We live in an age of forgetting.
contest
Peeps Diorama Contest 2010
Mar 2nd
The Washington Post’s Peep Diorama Contest is upon us. The deadline was tonight (Monday 11:59 pm.). I decided at the last minute to enter the contest. Here are the ideas I was thinking of:
1. The Blob. A Jello mold with Peeps stuck inside it, and a Peep in the clutches of one of The Blob’s two tentacles.
2. Peepo Jima. The raising of the American Flag on Iwo Jima with Peeps.
3. Peep Roulette. A take-off of Chat Roulette, the Internet service that randomly connects to another stranger with a web cam. The diorama would have been a Peep sitting in a chair in front of his computer with his pants down.
After deliberating for a while, I felt that all of these ideas were too derivative and didn’t fully express my creative powers . So I scrapped them all, brainstormed for a few hours, and finally came up with this submission. I can’t say it’s a guaranteed winner, but I’m pretty confident I’m in the running for the top 3.
We Have a Winner
Feb 23rd
The “I Am So Nice” contest is over. We have a winner: Ray, with his supremely confident guess of “SOCK!” Here is the exciting back story: it was a dark dress sock that got mixed up with my laundry (the “something most of us do at least once a week” part of the clue). I thank you all for not guessing toilet paper.
As all Pancake City prizes are directly related to how far I have to travel to deliver it, Ray’s prize may end up being half-decent as he lives one block from me. Dare I say…two bottles of beer?
Seriously, thanks to everyone who entered a guess, silly or not. If you like these contests, I’ll run more in the future.
Contest Update
Feb 23rd
Bart gets bonus points for knowing how I think when he guessed the present I gave my roommate is a piece of paper that I crumbled in a ball. The only thing I would do differently in real-life is double wrap it. Helps builds the suspense (and future disappointment!)
The guess is wrong though. This is an actual physical object. A few more clues:
* It is something my roommate owns and left behind somewhere.
* It comes in different colors, typically a few different colors for men, many different colors for women.
If no one guesses it or bothers to guess again, my next clue will be “IT’S A [answer].” So if you subscribe to the RSS feed through Google Reader or another feed reader, you will have a distinct advantage.
“I Am So Nice”: Pancake City Contest
Feb 20th
I gave my roommate a gift today. Just for being him.
I guess I don’t have a good reputation because before he opened it, he said “It’s probably a mouse.” Ouch! You make one lapse in judgment and the whole world sentences you to life imprisonment in the Bad Guy jail.
What is it? That’s the contest. Whoever guesses what’s inside (or gets close enough) will win a prize. The prize’s quality will be slightly better than what’s in this package.
Two clues: the content(s) is releated to something most of us do at least once a week. The package is lightweight. If no one gets close, I’ll give more clues. Good luck!
Contest Winner
Nov 10th
We have a winner of the latest crappy Pancake City contest. Obama won with 52.6% of the popular vote. This total may shift by a few tenths of a percent in the next few weeks as provisional and absentee ballots are counted, but this is close enough. If someone else’s guess becomes more accurate by the final tally, I’ll send a prize to that person too.
The person who came closest to guessing the winner with 52.8% is…ME!
Ha ha! No one gets a prize now! Well, I get a prize. My prize is not having to give anyone any of my stuff. HEE HEE HEE HEE. Hey, remember the rule I made about how employees of Pancake City were not eligible to enter the contest? Neither do I! Contest law is for llamas and losers.
Okay, I can’t win my own contest. The real winner with 52.9% is Michael the G, who I thought was making a Joe the Plumber joke with his name, but his email address has “mtg” in it, so either he registered a new email address right after the Joe the Plumber hoopla or John McCain ripped him off.
Mike, I’ll try contacting you by email. If I can’t reach you, you can email your address to monkey[dot]on[dot]keyboard[at]gmail[dot].com. Thanks everyone who entered.
Last-Minute Election Contest
Nov 3rd
Post a comment with who you think will win, the popular vote percentage of the winner, and as a tie-breaker, the time in the evening that the first network will call the election for the winner (EST).
