Pia Wurtzbach: Miss Universe 2015

The Miss Universe 2015 contest has ended in confusion and disarray after the host mistakenly named the wrong woman as the winner.
Ariadna Gutierrez Arevalo from Colombia had already been crowned and was standing on stage to cheers from the Las Vegas audience when mortified host Steve Harvey returned to announce the error.
“OK, folks, um, I have to apologise,” he said, walking back on stage while Arevalo was proudly waving to fans, holding the winner’s bouquet and wearing the Miss Universe sash. “The first runner-up is Colombia,” he went on, “Miss Universe 2015 is Philippines.”
The camera panned straight to a stunned Miss Philippines, Pia Alonzo Wurtzbach, who started slowly walking to the front of the stage. For a few awkward moments the two women stood side by side, in front of a TV audience of millions from around the world, before Harvey explained that he read the card naming the winner and runner-up in the wrong order.

“I will take responsibility for this, it was my mistake,” he told the crowd. “It’s on the card ... horrible mistake, but I can show it to you right here,” he said, holding up the card.

“It is my mistake, but it’s still a great night.”
“Please don’t hold it against the ladies, please don’t. I feel so badly but it’s still a great night.”
As he spoke, a former Miss Universe winner quickly removed the crown from Arevalo and placed it on Wurtzbach. The broadcast ended moments later.
The reaction on social media was swift, with viewers expressing dismay at the “fail of the decade”.

Later, Wurtzbach told reporters that she wished Arevalo well.
“I’m very sorry. I did not take the crown from her,” she said. “None of this was done on purpose. It was an honest mistake.”
Harvey’s mistake is not the first time the wrong woman has been named the winner of a high-profile beauty pageant. In 2010 during a live television broadcast, Australian host Sarah Murdoch read out the wrong name in the finale of Australia’s Next Top Model.
The competition started with women representing 80 countries between the ages of 19 and 27. For the first time, viewers at home weighed in, with their votes being tallied in addition to four in-person celebrity judges.
NBC Universal and Donald Trump co-owned the Miss Universe Organization until earlier this year. The real-estate developer offended Latin Americans in June when he made anti-immigrant remarks in announcing his Republican presidential run.
That led Spanish-language network Univision to pull out of the broadcast for what would have been the first of five years airing the pageants and NBC to cut business ties with Trump.
The former star of the Celebrity Apprentice reality show sued both companies, settling with NBC in September, which included buying the network’s stake in the pageants.
That same month, Trump sold the organisation that includes the Miss Universe, Miss USA and Miss Teen USA pageants to entertainment company WME-IMG.

Associated Press contributed to this report

Final Order of Finish, Miss Universe, 2010

4th Runner-Up: PHILIPPINES - Venus Raj

3rd Runner-Up: UKRAINE - Anna Poslavska

2nd Runner-Up: AUSTRALIA - Jesinta Campbell

Runner-Up: JAMAICA - Yendi Philipps

Miss Universe: 

MEXICO

Jimena Navarrete

Top 5, Miss Universe 2010

Top 5, Miss Universe 2010

1. MEXICO (9.265) - Jimena Navarrete
Evening Gown: 8.913

2. JAMAICA (9.426) - Yendi Philipps
Evening Gown: 8.884

3. AUSTRALIA (8.543) - Jesinta Campbell
Evening Gown: 8.841

4. UKRAINE (8.333) - Anna Poslavska
Evening Gown: 8.743

5. PHILIPPINES (8.957) - Venus Raj
Evening Gown: 8.714

Miss Congeniality:
AUSTRALIA - Jesinta Campbell

Miss Photogenic:
THAILAND - Fonthip Watcharatrakul

Favorite National Costume:
THAILAND - Fonthip Watcharatrakul

Top 10, Miss Universe 2010

1. JAMAICA (9.426) - Yendi Philipps
2. MEXICO (9.265) - Jimena Navarrete
3. PHILIPPINES (8.957) - Venus Raj
4. IRELAND (8.784) - Rozanna Purcell
5. AUSTRALIA (8.543) - Jesinta Campbell
6. PUERTO RICO (8.443) - Mariana Paola Vicente
7. UKRAINE (8.333) - Anna Poslavska
8. SOUTH AFRICA (8.229) - Nicole Flint
9. ALBANIA (8.229) - Angela Martino
10. GUATEMALA (8.071) - Jessica Scheel

Top 15, Miss Universe 2010

1. PUERTO RICO
2. UKRAINE
3. MEXICO
4. BELGIUM
5. IRELAND
6. SOUTH AFRICA
7. FRANCE
8. AUSTRALIA
9. JAMAICA
10. RUSSIA
11. ALBANIA
12. COLOMBIA
13. GUATEMALA
14. CZECH REPUBLIC
15. PHILIPPINES

A new anime plot waiting to happen?

A little aside: I had a dream last night that I was at a Mis Universe Pageant live, when something happened backstage, and all the entries, scantily clad for maximum nosebleedage, went off and chased the person destroying the backstage, screaming like little girls and going gaga with hearts in their eyes.

I was seeing this, and thought, "Huh?"

...damn BK Burger Shots ad.

===

Here's something fun: a refined son of a dictator is given control of a country locked away from the outside world on his deathbed. It turns out that after he dies, he decides to turn open North Korea to the outside world, and suddenly...all hell breaks loose, and you can determine where the hell this goes from this point forward.

Another harem clone? Slapstick a la Negima, dripping with International Saimoe League-quality candidates? Who knows. The bottom line is that Kim Jong Il is going to be dead in the near future, and if his youngest son gets the keys to North Korea...I think we're going to hopefully have some fun.

Nipaa.

