Somehow, however, we got from that unpromising start to a stunning outcome.
The federal environment minister, Greg Hunt, said the auctions produced a "stunning outcome" which exceeded expectations.
Discussing the race in Erie County, another of the state's most watched contests, the governor called Mark Poloncarz's defeat of the incumbent county executive, Chris Collins, a "stunning" outcome.
The January ratings are in, and Disney Channel very nearly beat Nickelodeon among viewers ages 2 to 11, a stunning outcome in and of itself.
The full fallout from the stunning outcome of today's predawn fight near Johannesburg will take some time to sort out, but the long-sought matchup with Mike Tyson that the world was clamoring for now may never happen.
Federal environment minister Greg Hunt said the auction was a "stunning outcome" although it has emerged that 107 of the 144 funded projects were already operating under a previous scheme.
"This is stunning outcome, it far exceeds all of our expectations and it achieves an outcome in the first auctions which is more than four times the entire emissions reduction produced during the carbon tax period at a fraction of the cost," he said.
And the stunning outcome may be a nation that looks remarkably as it did decades ago - when urban neighbourhoods thrived and sidewalk life flourished, when streetcars and trains represented the future and not the past, and when regional tastes and markets were as important to producers as international ones.
Another amendment allowing states to legalize marijuana like alcohol without federal interference failed by only nine votes, a stunning outcome considering it was the first time Congress has ever voted on outright repealing marijuana prohibition.
In 2005, the former head of the Gambino crime family was acquitted on a racketeering charge and ended up with mistrials on several other counts, a stunning outcome that kept the mob leader out of prison and earned him the nickname "The Teflon Don," because no charges would stick against him.