The prize is yet to be determined, but I have to be frank, it will probably be exceedingly crappy. The last contest I did was years ago, two people entered, and the winner got a doodle I hastily sketched.
I will likely pick the prize after getting drunk one night, grabbing something at random from my room and stuffing it in an envelope. If you live outside the U.S., the prize will be delivered electronically. I am a cheap man.
My own guess: Obama, 52.8%, 8:15 p.m.
And the winner is…
Feb 16th
It appears that I have greatly overestimated the nerdiness of my friends and other readers of this blog. The Pancake City “Name the Somewhat Obscure Sci-Fi Show” contest has ended without a single entry.
And let me indulge in the use of italics some more. “Name the Somewhat Obscure Sci-Fi Show”. This wasn’t “Space: Above & Beyond” or anything. You think someone would have at least tossed me a “Babylon 5″ or a “Stargate: SG-1″, for crying out loud, like Captain Picard* did in Episode 137 (“There are four lights!”).
Sheesh. I had more people apply to my fake contest, “Post If You’re a Child Molester,” that I ran as a sting with the police.
And you know when I said the winner would get, “A yet-to-be-determined** but likely crappy prize”? I lied. The prize was completely determined and it was fucking awesome.
You know what else is fucking awesome? The show in question, whose aforementioned awesomeness is so high that it requires a separate post for the singing of its praises. An encomium will come soon.
* Hey, spell check. You red squiggle my main man again and I’ll cut you.
** Actually, I wrote “detrimed”. I would have spell checked it, but my previous spell checker put a red squiggle under Sisko, there was a knife nearby and…well, we all do things we’re not proud of.
Contest! Old content! There is only one letter different between contest and content!
Feb 11th
I have difficultly concentrating on more than one writing project at a time. I’ve been focusing on writing comedy sketches for the past week, and every time I sit down to write a blog post I get wrapped up in the quite realistic worry that I will get distracted from my goal and have trouble regaining focus.
That’s reason #1 for the sparse posts recently (or maybe they just feel sparse in comparison to my non-blog writing). Reason #2 is NetFlix. Reason #2.1: I joined NetFlix to watch episodes of the Best Sci-Fi Show You’ve Probably Never Heard About. Yes, I could just tell you the name of the show, but that would kill the suspense and this Pancake City contest.
A yet-to-be-determined but likely crappy prize for the first person to post the name of the show in the comments. Obviously, if I had a conversation with you in the last two weeks where I said something like “Hey, I found out about this really awesome Sci-Fi show called…” you are disqualified. But if you are miffed, I will create a special contest just for youse.
And…if you first visited this site in the last six months or less, you probably haven’t read this. It’s a column I wrote, the link to which got lost when I switched templates and may forever remain loss because I am Lazy.
******
Lying About Robots College
I called Montgomery College’s bookstore, located in Maryland, a few days ago. The voicemail rattled off a list of choices. Just as I was about to press ’2′ and miss the opportunity of a lifetime, I heard,
“Press 0 to speak to an automated attendant.”
Automated attendant? A robot! The future is here! I almost ejaculated over my collection of Issac Asimov books. 0, 0, 0!
“There is no automated attendant this time.”
Hold on a minute. Now, I don’t know a lot about robots. But I do know that they work 23/7, with an hour to lube them and to check that they haven’t gone crazy.
Do you see what MC is doing? They’re posing regular employees as robots and, we can deduce, forcing them to talk in stilted voices and wave their arms in a worried manner.
That’s wrong for robots, and even more wrong for non-robots. It’s also something I cannot watch while sitting idly by.
“
Subject: 01000001001000000110001101101111011011010111
00000110110001100001011010010110111001110100
[translate]
Dear Ms. Tammy Shawver,
I recently called your bookstore and was shocked, surprised, saddened, chagrined, flummoxed, and anti-delighted to find that you tease customers with the siren’s call of the future but do not indeed deliver.
