two gaining a place to stay together and Ross pushing past five players to solidify himself a place in the top 50. Finally #50 Franco Gubser can pride himself on the fact that he is in another elite group and can move up to the next paragraph for news updating, as he moved up two spots with his 6 PRs, one of which happened to be a new site record. Next is the 51-100 group, who only had only had six players playing in total. Good news for those six, keep playing and you'll pass some inactive players. #55 Zane Royal and #56 Nate Paternost both cut off some AF, with Zane playing enough to hold a two point AF lead over Nate, who jumped two players to land behind him. Another pair emerges a litte while down. #63 Ashley O'Hara and #64 Joshua Reinshagen both played, with very different outcomes. Ashley PRed three times and cut four spots, which is an impressive feat especially because one of the PRs was a site record. I really wish I could cut a place for each PR I hit. Joshua tops that feat by breaking into the Top 100 all the way from #121 with his 53 PRs. An impressive move for him as he hopes to climb further into the mix. #70 Lars Riecken tried to follow Joshua after he saw that great move, coming from #94 to #70 with 21 PRs, again over a place per PR. In other news, also known as the below the 100 zone, #116 Dexter Howe PRed once, but dropped a spot. #135 Ryan Trovillion moved up one spot with his two PRs. If he keeps playing he should vault a few spots with the general inactivity of the "Below 100th group". #137 Zack Weber gained a spot with one PR but lost AF, which makes no sense, but again this is MKW. Moving much much further down to the 300s range, we find the next active player in #330 Kristopher Lamp, who moved up two spots with 56 PRs, which is really depressing but it can be overcome. The only thing I can say is keep watching videos and karting so you can move away from the 300s and come further up the charts! Site Records A quiet week in the site records world for everyone two players who improved their own records. Fabien Jacques beat his own old Maple Treeway flap time of 44"665 with a time of: 44"648 Ashley O'Hara beat his own old GCN Peach Beach crs time of 1'13"347 with a time of: 1'13"331 Awards Well this is suprising. From now on I'm going to try to see if we can get some awards going. For now the old awards will have to be on hold until I decide to fish through the stats program but the current ones can at least be decided. Each week or so I'll keep going backwards and grab 3 or 4 POWs and a POM or so until all of the awards can be decided. The July 2010 Week 4 Record goes to Dustin Enders, for his impressive cut at such a high rank. With a huge 27 AF point cut he doesn't need much more to hit the top 10. On top of this I decided to check back for last week, and the July 2010 Week 3 Record goes to Yannick Wenger, for a 25% AF Cut and a huge jump in the standings all the way from #72 --> #46. Well that's it. Thanks for reading, I hope it wasn't too painful. Please offer me comments and suggestions on how to improve since I'm still new at this. -Web |
Last Contest UpdateShadow @ Thursday, July 22nd 05:21PM [link] |
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It's the last few days of the contest. No crazy pictures this time.  Just wanted to thank you guys for the awesome support you've given me through the contest so far. It's good to feel that the news updates I write here are appreciated, even if they go surreal sometimes. Thanks, it means a lot, and keep up the great karting! -William |
CastleShadow @ Tuesday, July 20th 01:10PM [link] |
