Welcome Back Junkies!!!

Soooooo…. Before we get to tonight’s picks – can I hijack this post and give you a quick personal update?

First, I didn’t sleep well because, let’s face it… The night before Miss America typically means… “I’M TOO EXCITED TO SLEEP!”  Then, the area where I lived experienced some significant weather issues in the middle of the night that caused the power to go out… Which means the alarm clock did not go off at 4:00am…

Good news first… We made the flight. 🙂

Bad news… Have you ever tried to pack a suitcase by candlelight???  Sounds romantic… but not very practical.  LOL!  Frankly, I have no clue what’s in my luggage… I hope at least my shoes match!
 
And now – Here’s a wrap up of last night’s winners!

CONGRATS to KELSEY GRISWOLD and REBECCA YEH on last night’s preliminary wins!  Kelsey is the 4th Miss OK in a row to win a prelim award (Alicia Clifton – Talent, Betty Thompson – Talent, Emoly West-SS) and the 5th Miss OK to win SS!  Rebecca is the 10th Miss MN to win a Prelim Talent award – and she’s in good company!  Notable Miss MN’s who won Talent before winning Miss America include Dorothy Benham and Gretchen Carlson.

On to tonight’s Prelim Picks!  Junkies are on a roll… As some of you have so kindly noted, we are 4 for 4 this year… Hoping to make this year the best Prelim Picking Prediction year in Junkie History – NO PRESSURE – LOL!!!! 🙂  Here goes nothing…

TALENT = OKLAHOMA, FLORIDA, WEST VIRGINIA, CONNECTICUT
Yes – Oklahoma won SS last night, and if she wins tonight, she’ll be first Double Prelim winner in a really, really long time (CUE THE JUNKIE RESEARCH KING!).  Also – say a prayer for Miss Florida who injured herself during rehearsals today (baton twirler)… No final details… but just know she may not be 100%.

SWIMSUIT = SOUTH CAROLINA, GEORGIA, TEXAS, CALIFORNIA
Junkies have a theory about Final Night Swimsuit winners… In most cases, the final night SS winner goes to the girl who looks darn good in a swimsuit, but was also one of the judge’s favorites interview.  Of course, you never know until the Final Show (and whether or not the final night SS winner makes the top 5)… but that’s our story and we’re sticking to it. 🙂

Junkies will be there to see it all in person tonight!!!  Promise to give you a full update on the Thursday Winners and what’s officially in my suitcase… Wearing one gold shoe and one silver shoe might become a new trend 🙂

Junkies Unite!

MAJ

Well Hello Junkies! 🙂

What a delightful way to start the week!  Let’s take a look at last night’s preliminary winners!

Tuesday Talent Winner = Miss New Hampshire (a correct pick!)
Sam Russo is a gifted vocalist who only recently started vocal training… She is the 2nd Miss NH to ever win a prelim talent award (Miss NH ’93 Tricia Ann-Reagan was the first)… Sam sang “Don’t Rain on My Parade” – which is the same song she sang at her state pageant (and won the talent award there as well)… Some Junkies might think this song is over-done (and they may be right in most cases)…  But Sam kills this song!  Makes you wanna hear it again and again! 🙂  Congrats to the Miss New Hampshire team and Miss Russo on the big win last night! 🙂

Tuesday Swimsuit Winner = Miss Mississippi (a correct pick!)
Chelsea Rick is the 14th Miss Mississippi to win a Preliminary Swimsuit award – 2nd only to California for the most Prelim SS wins per state.  Now, I do need to take a moment to offer a brief history lesson.  In order to be considered a”True Junkie,” you need to know about the glorious and magical run the state of Mississippi experienced in the 80’s.  From 1979-1988… All 10 girls made the Top 10 during those years (Not Top 15 — the Top 10!!!).  In addition, from 1978-1988 Mississippi won Prelim Swimsuit EIGHT times and Prelim Talent once!!!  (Big Thanks to our “Junkie Research King” for this reminder!).  With this Swimsuit Win in Atlantic City, I’m guessing lots and lots of “Glory Days” conversations are taking place in the Miss MS ranks right about now!

OK – So – Going 2 for 2 on opening night means we’ve got our work cut out for us tonight!  Time to buckle down and see what we come up with for Wednesday Night Prelims…

Just for the record, tonight we have Sigma competing in Talent and Mu competing in Swimsuit… Here’s the prelim order one more time in case you missed it earlier… Again, you can click on the photo if you’d like to see a larger version…

OK – Here we go!

TALENT = MINNESOTA, ILLINOIS, ALABAMA, KANSAS
Interestingly enough, IL, MN and AL are all performing back-to-back-to-back tonight… We’re super curious how this one is going to work out tonight. 🙂

SWIMSUIT = OKLAHOMA, UTAH, FLORIDA, MARYLAND
This was a hard one for us… Gonna kick ourselves if we miss it… ’cause I think this list has changed 6 or 7 times already.  Can’t wait to see who earns the prelim award in this category tonight!

There you are!  We’ll see how close our predictions come tonight – and the Junkies are jumping on a plane bound for Atlantic City tomorrow!!!  As always, you’re welcome to post your predictions as well!  Who do you think wins Talent and Swimsuit tonight???

