Marius,jamie white

are my only votes

haha...well...my congrates to Ian  I bid farewell from this tournament

I can still beat you at kartin tho Ian

Dave

so far I'm 18right and 3wrong

voted Eddie Taylor just because he impressed me with his entry and that he quickly provided proofs.

Marius just because I know him more then Tanney and I chat with him sometimes and he gave me some tips and a few vids too.

voted Archibald Lefèvre as well for my last error


There are some match where I haven't voted since I didn't knew both names or they were too much of a tie to me.

Time for a two for one...

Alex Penev vs. Mike McKenzie
Voted for Penev. Let's see...fantastic karter (in two games), great gamer all-around, site helper, and really kind of cool guy, or an MKSC player. I think anyone who can stand to consistently visit the GameFAQs boards as much as McKenzie doesn't deserve my vote.  

Ian Morley vs. David Taylor
Voted for Taylor. I've seen them both post on the MB, but David moreso. When reading their bios (own version), I found David's considerably more entertaining and informative. That made the decision for me. A little creativity can go a long way.

Bart Savelkous vs Kalle Videkull
Voted for Bart. Kalle kinda got screwed here (no bio when I was voting), but I had heard of Bart before, knew he was talented, and the people I talk to online that knew him said he wasn't a complete loser, so that was good enough.

Steven Gutierrez vs. Nobuo/Nobou/Noubo/NotVotingForYouAnyway
Voted for Steven. For one, Steven is actually on one of the sites, he has made some pretty impressive strides as a gamer, and he seems to have matured a bit in his posting/messaging. He has also given out plenty of proof for all of his stuff. IMO, his competion didn't even deserve a spot in this contest, so this required almost no thought.

3/4 that day, again losing the closest match...those never seem to go my way.

William Lacey vs. Luke Mulders
Voted for Lacey. Mulders was another guy with no bio, so I had no chance to learn about him. Thankfully, he probably stood no chance anyway. Lacey has done too much...kart skill, proof, site help, and he seems pretty cool to chat with. Plus, anyone who has the balls to release cross-dressing pics in a male-dominated community has some pretty serious balls. That should count for something.

Michael Fried vs. Dave Crawford
Voted for Crawford. Dave had a lot going for him to get my vote. For one, he's one of the Team Michigan players, so that nets him a little support (though I wish his MR NonSC lap wasn't so fast...). He also helped with the MK64 site for a while, and went on to host F-Zero Central. While I never used F0C, I do have added respect for people that work in gaming communities...it's hard work for minimal rewards. Fried...well, he makes anagrams. That wasn't enough.

Mark Jones vs. Tory Waters
Voted for Jones. I already gave out my female sympathy vote to Lola, so that wasn't a factor here. Jones is one of guys I talk to most online, and the first of my fake chat staples to have a match, and if he's in my fake chat (in a good role), you know he's cool. He's also a staffer (or former staffer) on two of the Kart pages, which has shown to be a helpful piece for the Kart resume when I'm voting. That, and he understands my (smoke!) Family Guy (smoke!) and Futurama (are you smoking yet?!) jokes.

Prashant Bhoja vs. Luca Barbetta
Voted for Prashant. Luca was yet another of the no bio people, so I felt kinda bad giving my vote to Prashant. However, I had heard more of Prashant beforehand, and now that Luca's bio is posted, I don't feel so bad. I've always had something against people that play the hell out of one course, and that seems to be Luca's claim to fame (accomplishment-wise). Not the greatest of criteria, I admit, but it seems most people went my way on this anyway, so minimal harm done.

And once again, a 3/4 day with me losing the closest match. When I figure out who the swing vote that is voting opposite of me is, someone is dying.

Completely forgot to post my votes yesterday, so time to catch up...

Alex Penev vs Mike McKenzie
-My vote: Alex Penev
Alex has been around since a long time now, and I've kept contact with him over the years. He's also a great karter, and talented gamer all around. Bottom line: Alex is a nice guy, and I never heard of Mike.

Ian Morley vs David Taylor
-My vote: Ian Morley
Ian is a MKDD updater, and that was pretty much the only way I could relate to him. David is not someone I really know so meh...Ian gets the vote.

Bart Savelkouls vs Kalle Videkull
-My vote: Bart Savelkouls
I remember seeing Bart's name alot on the MKDD main page early on. He seemed like a dominant force at the game for a while. I hadn't heard as much about Kalle (maybe I didn't look hard enough?), so I went with the instinctive vote, and pick the guy I heard about the most.

Steven Gutierrez vs Nobuo
-My vote: Steven Gutierrez
I think Steven got lucky to face Nobuo on the first round, because there are few players who wouldn't have gotten my vote against Steven. When Steven joined the page, I thought (and probably 95% of people on this board) he was a major ass. Those thoughts eventualy got confirmed when I chatted with him on AIM.  Anyway, time pass, and the guy eventualy started making sense. I even chat with him once in a while nowadays...