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Kim Jong-il anoints son Kim Jong-un North Korea leader

Richard Lloyd Parry | February 20, 2009
Article from: Times Online

IT IS one of the most powerful and dangerous jobs in the world and, for decades, foreign politicians, academics and spies have speculated over who will one day succeed to it.

It brings absolute power over 24 million people, the command of a fanatical, nuclear-equipped army of a million men, and a brutal state security apparatus.

KNOW YOUR KIMS
* Kim Il Sung, anti-Japanese guerrilla commander during the Second World War and founding “Great Leader” of North Korea. Died in 1994 at the age of 82

* Kim Jong Il, 67, "Dear Leader”, who was introduced as successor in the 1970s

* Kim Jong Nam, 37 or 38. Mickey Mouse-loving first son. He has been spotted in Macao and Paris, sometimes in company of young and glamorous blondes

* Kim Jong Chul, 28, middle son, affectionately treated by his father, but regarded as too soft-hearted and effeminate

* Kim Jong Un, 25, youngest son, and soon to be anointed heir to North Korea

Today the man who is likely to inherit it emerged from the shadows – a little-known 25-year-old with a private education in Switzerland and fondness for sushi, German cars and baseball.

Reports from North and South Korea appear to confirm what until now has been only rumour – that Kim Jong Un, the third and youngest son of the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Il, is being lined up to inherit his father’s title.

It would be the second hereditary succession in the last remaining totalitarian communist dictatorship – and set the scene for a period of extreme instability in one of the world’s most unpredictable countries.

Today one of his closest and most hardline generals promised the army’s loyalty to the “bloodline” of the senior Mr Kim, a virtual guarantee that one of his children will succeed to the leadership. Meanwhile, the South Korean Yonhap news agency quoted sources in China saying that Jong Un, the youngest of his three sons, will stand in a carefully rigged “election” to the country’s tame parliament – the precursor to his public emergence as his father’s successor.

“We will firmly carry on the bloodline of Mangyongdae and Mt Paektu with our guns, faithfully upholding the leadership of our supreme commander,” Pak Jae Kyong, a senior general of the North Korean defence ministry, was quoted in the state media as having told a rally to celebrate the recent birthday of Kim Jong Il.

Mt Paektu is the scared Korean mountain where Kim Jong Il, according to the cult of personality that surrounds him, was born 67 years ago. Mangyongdae was the family home of his late father, the founder of North Korea, Kim Il Sung.

Yonhap quoted sources in Beijing saying that Jong Un had registered as a candidate in elections on March 8 for North Korea’s Supreme People’s Assembly. “Kim Jong Un will be formally nominated as successor after the elections,” one source told the news agency. “He is expected to take on key party and military posts in April.”

Foreign concern about the North Korean succession has been intense since last summer, when Kim Jong Il disappeared from public view for three months after apparently suffering a stroke.

During his convalescence, his 62-year-old brother-in-law, Chang Sung Taek, is said to have taken over his responsibilities. It is still possible that Jong Un may eventually serve as no more than a figurehead while real power lies with older and more experienced leaders.

Jong Un was born in 1983 and, as the youngest of three known sons of Kim Jong Il, he might have been expected to remain subordinate to his older brothers, in keeping with Confucian tradition.

His half-brother, Jong Nam, is 37 or 38, the son of his father’s first wife, a famous North Korean film star, who died in exile in 2002 after separating from Mr Kim. In 2001 he suffered humiliation when he was detained for travelling in Japan on a trip to visit Tokyo Disneyland with his family. He is occasionally spotted in the Chinese gambling enclave of Macao.

Jong Un and his 28-year-old brother, Jong Chul, were born to Koh Young Hee, a Japanese-Korean dancer. Before her death in 2004, state media had referred to her as “respected mother”, suggesting that one of her boys was being groomed for the leadership.

All the sons were educated in an exclusive private boarding school in Switzerland. According to Kenji Fujimoto, a Japanese who worked as personal sushi chef to Kim Jong Il and knew both the young “princes” well, it was obvious from his childhood that Jong Un would eventually take over from his father. “The older brother, Jong Chul, had the warm heart of a girl,” he told The Times last night. “The younger prince, Jong Un was a boy of inner strength.”

As teenagers, the boys played basketball and, even after casual games among friends, Jong Un would coach his team mates and analyse the successes and failures of their matches. “The first time I met him he was seven years old, and he looked at me as if I was an evil Japanese who had done terrible things to Koreans in the war,” said Mr Fujimoto. “I was impressed that even as a young boy he tried to analyse people he met.”

As a boy, Jong Un drove a Mercedes Benz with specially adapted pedals and seat around the grounds of Kim Jong Il’s home. He liked Chinese food and sushi, especially squid and the finest cuts of tuna. He used to smoke Mr Fujimoto’s menthol cigarettes

“If power is to be handed over then Jong Un is the best for it,” Mr Fujimoto said. “He has superb physical gifts, is a big drinker and never admits defeat.”

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A good day

When I found out who the top five contestant were in the 2007 Miss Universe pageant, which were USA, Venezuela (the sacred cow), Brazil, Korea and Japan, I told my mom, "I'm calling for Japan to win for the people who believe in moe, the otaku, Tokyo, Osaka, the anime and manga aficionados of this world..." and when I found out who won, which was Japan, I told her, "The cream puffs are mine." I made a friendly wager with her. It was between her and Brazil. If BRazil won, I would leave them alone. The cream puffs, that is.

By the way, her name is Riyo Mori, and she's a ballet dancer, too. She's 20 (as of this post), 5-8, and has all the aesthetics one can ask for at her age.

Oh, and the Anaheim Ducks won again. 3-2 over Ottawa in the Stanley Cup Finals Game 1. 1 down, 3 to go.

I'm going to need to review everything with my counselor about the plan tomorrow. I need some rest.