#JunkiesUnite

MAJ

OK, OK, OK…

Let’s be honest… the reason it’s taking me so long to make predictions for tonight’s prelims is because I KEEP CHANGING MY MIND!!!

Seriously – I think I’m about to move into analysis-paralysis… this is like my 6th or 7th time adjusting the list… time to just put it out there already…

SO!  HERE WE GO!!!  Round #1 of Junkie Prelim Predictions 2014!!!  If you missed our previous blogpost about how we choose who we choose, I HIGHLY encourage you to read our earlier post… It also explains the “ground rules” so to speak…  You can check it out here…

And NOW – with no further adieu (because good-golly there’s been plenty of ”adieu’ already)… Here’s our first stab at Prelim Predictions for Miss America 2014!!!

TALENT = NEW HAMPSHIRE, KENTUCKY, CALIFORNIA and MICHIGAN
Talent is STACKED tonight!!!  It’s really, really hard for us to choose only 4 states – and we’re the first to tell you we might get this one wrong.  It’s tough to find a clear winner – and I can’t believe we’re leaving DE and MO off the list… But I only get to choose 4. That’s the rule.  We’ll see if I regret it tomorrow.

SWIMSUIT = MISSISSIPPI, KANSAS, VIRGINIA and OHIO
If you thought Talent was stacked… you should see Swimsuit!  Wowzers!  We could list 8 states all capable of winning the prelim tonight – but alas, these 4 are where we’re landing.  I can’t believe we’re leaving NC and IA off the list… ugh… Here’s hoping we get at least one of these right!

Alright!  That’s what we’ve got!  As always, feel free to give us your prelim predictions either in the comments below, via Facebook or via Twitter!

Updates Tomorrow!!!

GOOD LUCK EVERYONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

#JunkieUnite

MAJ

Many moons ago, before this blog or Facebook was even born, I was looking for a way to reconnect with friends and family around Miss America week.  So, just for fun, I started to see if I could pick 4 states that I thought might win Preliminary Talent or Preliminary Swimsuit at Miss America.  Then, I’d send out an email telling them why I thought “so and so state” could win the given prelim.  At first, I think people just opened the email because they hadn’t heard from me in a while (lol) – but soon, they began to humor me and play along.  In order to suck them into my pageant vortex, I named the email list “Miss America Junkies”.  Ever since then, I’ve been posting picks – and each year more and more Junkies join me in my pursuit of the perfect preliminary prediction.

In case you’ve never seen this before, here’s how it goes…

1. Two awards are given on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday night… one for Swimsuit and one for Talent (no on-stage awards for Evening Gown or On-Stage Question). Three nights of prelims times 2 awards each night means 6 awards total (who says pageant girls can’t do math? GO STEM!).

2. I’ll select 4 states out of the 17-18 girls who could possibly win.

3. To provide complete disclosure… I’ve only seen 3 of this year’s contestants in person.  I don’t attend Miss America rehearsals.  99% of our research on our picks is from online research alone.

4.  Here’s the Prelim list… for Tuesday, we’re working with Alpha in Talent and Sigma in Swimsuit…

If you need a larger version, feel free to click on the photo itself 🙂

Now – before we get started with my predictions, there are a couple of things I need to point out…

1. The predictions below are my opinions and my opinions only.  Sometimes I get it right – and sometimes I’m dead wrong.  Of all the years I’ve been making predictions, the best I’ve done is 4/6… Which pretty much goes to prove, I’m not perfect. 🙂

2. If your daughter/grand-daughter/sister/best friend’s-baby-sitter’s-car-salesman’s niece isn’t on our short-list as a prelim pick, it doesn’t mean she isn’t talented.  It doesn’t mean she isn’t ‘pretty enough’.  It doesn’t mean she doesn’t have what it takes… It means, I’m not perfect. 

3. Just because we accurately predict a prelim winner – it doesn’t mean she is the next Miss America.  Remember, Mallory Hagan didn’t win a single prelim – and I’m not sure we even had her on any of our prelim predictions from last year… But she walked away with the crown.  Your girl can too. 

4. This is supposed to be… (wait for it… wait for it…) FUN!!! 🙂  Since predictions are the origin of MAJ, we have a blast seeing if we can accurately predict a winner simply through research and Junkie intuition.  Please don’t take it personally if the girl you adore is not listed in our posts…

Here’s a photo of your prelim judges with Sam Haskell (from the Miss America Twitter Feed)… Feel free to click on the photo itself to see an enlarged version…

And the press release offering complete bio’s for our Prelim Judges can be found here…

As any contestant will tell you – different judges = different results.  If you think you’ve mastered “Intro to Junkie Predictions 101” and wanna move into the upper echelon of prelim picking, then study the judges.  Or, feel free to read our opinion on the prelim judges found here in this post and consider it the cliff-notes version. 🙂

Our first round of Prelim Predictions will be posted later today!!!  And of course, we’ll update both our Facebook page and our Twitter feed with real-time results… then, we’ll offer another round of predictions tomorrow!  As always – if you disagree, you’re welcome to ‘play along’ by listing your own Top 4 in the comments section below or via Facebook/Twitter. 🙂

GOOD LUCK TO EVERYONE!!!  First night of prelims is ELECTRIFYING!!! 🙂

#MissAmerica #JunkiesUnite

MAJ