William Lacey vs Luke Mulders
-My vote: William Lacey
I'm not a huge Lacey fan, and I'm not quite sure why. Still, he's a great karter, and release some great picture of himself. I'm afraid I'm gonna need some more revealing pics of him if he wants me to keep voting for him in the later rounds.  

Michael Fried vs Dave Crawford
-My vote: Dave Crawford
Crawford always seemed like a nice guy to me. He's another karter who's been around for a long time. F-Zero Central was a great place too, and it's a shame he had to take it down. On the other hand, I think Fried has been quite annoying since a few months. In fact almost all his posts end up annoying me somehow, so an easy vote here.

Mark Jones vs Tory Waters
-My vote: Mark Jones
I guess Jones is a nice guy when puts his canadian jokes aside, so he gets my vote. Those might hurt him on later rounds though.

Prashant Bhoja vs Luca Barbetta
-My vote: Prashant Bhoja
Another of those rounds where I know very few of the two players. Prashant plays one of the kart games that I like, while Luca plays none...So that's that.

LpS

who's John?

Here goes...

Thomas Grandjean vs Jason Engel:
-My vote: Thomas Grandjean
Engel always seemed like a cool guy to me but I never got to know him, and it seems with his recent comeback that he is not interested in meeting the new( and the old) faces from the kart64 scene. On the other hand, Thomas is pretty involved with the community, and I don't really have anything bad to say about him, so he must be a nice guy

Cooper Lovera vs Edwin Peeters
-My vote: Cooper Lovera
The only thing I know about Edwin is that he was a great karter in the past, and unfortunatly, this is the present. Cooper is much more involved all around.

Jon Prentice vs John Five
-My vote: John Five
I based my vote on the bio John wrote himself. It was original, so I gave him the vote since I don't know much about Jon.

Andy Launspach vs Frank Mazieres
-My vote: Andy Launspach
I know there's been alot of controversy surrounding Andy in the past, but I managed to put that aside now. The guy is the reason why I started playing Kart. His kick-ass page made the game much more fun to play, and led to bigger project like the Kart64 players page. Now he's back in action after clearing his name, and I think that's rather exciting.

LpS

Day 9 votes:

Martin Cesar vs Brian Rafferty
-My vote: Martin Cesar
OK well, I vote for Martin because I saw he was 14 years old. Now I know this alone doesn't really make any sense. But there's another 14 years old guy on the board (cough.. Jeffrey...cough), and Martin as yet to act like an ass, insult me(and my mom) and annoy me all the time. I guess Martin proves me that there are still some cool young guys out there that can dominate the scene without acting imature all the time.

Brian Gallo vs Dirk Wegener
-My vote: Dirk Wegener
I think there has been too much crap where brian gallo was involved for him to get my vote. His name has been associated with liar during almost all his carreer. He finaly got what he deserves. On the other hand, Dirk is the founder of the older SMK WR page. I remember browsing his pages like 8 years ago, and beeing amazed by the times on his page. I even think he came back a few months ago to make a few posts on the board, so that was pretty cool.

Michael Liem vs Richard Keyser
-My vote: Michael Liem
I think I know Liem much better than Ritchard, so easy decision here. Liem has been a very important part of the MK64 updating team since years, and now I have the chance to work with him (and so far I wasn't given too much crap for my late timesheet updates ). I also like his involvement in pretty much all the kart players pages.

Zack Kennedy vs Matt Batastini
-My vote: Matt Batastini
I know Matt slightly more than Zack, and I always liked his dominance on KTB. It's so rare these days to see 1 guy grab a WR out of nowhere, and hold to it for years. He gets to vote.

Lps

Round 1, Group 10...

Myles Bukrim vs. Peter Toch
Voted for Bukrim. I've known him for years, he's a great gamer, proves loads of his stuff, has helped in site work, and is a nice guy overall. If he could quit retiring, destroying my times and throwing stuff into the river, he'd get even more praise. Myles says, "Look at Jason's quote."

Tim Everett vs. Greg Ihnatenko
Voted for Everett. This one was pretty close for me, and I'm amazed that it was such a blowout in the voting. Greg was easily one of the strongest 3 seeds out there, and rightfully so. He seemed like a really cool guy to talk to, and he was really ahead of his time for MK64 SC racing. However, Tim does get the advantage of having considerably more proof, being active recently, doing site projects, and of course, being from Michigan. The generational gap gave him a big advantage though, so I think Greg got kinda boned.

Sami Cetin vs. Chris Williams
Voted for Cetin. Kinda hard to argue against him with this matchup. SMK site owner vs. relatively new SMK player...Plus, Cetin is stupid awesome at more than one kart. I am kind of interested in who voted for Williams in this matchup, though. If it was solely to prevent a shutout, someone is lame. If it was because they knew Williams, then I suppose it's cool. Anyone want to fess up?