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 As you stroll along a lonely road, you notice a castle in distance. A couple of confusing signs give you the impression that the castle is also home to a dam of some sort, and owned by a guy called Ned. On closer inspection, you feel you're about to stumble across a giant game of connect 4. You decide to check it out...  The castle seems to have an enormous number of rooms. A passerby gives you some more information about them. "The castle always has the exact number of rooms needed for the number of guests staying in it. The rooms with green lights are there to welcome new guests. The rooms with bright yellow lights are for those people upgrading to better rooms. The dimmer lights indicate some activity in that particular room, and where it's black, the person in the room is asleep." What an interesting castle.... Movement I alluded to this in the half-update of tininess, but Nick Meade has reclaimed the top spot, having lost it briefly to Jorge a few weeks ago. A solid 10 PRs took his AF down half a point. 4 other players played in the top 10. #4 Marc Bas lost a little ground, but took the top spot at Koopa Cape lap. #5 Shaun Tanney went on a massive PR blitz, taking down 18 times and gaining an AF point, but the limbo ground between 4th and 6th is over 10 AF spots wide. #10 Mickael Smolen only PR'd once, but did enough to leapfrog Alvin to break into the top 10, and knock Alvin out for the first time in 10 years. Outside the top 10, #12 Ben Hart took Mickael's advice and PR'd once, and passed Daniel Anderson. #8 Alex Shoal, #16 Alvin Le, #22 Jamie Disley and #25 Fabien Jacques got 5 PRs between them, but didn't pass anyone. They'll be paying more attention to the Mickael guide for "minimal effort, maximum gain" next time out. At #27 we have a new player, which is hugely impressive, as most people join further down the top 100, and most join outside it. Welcome to #27 Marvin Rekovsky. Someone who has been here quite a lot longer, is LC specialist #29 James Pierrepont. His 10 PRs bring him up 4 spots, and into the top 30. #36 Bob Holden got a lot closer to Lewis Benny this time out. Next time out, he'll be hoping to be further away from him, and past him. #40 Max Anossow does enough to move into the top 40 with 14 PRs, and a nice AF cut. Next we get to #46 Yannick Wenger, who was confused with Yannick Wiesner for a while, and whose PRs got intermingled. I'm still not sure if everything is back to normal. So if you're both reading this, check your profiles to make sure you've got the right times, and submit the correct versions if not. Anyway, Yannick passed 24 players with his 42 PRs, including the other Yannick, and put his personal stamp on the top 50. Nice job! #48 Salvatore Bellusci also put in a nice performance to break the top 50. He's up 3 spots this time out. Rounding out the top 50 is #50 Ross Coleman, who exactly nails it by climbing up 2 spots from #52. The top 50 is now officially cool, as you're all better than one time mkwii legend Michael Fried. As we fall into the latter section of the top 100, #70 Sebastian Wimmer makes a nice move of 4 places, passing #71 Jon Coppernoll who in turn moves up a place from last time out. #72 Emmanuel Amador loses out this week, but is still in touching distance of both. Then we come to 3 players who have all made an appearance for the first time on the AF chart, and all break into the top 100 to do it. Congrats and welcome go to #81 Artur Bauer, #89 Stefan Nunner and #94 Lars Riecken. A success story now, as #97 Luke Berrill overcomes just barely missing out last time, and breaks into the top 100, even with 3 new players appearing just above him. Now begins the difficult job of staying here! #100 Martin Prigent rounds out the top 100, doing enough to stay out of the clutches of the ravenous top 200 crowd. They need to learn how to order room service! Outside the top 100, only a few people gained any places. #132 Noah Gordon is up one spot. #142 Sam Smith is up a very impressive 15 places, and 197 Michael Timpe breaks into the top 200, by passing 6 players. New Records Just the 2 Site records this week: Marc Bas beat the old Koopa Cape lap time of 0'44"639 with a time of: 0'44"404 Aziz Abdullah beat the old GBA Shy Guy Beach crs time of 1'22"608 with a time of: 1'22"604 New Players Welcome to: Artur Bauer, Marvin Rekovsky, Robin Cheah, Ruben Darío, Robert Bonomo, Stefan Nunner, Darius I hope you like it in the castle, because once you check in, you can never leave... |
The Nick of TimesShadow @ Thursday, July 15th 05:14AM [link] |
