IMPORTANT MESSAGE:

Hey, does anyone have a bear-shaped honey container that is empty, or almost empty, or contains unsuitable honey for your honey needs? If so, can I have it? It's for a homework assignment in my bear-shaped honey container class in container school.



Please? If I fail this class I'll have to go back to my unpaid salt mining internship. I'll trade you some size-4 coffee filters, or a potato.

Prepare for the awesoming

Okay gang,

This is now my 6th attempt at deploying Bac-log Novel Idea Contest CHALLENGE 2008™. The other 5 attempts ended up not making any sense. THIS BODES WELL FOR MY NOVEL.

Here's the deal: NaNoWriMo starts tomorrow. I am going to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. This is going to be hard, but you've all seen my top-notch pointless rambling skillz. I think I can do this.

The primary reason that I am invoking the Bac-log Novel Idea Contest CHALLENGE 2008™ is because I am a junkie for reader participation and encouragement. However, I think the reason that I have had trouble getting it set up is that I'm not actually sure how Bac-log Novel Idea Contest CHALLENGE 2008™ should work. If I bribe you all for ideas with fabulous prizes, would you actually want to wade through 175 pages of crap to see me butcher your innocent and well-meaning gem of inspiration? Probably not. And what's the point of carefully crafting an amazing story idea when you don't get to see it implemented, and all you get from your effort is endless glory or ice cream or jumping high-fives?

So I think it's going to work like this: Throughout the entire month, If you have an idea that you think I would like, please leave it in the comments of this post and I will reward you with a homemade postcard featuring either a recipe or a haiku or a recipe in haiku form. (You may also email or tell me in person, but you will not get the postcard. SPECIAL OFFER: the postcard may also be used as a coupon for one free game of Monopoly with me and Kyle. You will be the banker. Kyle and I will be drunk. Starcraft may be substituted for Monopoly. If Kyle is not available, Vik may be substituted for Kyle. We could also play Yahtzee. You will provide the Yahtzee. Scrabble will not be tolerated).

Anyway, IF I decide to use your little pearl of idea-ness in some way in my story, I will also reward you with a Bac-Log Brand™ Original Recipe fabulous prize. Prize will be determined by a poll of Bac-Log readers. (With the exception of constantly subjecting you all to my inflexible and uncontested point of view, Bac-Log is all about democracy). IN ADDITION to the aforementioned fabulous prize, I will also post an excerpt or description of how your idea was used so that you may cuddle with the resulting glory.

What qualifies as an idea, you might ask? Well, check out this sparkling gem that Kevin Bacon just selflessly offered to the cause:

I once told someone to write me a story based around a guy who works in a photo place and develops photos all day long. You can have that one if you want.

Hahaha, I seriously have no idea why I find this so funny. THESE ARE HOW LOW MY STANDARDS ARE. Here are some more ideas that I am going to make up on the spot to make you feel better about your own:

• Time traveling coffee cup finds love
• Time traveling toaster finds love
• Title: Dr Awesome's False Advertising Lawsuit
• Time traveling Barry Manilow finds Mani-love
• Somebody trips a lot
• Everyone is a robot except for one guy!!!!
• Can your story have unicorns or ferrets pls? thanx
• Every character is a mystery-solving butler
  
• Sexy international super-spies have a wacky house party and someone dies and they have to pretend they are still alive to win a large inheritance and also there is a talking dog.
• Jane Austin fan fiction
• Jane Austin fan fiction but everyone is a robot except for one guy!!!
• Sexy lazy blogger reveals himself as a superhero and fights crime and solves mysteries and throws crazy house parties.
• Time traveling food processor finds love.
• A list of the last 50,000 things I ate.
• Maintenance program engineer for major aerospace and defense corporation that rhymes exactly with "Boeing" uses his knowledge of airplane maintenance programs and fancy tea to solve mysteries.
• It is the 80s and the story takes place entirely on yachts.

You guys can do better than that! (And you will, or I will keep bugging you). GET TO IT.

Please?

oh yeah... blogging

If you are wondering why I haven't posted anything since last Wednesday it is probably because of something you did. Way to ruin it for everyone.

Also I forgot.

But don't worry-- here is the exhaustive list of what happened in the last week:

• I ate a whole bunch of borscht.

Blogging is hard*.

You know what I think Bac-log needs right now (besides content)? Another contest! Everyone put your thinking hats and thinking scarves and thinking fingerless gloves on, because I feel a Contest Idea Contest coming on!

*super hard

What's the baby using?

25? What? Who can tell me what the hell is going on with this:

http://whatsthebabyusing.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xz3iDmJ6JQs
http://www.funadvice.com/q/what_s_the_baby_using
http://www.flickr.com/photos/paulandstorm/2785542859/in/photostream/
http://churchfun.com/2008/08/21/whats-the-baby-using-25/
http://apelad.blogspot.com/2008/09/laugh-out-loud-cats-25.html

Seriously, it is too early in the day for me to be freaking out. Usually I wait until there are more people around.

Desperate Plea For Help: SummeRun Edition

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I was thinking (not really) the other day (no) about how sad it is (true) that I haven't leveraged the most important blog in the history of time into giant piles of cash to sleep on instead of my nest of leaves and wadded-up newspaper (half true). But then I was visited by the Spirits of Giving last night, dressed in matching 16oz Rainier beer costumes, who took me on a Dicken's Christmas Carol-esque time-travel adventure to inspire me to use my awe-inspiring blogging power for the greater good instead of just free bedding. They also tried to explain that I probably shouldn't have laughed so much at the kid who bit it on his bike while trying to do a victory wheelie after yelling at his sister the other day, but there are some things you just can't change about people.

