Get To Know the Players [updated]

We now have the players for the Lost survivor game.  Unless we have a late joiner (I have a couple of invites out to web-celebs), we have nine enthused Lost fans, ready to compete for the opportunity to post here at this blog and also a beer or scotch (none of that fancy Widmore-esque 60 year old stuff).

Thus far, none of the players have chosen a team name.  If they don't choose by the draft, the other players will choose for them, or I will do so in the last resort.

So, Skip, who are our players?



Well, Bob, we have:

1. Zach, our youngest player, a proud McGill grad, who plays poker and is relying on his winnings to subsidize his operatic dreams.  No, really.  He is also recently engaged, so expect his usually keen skills of reading other players to be clouded by thoughts of the impending nuptials.  
2. Brandon, our youngest professor in the game, is based in Chicago, so you know what means.  He has proven that participation is more important to him than winning--something that he proves twice a year at the poker games at each conference.  Combining his youth with his unmarried status, expect him to draft the attractive female Lost characters, even if they are dead (Shannon).
3. Chip, who is an expert on the Balkans, and yes, you know what that means, too.  As a professor at a liberal arts college, he is more in touch with the kids of today than the rest of us, who just teach masses of students.  What this means for his draft picks, I don't know.  But given his regional expertise, he is most likely to self-destruct.  The good news is that the apricot brandy should soften the fall.
4. Beth went to high school with me, but we have been entirely out of contact until very, very recently thanks to facebook and my Lost posts.  So, she is largely a mystery, except she was once on Romper Room, and, indeed, you know what that means.
5. David and Ali are the only husband-wife team.  I went to high school with David and to one (or was it two) Graham Parker concerts.  He is also a twin, which means something here, I am sure.  I have never met Ali, but she is apparently a very big fan of the show. I smell a ringer.  She probably is actually Damon Lindelof (see the circled dude in the pic), one of the two guys behind Lost.  This team is not to be under-estimated.
6. Wendy, another classmate from high school, is known for two things: spinning and drinking.  And usually in that order.  Otherwise, she is heartlessly profiting from the mortgage bust.  Still, as a single woman in her 40s (sorry!), expect her draft card to read as follows: 1) James Ford, 2) Sawyer, 3) the guy with the nicknames, and so forth.
7. Steve G, a.k.a. lil' Steve.  The two Steves were at Texas Tech for a surprisingly short period of time, as every interaction seemed to go on forever.  And surprisingly, he is the closest we have to an Obie in this game, as he taught there briefly.  His team is already named after himself: Captain Quirk.  His mastery of pop culture is not to be under-estimated.  Arcane information is his business (well, he is an Americanist after all, from Ohio State no less). 
8. Sara studies international relations by collecting and analyzing heaps of data, so expect her to approach the draft using various obscure statistical measures, like VORS (Value over replacement survivor) and OTP (on-tv percentage).  And her laugh rivals mine, if you know what I mean.
9. Finally, we have Jacob, who probably can out-geek us all.  His mastery of philosophy can help or hurt here, depending on whether he aligns himself correctly with the philosophies of the Lost creators.  The fact that he shares the name of the supernatural creature who has had many killed just to figure out the classic debate of free will vs. fate suggests that our Jacob may actually be the most diabolical and dangerous player of them all.
10. UPDATED: Ok, Jacob is not last nor least.  As we have an additional player: Jeff Jensen.  See this post for a brief scouting report.

I will announce the draft order tomorrow.