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This is just an in-between update to mention a few things: 1) Congrats to Nick for becoming #1 again so quickly. No matter what universe he's in, that guy delivers the goods. 2) Thanks to Zack for getting some movement on the awards front, which netted David the 2009 POY! 3) On the awards situation. We have stats on every day an update is done, which means that the only weeks we are missing are weeks where no times update was done at all. That means we should be able to fill in the gaps at some point, but it'll be a long undertaking. 4) There'll be a contest update in a few days, along with a proper news update. |
The MultiverseShadow @ Saturday, July 10th 04:38AM [link] |
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| Sometimes in life you can find yourself wondering what universe you've landed in. The simple act of making a choice can have vast and untold consequences. So with that in mind... Universe 1 #1 Nick Meade pulls further ahead of David with 15 new PRs. The gap opens up to 5.3 AF points which is the biggest gap between 1st and 2nd that we've seen in quite some time. #6 Tyler McNell moves up a spot and leapfrogs Alex Shoal with 7 nice times, closing in on the top 5. And finally, #10 Mickael Smolen makes a great run to the top 10, moving up from 15th spot with 15 PRs of his own. Universe 2 Congratulations to our new site champion Jorge Hernandez! Jorge joined with the most impressive set of times we've seen so far, displacing Nick at the top of the chart, and pushing the entire field down a place. The only person in the top 10 not to lose a place was, #7 Tyler McNell who stayed where he was due to passing Alex. The top 10 remained unchanged apart from that. Closing in on the top 10 this update is #11 Mickael Smolen, who improved nearly a quarter of his times and moved up 4 spots. He's within touching distance of Alvin and the top 10 now. Opening the box Like the fate of Schroedinger's cat, when I open the box one of the possible universes will be solidified, and the other discarded. For the sake of not making the entire update a double one, we'll assume that the cat is alive, and that Jorge's times will stand after his live streaming. The rest of the update will be written from universe 2. It's a nice universe. We have jello. Movement Some people don't like this universe very much. For starters, everyone gets bumped down one spot, and for seconders, there's a strange smell. One person who finds the universe a bit confusing is #15 Mark Schmidt, who improved his AF in universe 1, but lost 2 places in universe 2. What a cruel place it can be. Quite a few people managed to maintain their places in the top 25 though, even with the automatic demotion. #18 Eric Hacksell, #22 Jamie Disley and #23 Tony Ruiz were successful in their battle against the tide. They also brought their surfboards, to ride the cosmic waves. In actual impressive news, regardless of jello or surfing, or other mad irrelevant ramblings, #35 Bob Holden makes a fantastic move. He's up from 45th last time out, and a great 36 PR haul reaps him great rewards. He's just 1 spot behind ex-champ Lewis Benny now. After that, a trio of players make some great moves. #42 Daniel Boettcher is up from 51st, breaking into the top 50 with 18 PRs. #43 Ricardo Costa moves up nicely from 49th with 18 of his own, and #44 David Long, improves over half his times, and makes a 12 place move this update. Very nicely done to all 3, and it will be interesting to see who pushes on into the top 40 now. The next few players may be outside the top 50 for now, but they're looking like they won't stay there for too much longer. #51 Salvatore Bellusci improves 24 of his times, and is now just a few AF away from a group of players in the late 40s. #53 Zane Royal's 8 place move puts him just a couple of AF behind Salvatore. #56 Nate Paternost posts a 21 PR haul, to move him up 4 spots, while #58 Paul-Philipp Baehr moves up a full 13 places from 71st. Those 4 players had 98 PRs between them. Further down the list, #64 Yannick Wiesner continues his good run of form. He was up 13 places last time out, and is up a further 11 places this time. #68 Emmanuel Amador appears at a very respectable top 100 position on the AF chart after sending in his full set