Haikus > Cancer

Good morning:

I really can't thank everyone enough who generously donated money and poetic gems of wonder and majesty to support my Swedish Summerun cancer-fighting superhero team. It is a constant source of delight that my guest book is, to the outside observer, inexplicably signed with only haikus, many of which are inexplicably bacon-related.

While every entry is a winner of a piece of my heart, unfortunately history only has room for two glorious winnerz of the highly sought-after X-TREME HAIKU CHARITY CHALLENGE 2008™ fabulous prizes.

The first winner is easy: The first haiku was submitted by the esteemed "satty", which is an alias used to disguise the identity of my buddy Taco (Zing! I just scandalously outed you on my blog!) When presented with his choice of the fabulous prizes earmarked for the first entry award...

I'll take some Ice cream and is it possible to get a double order of the "Uncomfortably frank and unqualified opinions about your clothing".

1.) Dress your age.
2.) You live in Seattle now, not Michigan. Geez.
BONUS.) Pull your pants up.

Herein lies a good lesson for us all: When you make fun of Taco's clothes, you are making fun of yourself. If you dress like him. Which I do. [ed note: pull your pants up.]

The Ultimate Winner of Bestest Haiku award was not nearly so easy. As I stared searchingly at the glorious array of haikus before me, I realized that this was like choosing a favorite child, but harder, and also there are 17, which is 5 more children than I plan on having. Since there was no one haiku that really jumped out of a dark alley and mugged my heart more effectively than the rest, it became clear that I was going to have to approach this selection with some sort of objective system. I stole what I gather from the commercials is the idea behind my favorite mainstream matchmaking site that I have never actually used and probably never will, eHarmony, and decided to score the haikus based on "dimensions of haiku compatibility and awesomeness".

I whipped up a few appropriate scoring "dimensions" (Misery, Truth, Factual Accuracy, Shameless Pandering, Self-Referential/Meta, Absurdity, Needless Over-dramatization, Imagery, and of course, Alcohol References) and got right to work tabulating the final scores. My thinking was that when I summed everything up at the very end the Ultimate Winner of Bestest Haiku would emerge triumphantly from the shadows to claim the throne of ultimate victory.

Unfortunately, when I finally finished tweaking the checklist for each haiku and hit "calculate" I had, I kid you not, an 8-way tie for 1st. Hmm, well, I guess I should remove "objectivity" from my list of the 2 things I am good at.

List of things I am good at:

• objectivity
• pepperoni

So you know that classic superhero situation where the supervillain has captured the hero's mom and also the love interest, and they are both suspended in cages above a heaving lake of fiery zombie alligators with lice and herpes, and the hero must choose only one to save, but then he (or she) somehow manages to save them both and also put the supervillain behind bars? My haiku scoring is exactly like that except that they both fall into the lake, and also my friends that aren't even there somehow fall into the lake, and the supervillain becomes Evil Mayor of the Universe, and my cat runs away (I am assuming I will have a sassy sidekick cat in this situation). Failure!

Fortunately, whereas my objectivity skillz pulled a 2007 Mets (Zing! Grant 1, New York 0), my bribing skillz are still hovering around "passing". I offered my friend Hillary an irresistible bribe platter consisting of booze, boundless fame, and any leftover fabulous prizes in exchange for use of her completely unbiased judgment skillz. Not only did she add her own awesome categories and thinly-veiled but good-natured derision, she also completely blew my world away by including negative points! Hahaha! Brilliant! Why didn't I think of that? [ed note: next time, think of that]

Anyway, I hope you've been pacing your down arrow key jabbing, for what follows is the highly anticipated unveiling of the X-TREME HAIKU CHARITY CHALLENGE 2008™ haikus followed by score! Full scoring details available here. Note also that each haiku will be accompanied by a thumbnail image derived from entering the entire haiku into Google Image Search.

I

How I miss bacon
Not that I cant get it here
Its no Baco though
Score: 2

II

Cow tipping is mean
but bird hypnosis is sweet!
Oh life on the farm
Score: 3

III

Du kan vet inte
Vad är jag skriva till du
Jättebra är mig
Score: 3

IV

Being in Japan
makes my brain hurt all the time
I miss you English.
Score: 3

V

add one dumb kitten
mix in some laser pointer
mmm, that's delicious!
Score: 3

VI

Haiku, I hate you
You make my brain hurt so hard
No last line for me
Score: 3

VII

Skipped spring this year
now it's a stormy summer still
drown my pain in beer
Score: 3

VIII

money to bac-log
prizes follow afterwards
also, cancer sucks
Score: 4

IX

a haiku flatter
than the abs i wish i had
is all i can write
Score: 5

X

There are times I wish
that all communication
was in haiku-form.
Score: 6

XI

crisp pink how perfect
the noble pig's sacrifice
as the chicken smiles
Score: 6

XII

I tried to Haiku
pondered counted racked my brain
formatting failure
Score: 6

XIII

The smell of the rain
Is made of spores breath-ed in
how is this healthy
Score: 6

XIV

Is there a surface
I did not vomit upon?
No, no there is not.
Score: 7

XV

kid and finger trap
once hilarity ensues...
I was never there
Score: 7

XVI

Run, kids, run! Cancer
shall hear your quickened footfalls,
and, knowing, cower.
Score: 10

AND...

XVII

There in tears and sweat
desiccating shriveling
salt cures the bacon
Score: 11
ULTIMATE WINNER of BESTEST HAIKU
Author: Grant's mom

Okay, so I have to admit that I cheated on the image search for XVII, but it is only because there is seriously nothing else that's good. Also, I love me the 1th Place meat trophy so hard.

The best part about sourcing out the haiku scoring to an unfortunate victim a lucky volunteer is that I can totally wash my hands of any and all possible grievances and disputes. If you have any complaints or would like to request an appeal, please send 10 emails to hillary@justkiddingiwouldprobablyneverdothat.org.

I'm pretty sure I know what my mom is going to want, even though it wasn't even on the right list (geez, mom, you are so embarrassing), but I should probably ask again, and I still have to pay off my haiku-scoring hitwoman, so stay tuned for the anticipated distribution of the fabulous prizes! I guess this means Vik gets to extend his ruthless domination as Bac-Log's patron saint for a little longer...

Again, if you've made it this far, thank you all SO much for making this such an awesome and fun success. Also, you are probably hungry.

Ok, I think I've molested your scroll bar enough for the next hour or so.

UPDATE: Courtney just made me realize that fielding complaints is actually a totally fun idea. If you have any complaints or disputes, please leave them in the comments. It's like a food fight with 15% less cottage cheese in my hair!