ANYWAY, next month I will be running a 5K for the 2008 Swedish SummeRun which benefits the Marsha Rivkin Center for Ovarian Cancer Research. My team, the Hand State Warriors, are trying to raise $150 each for this cause. The SummeRun people are really on top of this whole fundraising thing, and they provide participants with the means to passive-aggressively hit their friends up for money via a personalized website. (Mine is available here HINT HINT). I was a little disappointed that I didn't have more customization opportunity on the web page, because I thought an animated dancing bacon background would be pretty sweet on a health-related charity run website, but sometimes you just have to take what life gives you.

After I set up my website, I realized that THIS was the perfect opportunity to finally tap the amazing dollar potential of the Bac-Log! money machine- to create bloodthirsty hordes of cash to mercilessly burn and pillage my $150 SummeRun goal! But how? I aggregated a quick mental profile of all 2 Bac-Log! readers (hi Mom!) and quickly determined the obvious course of action: Bribery. (Blackmail was a close 2nd, followed distantly by shameless pandering).

Bac-Log! is no stranger to bribery, although I find it vaguely disconcerting that the Final Four round of our Babe Rally Team Name CHALLENGE was stocked solely with my own contributions. (At this very moment, a crack team of Bac-Log! lawyers is trying to determine if this means Jason is legally obligated to wash my car). I guess I'm just that good. THIS time, however, I promise I'll give you all a chance by not participating myself.

Most (all) of you have been reading this post as "blah blah blah BRIBERY blah blah", but it is time to pay attention again, for BEHOLD: brace yourself for X-TREME HAIKU CHARITY CHALLENGE 2008™!!

Here's how it works:

• Go to my donation website [here].
• Donate whatever amount you feel comfortable with. Even $1 helps. You will not be judged (except by myself, everyone else who visits the site after you, and whoever they might tell. Also, God).
• Sign my guestbook with an awesome haiku!
• The best haiku, determined by a selection process which I haven't come up with yet, will win fabulous prizes.

And here are your required bribe payments:

The first person to leave a haiku, regardless of quality, will win THEIR CHOICE of the following fabulous prizes:

• Ice cream
• A broken solar-powered garden light that I dug out of a river
• Endless glory
• Uncomfortably frank and unqualified opinions about your clothing

The ULTIMATE WINNER of BESTEST HAIKU award will win THEIR CHOICE of the following fabulous prizes:

• A backstage pass to the [spoiler alert] forthcoming unveiling of Baco 2.0, where you will be showered in fame and nitrates. In the future, when you tell people you were actually there, they will worship you.
• A mixed CD of early-90s Midwestern Emo music.
• A digital picture of yourself pasted onto a fantasy background of my choice using Microsoft Paint.
• Pet naming advice [disclaimer: Pet name will be "Dr. Archibald Peanut Catbutt Worthington Turtlepants, Esquire", regardless of species]
• Election as the Patron Saint of Bac-Log! [must provide classy headshot, preferably with chin resting on fist]

You are probably stunned by the quality of prizes so I will give you a moment to recover.

[pause]

Now GET HAIKUING! And think; not only will you be in the running for the aforementioned fabulous prizes, you will also be supporting valuable cancer research! Resisting the tag-team bribing power of Bac-Log AND Karma? Impossible!!

SPECIAL OFFER: Oh, and for ADDITIONAL KARMA BRIBES, available for no extra charge, tell all of your friends and financially solvent hyper-intelligent pet monkeys about X-TREME HAIKU CHARITY CHALLENGE 2008™!!

Go go go!

NEW FEATURE: Desperate plea for help

As many of you know, next month Vik, Kyle H, Jason and I will be participating in the most amazing event of all time; the BABE Rally. The short story for those who we haven't gushed on and on about this to yet is that the BABE Rally (Big Apple to Big Easy) is a beater car trip from New York to New Orleans in a car that costs less than $250. Since we live in Seattle, this will also require driving our sweet $1 1987 Honda Civic to New York first. All in all we expect nothing less of this experience than a spectacular adventure full of non-stop mirth, merriment, and self-fulfillment.

So far everything is going rather well except for one important detail (two, if you count the car not running yet); we don't have a team name. You would think that among the four of us we would be able to come up with something clever that we all agree on, but we've been "trying" for months with no success. I think the primary problem is that we are sort of obsessed with our name being the perfect mixture of wit and understated cleverness that we have created a standard to which we will never ourselves be able to meet. Whereas I'm sure that we have many skills between the four of us (like eating and making snarky comments), naming things is apparently not one of them.

You are probably thinking, "what a tragic situation! Is there anything I can do to help?" Yes there is, and thank you for your concern. Here's what you can do:

• Think of awesome teams names (you can look at other team names for inspiration)
• Post your awesome team names in the comments
• Pass along this desperate plea to others

Some [read: ALL] of you are probably thinking, "what's in it for me? As a team-naming mercenary, I demand payment for my services." Check out this awesome suite of amazing prizes that could be yours upon our selection of your team name:

• Warm fuzzy feeling which you should probably get checked out
• A homemade tee-shirt featuring original art inspired by your team name
• Jason will wash your car or bicycle*
• Our friendship [note: friendship awarded retroactively only]
• You will achieve fame as our team's "Patron Saint", unless there is a more obviously applicable patron saint in which case you will receive a consolation prize of a bag of fake gold. [note: pending availability, "fake gold" may be substituted by "Oreos" and "bag" may be substituted by "partial bag"]
  

Perhaps you are shy or worried that your team-name ideas are not good enough. To assuage these fears, you can be assured that your suggestions will be better than my only to-date contribution of "Dream Unicorn Sparkle Sparkle Squad". If you are worried that we will make fun of your ideas, you may rest assured that yes, we will make fun of your ideas, but it will probably not be to your face and may only involve snickering.

Let's get us a team name!

*Not confirmed