of times. #74 Sebastian Wimmer shows Hendrik who's the boss, passing him and 2 other players. Irish champion #76 Fintan Kelly destroys any hopes I might have had of ever getting back the #1 spot, by climbing 22 places with 25 strong PRs. #82 Thibaud Bourdeau also put in a great performance, and is up from 92nd spot, solidifying his place in the top 100 for a long while to come. #95 Martin Prigent battles to maintain his own place, up from 97th, despite the automatic demotions from players appearing ahead of him. Finally, the unluckiest person on the list has to be #101 Luke Berrill. Luke easily made the top 100 in the other universe, but in this one, he's left in the most painful place on the chart. Site Records Andrew Grieve beat the old Toad's Factory crs time of 1'51"199 with a time of: 1'51"168 Tom Norton beat the old Mario Circuit crs time of 1'21"889 with a time of: 1'21"854 Ethan McCormick beat the old DK's Snowboard Cross lap time of 0'35"534 with a time of: 0'35"499 Jorge Hernandez beat the old Wario's Gold Mine crs time of 0'36"711 with a time of: 0'36"292 Daniel Both beat the old Wario's Gold Mine lap time of 0'09"662 with a time of: 0'09"597 Reinier de Jonge beat the old Daisy Circuit crs time of 1'29"927 with a time of: 1'29"891 Reinier de Jonge beat the old Daisy Circuit lap time of 0'28"498 with a time of: 0'28"466 Jorge Hernandez beat the old Koopa Cape crs time of 2'21"131 with a time of: 2'20"785 Jorge Hernandez beat the old Dry Dry Ruins lap time of 0'33"631 with a time of: 0'33"545 Jorge Hernandez beat the old Bowser's Castle crs time of 2'12"039 with a time of: 2'12"032 Jamie Disley beat the old Bowser's Castle lap time of 0'42"728 with a time of: 0'42"565 Jorge Hernandez beat the old Rainbow Road crs time of 2'28"419 with a time of: 2'27"916 Jorge Hernandez beat the old Rainbow Road lap time of 0'48"271 with a time of: 0'48"003 Zane Royal beat the old N64 Mario Raceway crs time of 1'42"496 with a time of: 1'42"423 Jorge Hernandez beat the old N64 Sherbet Land crs time of 2'04"973 with a time of: 2'04"797 Nick Meade beat the old GCN Mario Circuit crs time of 1'31"709 with a time of: 1'31"444 Jorge joined with an impressive 7 site records. New Players Welcome to: Loris Bagnasco, Thomas van Deerse, Kuni Atshushi, Doug Hauca, Roberto Orsi, Sachi Yamashita, Jorge Hernandez, Pascal Levering, Liam Lynch, Denis Sejdinovic, Sebastien Dekerf Whatever universe you happen to be living in, happy karting! |
UpdatoShadow @ Sunday, June 27th 03:50PM [link] |
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| The times are currently about a week behind, so I'll wait til they get updated, before writing about the exciting news. |
sdrawkcaBShadow @ Wednesday, June 9th 05:57AM [link] |
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Movement We'll be working from bottom to top this week. Not at the bottom, but the only one in the lower ranks doing some damage is #269 Murray Wright. He sends in 34 PRs to cut 13 points off his AF to start his climb. The next mover is #206 Andrew "15" Jones. Andrew PR'd 15 times, took 15 points off his AF and rose 15 places. Then he went out at ate 15 donuts, just because he could. So, after that, a whole load of people did nothing at all. They're probably off doing other summery things, or playing Super Mario Galaxy 2. I hear it's a good game, but needs more TTing.  #148 Tom Norton breaks the silence in the mid 100s, by breaking into the top 150. I say "breaking into", but it's more like "non-falling-out-of", even though he did fall out of it..so basically he rebroke into the top 150. It doesn't matter. Tom got his CM site record back and tied the MC world record. This is all that matters. Some things are more important than AF. Like world peace, and pieces of chocolate cake. #132 Zack Weber and #131 Noah Gordon PR'd a bit but made no significant cutz. #113 Dexter Howe shows them Howe it's done (sorry), and moves up a spot with his 9 PRs. Lastly, #106 Luke Berrill makes a very decent run to the top 100, with 21 PRs and a 7 place jump. He's only 5 AF from a top 100 spot now. Breaking into the top 100 this week is Ireland's #1 #98 Fintan Kelly. He gains 18 spots and is amongst