I am of course talking about your claim to “Press 0 to speak to an automated attendant”, i.e. a robot. Yet when I pressed 0–repeatedly–the promised robot was not to be found.
I ask you, where is the robot? Where is Tibor, Robby, R2D2, Data, Number 5, Crow T., Gorog, or Vicki? Where is the rigid thinking, the tender humanity? The beeps, the boops, and most of all, the blips.
This is the moment to define yourself. Are you Montgomery College, or Lying About Robots College? Do you have a B.S. in engineering, or a B.A. in BS? Do you have a master’s degree in truth, or an honorary doctorate in deception?
Please employ real robots in your store as soon as possible. Robots are our friends and we should not deny them a place in our society. I AM NOT A NUT. Nuts don’t realize the possibility that they are nuts.
Sincerely,
Cashew Johnson
Contest Update Update
Sep 10th
Looks like I goofed. My Canadian cousin Erfan didn’t win the 9/11 contest. Evan R. did. Evan is currently a grad student living in Brooklyn and is A FULL-BLODDED AMERICAN! U.S.A! U.S.A!
The lesson of this new result is obvious: Canada is populated by a bunch of pussies.
America rocks!
9/11 Contest Winner
Sep 8th
I finally counted the references to 9/11 in Bush’s acceptance speech. He made six references, including one particularly good one where he connects Saddam Hussein to 9/11. The winner: my Canadian cousin Erfan, who guessed eight. That’s right: Canadian. I’m absolutely shocked that a Canadian knows more about American politics than we do. Yup. Shocked.
The references are in the comments. Erfan, I’ll email your present in a few days. (Canadians have email, right?)
Last Minute Contest
Sep 2nd
How many time will President Bush refer to Sept. 11th in his nomination acceptance speech tonight? Closest guess gets a prize. You can submit a guess up to tomorrow morning (as awesome as any prize from Pancake City is, I’m sure that the moral fiber of Pancake City readers is so strong that no one will cheat by searching the transcript the next day for “9/11″, “September 11th” and “my bestest day ever”).
Pancake City Contest
Jun 23rd
During an interview with NPR today, Clinton was asked if he thought the U.S. intelligence bureaus should be restructured so they came under one, overarching department. Clinton gave a qualified yes. He said it would be a good idea on the condition that the restructuring did not create an atmosphere where homogeneous opinions would be encouraged and dissenting views suppressed.
Clinton’s answer gave me an idea for another sporadic Pancake City contest. The contest: the first person to hear President Bush say a four syllable word gets a prize.
The rules:
1. The word must be four or more syllables.
2. Compound words and proper names are not valid (e.g. “evil-doers,” “Condoleezza”).
3. The word must have as many syllables as it is supposed to have.
4. Excluded words: all forms of terrorist and intelligence (e.g. “terrorisms,” “intelligenced”)
The first person to post the word, preferably with the context and time heard, wins a yet-to-be determined prize. Something small but personalized. The contest end date is whenever this post leaves the main page, approximately a week from now.
Good luck and happy hunting.
Mystery Beard Revealed
Feb 12th
I don’t know if anyone cares at this point, but I am finally revealing the identity of our mysterious, prickly stranger (image scaled down). Since no one got the answer right, or got even close, or even tried, the can of salmon will be poured into the gutter. The pouring will send it on a long journey through a maze of pipes, grinders, and tubes that will eventually return the unlucky salmon to its natural home, and possibly our drinking water.
Next contest: Celebrity Dental Records.
The Final Lap of Mystery Beard
Feb 10th
This is the last Mystery Beard clue, but it’s a good one. This actor had a role in Blazing Saddles.
I will reveal the secret in a day or two.
Clue #4
Feb 6th
I have been coy about revealing too much information about our celebrity beard. Perhaps too coy, for no one has been close enough for me to remove the can of salmon and caress it, like one would do to a dying dog. So while this next clue may give too much information, I feel that it is necessary.
Clue #4: Clue #1 is a complete lie.
Keep on guessin’! Remember, a can of fish is at stake (photo coming).
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