Matthew McCarthy vs. Matthias Boucher
Voted for McCarthy. This was a fairly interesting matchup, with two closely ranked players from the same game. My vote was based mostly on the fact that Matthew is active on this MB and has participated with the contest so far (Karter Bios). I have nothing against the French players really, it's just that I barely understand any French, so I'm obviously a bit disconnected from them. Worth noting though, McCarthy almost lost the vote with this "skilled with his tongue" quote...almost all guys here, Matt...that doesn't do much.

A 4/4 day for me, though they were all top seeds, so it's not really an accomplishment (not that 4/4 ever really is an accomplishment to begin with). Looks like my match is next...make sure to tell me how much you love/hate me when the time comes. That way I can adjust my voting accordingly.

Here goes:

Myles Bukrim vs Peter Toch
-My vote: Myles Bukrim
Myles is another of those player that have been around for years. Sure, he's had long breaks, but now he's back and in force. I always liked that the guy could discover new SC once in a while, like it was nothing. Beside that, I've chatted with the guy a few times over the year, and it was great.

Tim Everett vs Greg Ihnatenko
-My vote: Tim Everett
This vote was the hardest I had to make so far. Greg was an awesome SC player back in the days and talented in many other games. I can remember a few email exchange with him about SC strat and wave race 64. Beside that, he's been one tough competitor over the years, and I was only able to pass him when he stopped playing. As far as Tim goes, he's been rising among the ranks since the day he joined. He's been involed with the community and helpul to many. I've also chatted with the guy a few times on AIM, so I got to know him a bit better than Greg.

Sami Cetin vs Chris Williams
-My vote: Sami Cetin
Obvious choice for me. Not only is he dominant in 2 MK games, but he maintains on of them. Sami has helped me alot back in the days I was playing SMK. He kept motivating me until I reached GOD. Sure, GOD isn't too prestigous now in SMK, but 3-4 years ago, it was something big. The guy got my respect and my vote.

Matthew McCarthey vs Matthias Boucher
-My vote: Matthew McCarthey
I don't really know any of those karters, but unlike Whalls, I actually liked that tongue skill comment from Matthew. Always great to see you have things in common with other karters.

LpS

Yeah, Iacopo actually won. Paul made a miscount. Don't really know what happened.

Iacopo had a good win. He got support from most old-schoolers. Toshi got votes from SMK players. Some of the newer MK64/MKDD players also voted Toshi, but not all of them. Still a good deal of the newer players voted for Iacopo as well.

Yesterday was my first tough decision so far this Contest.  Whalls is one of the best guys around, but on the other hand, pack has done some of the most amazing things I've ever seen in any game, over in Monkey Ball, has posted on our boards alot, and has been a top competitor for the past few seasons at both our Elite NFL picking pool, and our March Madness tourneys.  I knew he'd lose, but didn't want to see him blown out of the water...  And on the other hand, Whalls is cool.  So two things made my decision in the end:

1. Whalls stabbed Snap right in the back a couple weeks back, after I had the impression that Derek was going to be supported by both him and Jones.

2. Whalls stabbed me right in the back a couple weeks back, when he didn't join our NFL picking pool.  This wasn't as big a deal, but it was enough to tip the scales.

I'll most likely be voting him the rest of the way though, unless he plays a Clark or somesuch... just wanted to get a little revenge this once.

I also voted for Iacopo, and seeing him win is the most happy I've been with any outcome so far.  This guy is a big reason why I'm still active across the Nintendo gaming communities...  My first real competition was GE (back in '99, we're talking), true, but within just a few months I was also big into the new Smash Bros rankings, and then moved on to some Ocarina, Mario 64, etc... all the greats.  Way to go, Sorce.

And I also voted for Eise, solely for the Elite connection.  Plus, 'Jonathan Steel' kind of sounds like a lame British superhero to me.

EDIT - Oh, speaking of Snap!  Quick update:  he finished with one of the top 2 North American scores, and so earned an all-expense paid trip to Japan, courtesy of Microsoft.  Him and the other NA players will compete against 4 other top players (from Euro and Japan) for the World Championship at the Toyko Game Convention this weekend.  More details at this gamespot article

http://www.gamespot.com/xbox/action/ninjagaiden/news_6107541.html

Actually Jon, I didn't stab Snap in the back. I just gave Nouwen a hug for being such a great guy, and told Snap he should've played MKSC more.

Also, I think you're forgetting that the major stab in the back to you was the Final Four pool where I stabbed some serious backage by picking UConn and knowing about jack squat in college bball. Which reminds me...Brent beat me in that pool...I hope he's not up against anyone I know...or don't know...whatever...he's going down.

Edit: I hadn't even seen the above post when I wrote this. How awesome is that?