the elite now. His actual rank is Hero D, but "amongst the heroes" sounds kinda stupid, like he should have a superpower. #97 Martin Prigent's superpower is "staying where he is". He maintains his top 100 spot with some strong PRs. #94 Alex Vandegrift and #93 Marcus Wood improve a little, but have started drifting backwards. They need to find some powers of their own like #92 Thibaud Bourdeau. He flies over both of them, and 4 other people too. It's possible he had a bike though, and there was a ramp. Flying would be cool. A little further up, and #77 Sebastian Wimmer stays 77th despite the appearance of a new player to the AF chart pushing everyone down at least 1 spot. #75 Yanick Wiesner goes 1 better, and then goes 12 more better. He's up 13 places. Unlucky for them! #73 Sophie Steiner passes 4 people, then gets passed by 3 people, so gains a place! #68 Jon Coppernoll has a great week, with 37 unique PRs. He's up from the brink of the top 100 this update, a 22 place gain. That would have been a 23 place gain had #64 Agustin Berrios not made a decent move of his own. Up 12, and heading for greater things. Congratulations to our highest new entry this week: #63 Simone Bertini. Joining with such highly ranked times, including a sub 1'10 on LC is very impressive. #61 Zane Royal moves up slightly this week with a batch of 10 PRs. #55 Gavin Price sends in 5 of his own, but loses out to 4 players in a very active mid-section. The first is #54 Salvatore Bellusci. He's up 4 places, and only a PR or two away from another few places. #51 Daniel Boettcher is up 10 full spots with only 15 PRs. He's on the brink of the top 50, and would have had it if not for #50 Kevin Borne. The ex-champ of mkwii climbs 9 places to get himself back into the top 50 this week. Lastly, #48 Tim van Ham also breaks into the top 50 with a nice 6 place move. Without that move he would have found himself behind most of the guys in this paragraph! 40-50 sees #43 Franco Gubser passing Sam and Bob, and now he sits just behind long time champ Michael Fried. 37th/38th/39th, Henrik/Oliver/Max all make some good progress, but all stay where they are, like jogging on a treadmill. Into the top 25, and #24 Fabien Jacques is up a spot past Gary. #18 Eric Hacksell makes a decisive move, taking him up 2 spots. After that, 3 players try to move up a single spot with minimal effort. #15 Mickael Smolen is up a spot with 2 PRs. #14 Alvin Le is up a spot with 4, and #12 Ben Hart is up one with 8 PRs. Mickael wins the competition with the fewest PRs. Ben is really quite close to the top 10 now though. Into the top 10 now, and #6 Alex Shoal does enough to get past Tyler this week. #5 Jimmy Benson and #3 Marc Bas both play, solidifying their positions. The outstanding move of the update however has to be right at the top. #1 Nick Meade, already champion, and with a healthy lead, sends in 17 PRs to move from being 2 AF points ahead to being 4 AF points ahead. His dominance right now is really quite strong, and it will be a while before anyone challenges that. Site Records Andrew Grieve beat the old Moo Moo Meadows crs time of 1'16"529 with a time of: 1'16"189 Tom Norton tied the old Mario Circuit crs time of 1'21"889 with a time of: 1'21"8891'21"889 Tom Norton beat the old Coconut Mall crs time of 1'57"795 with a time of: 1'57"480 Marc Bas beat the old Coconut Mall lap time of 0'37"910 with a time of: 0'37"846 Nick Meade beat the old Wario's Gold Mine crs time of 0'36"731 with a time of: 0'36"711 Daniel Both beat the old Wario's Gold Mine lap time of 0'09"698 with a time of: 0'09"662 Alex Shoal beat the old Grumble Volcano crs time of 0'19"845 with a time of: 0'19"625 Alex Shoal beat the old Grumble Volcano lap time of 0'04"526 with a time of: 0'04"525 Jazz Ahmed beat the old Moonview Highway crs time of 1'44"029 with a time of: 1'43"842 Andrew Grieve beat the old Bowser's Castle crs time of 2'12"477 with a time of: 2'12"039 Zane Royal beat the old N64 Mario Raceway crs time of 1'42"672 with a time of: 1'42"496 Nick Meade beat the old GCN Mario Circuit lap time of 0'28"863 with a time of: 0'28"817 New Players Welcome to: Simone Bertini and Tim Weaver Tune in next time. |