Anybody else notice that half the template seems to be missing?
Wasn't me...
Option B is the overwhelming favorite with ~6 votes. Write in candidate E had ~2 votes and loathsome option D finished third with a single vote.
Victor and Phin will spend the year in an unholy embrace at second place on the 2005 winner's board.
Speach! Speach!
(Updated below the fold)
11 people guessed the artist.
(Click here to see it in all its majesty.)
Only Pixy Misa got it right. That's right folks, this spectacular landscape was drawn by yours truly. The exceptionally sad part is that I wasn't attempting to draw like a kid. That's about the best artwork you should ever safely expect from me. My Mom is an artist and Bacon is showing definite signs of the same but this trait has definitely skipped a generation.
Pixy wins the whole ball of wax and takes a commanding lead in the early Points season.
I've put back the submit button on the individual archive pages. You'll no longer have to preview a comment before submitting.
You may all thank the great and powerful Pixy Misa, whose recent anti-spam activities have made this possible. Also, the automatic comment closer for old posts helped a lot.
A problem has been pointed out in the season finale post. Victor is in there twice. Once is way up at the top and the other is way down there at the bottom. If the two scores are combined it brings Victor up from 4th place into a tie for second place. What's up with this? Several theories abound:
- The Snooze Points™ database was hopelessly corrupted during a system crash caused by the world renown chess battle between the Munuviana servers and Big Blue.
- Commies, Islamic fundamentalists and/or PETA hacked the list and added another entry for Victor near the bottom (where it wouldn't be noticed for several days after posting) to sow discord in the hopes they can use this confusion to their unholy advantage.
- At some time during the year Jim screwed up the list. When he put in a new score for Victor he failed to combine it with Victor's existing points, creating instead a second entry.
- At some time during the year Jim screwed up the list. When he put in a new score for Victor he added the new tally but failed to remove the original score, thereby creating instead a second entry.
An in depth investigation shows that the world renown chess battle between the Munuviana servers and Big Blue never happened. Big Blue chickened out. Additionally it was found that neither commies, Islamic fundamentalists nor PETA have the mad hak3r skillz required to pierce Snoozecurity. We are left with only two viable theories and no way to determine which one is correct. Victor should be in either 2nd place or 4th place for the 2005 season and we have no deductive method of figuring out which.
So we'll vote on it! Yeah, voting. Nothing pisses off Commies, Islamic fundamentalists and PETArists like good old fashioned democracy. Cast your vote for one of the following:
A) Victor ties for 2nd place. Phin is cast off the legacy board among jeers and cheers. Phin vows revenge upon all things Pointy in general and Victor in particular.B) Victor ties for 2nd place. Phin stays on the legacy board which is increased to four spots this year in a sop to Phin.
C) Victor stays in 4th place. Victor vows revenge upon all things Pointy in general and every person who voted for this option in particular.
D) Victor stays in 4th place. Victor joins the legacy board which is increased to four spots this year in a sop to Victor.
Lacking an armed secret police force to drag citizens to the polls we'll bribe folks instead. One point for each civic minded voter. Chicago residents, per tradition, may vote multiple times*.
* Though only one will count. Hah!
It's been a long, productive, occassionally frightening year. Season leader dafyd was upset late in the game by a very determined Tiffani. One must wonder how the final tally might have been different if he were properly engaged in the last quote contest instead of doing such pedantic things as working. Priorities, Dafyd! Priorities!
It was a tight race for the runner up spots as well. phin narrowly edged out Victor for the #3 spot thanks to being one of only three people to get the final contest of the season (Paul's Sham/Share) correct. It just goes to show that goldfish are better pets than rats, though only marginally.
The three top finishers get pride of place on the leader board for the entirety of the 2006 season. First prize winner Tiffani gets a special mystery gift of humorous nature and dubious value.
Here are the final results of 2005:
(45) Tiffani
(42) dafyd
(40) phin
(39) Victor
(28) diamond dave
(23) Clancy
(19) Holly
(17) Rob
(16) Paul, shank
(15) Tommy
(12) Kenny, Helen, vw bug, Simon
(11) Jen
(10) Spirit Fingers, Frick, Denise, Jeff
(9) LeeAnn, pylorns, The Lovely Brat Wife
(7) Rob P, Garret, Boudicca
(6) Kathleen, MojoMark, Random Penseur
(5) Craig, Kev, DeAnna, Machelle, Mo Mo, Oorgo, Margi
(4) Jeremy, Harvey, Contagion, Stephen
(3) Matt, Victor, Timmer, Susie, Trey
(2) Mike the Marine, Ryan, Squire Trelane, Elyse, 8ZERO8, Wendy, Me
(1) Jeremy, Ilyka, knpepper, Daniel, Rudy, el Robbo, Tony, Tim Adamec, Rachel Ann
Points are awarded for the weird habits submitted to this post.
Winner (5 points): Jennifer
Sucking on giant cow udders.
Don't knock it 'til you've tried it.
First runner up (4 points, +1 for existing habit): diamond dave
Taking the pants off completely when doing the No. 2.
As some famous person once said "Would they be of silk still should these fetters chafe and bind". Last thing I need while sitting on the can is binding, I tell you what.
Second runner up (3 points): phin
Dressing up in Red Panties and parading around the office.
What's the normal color - blue?
Third runner up (2 points, +1 for existing habit): Victor
You have sex with your wife on a regular basis.
It's only "weird" if the barn fowl protests.
Honorable mention (1 point): Tiffani
Walking around with your shirt off.
I'm seldom without a shirt. Quite often I'm without pants but after the third time the ASPCA tried to "bag" me I made it a habit to always wear a shirt.
Victor here, announcing that several stealth points went unclaimed last year. Someone should tell you about them and it may as well be me because I offered them to y'all.
To be honest, the first point may or may not have qualified for stealth points. I sent Jim a note and he never replied, but I'll mention it here as a just-in-case. It was just last month, when my incredibly awesome caption won Jim's caption contest. In case you've forgotten, it was Fluffy the Hutt was not at *all* pleased when Han Solo had to dump the load of Triskelian Mice he was smuggling.
I'll get the obvious out of the way first: It was not the Star Wars references. Jim has stated that painfully obvious references, such as Monty Python, are not eligible for Snooze Points, and I suspect references to characters from Star Wars would qualify as painfully obvious. However, read it carefully...does anyone not remember Star Trek? Particularly hot alien babes? Particularly the blue-haired drill-Thrall hot alien babe Shana from The Gamesters of Triskelion? Anyway, "Triskelian Mice" got their name from this episode of Star Trek; I used "triskelian" because I needed an alien-sounding name.
(For the record, mice, rats, squirrels, rabbits, nor any other form of rodent figure in this episode not one bit.)
There was one other stealth point that could have been awarded. Since this was originally posted in October, you would have received one point for finding it, one point for finding it twenty-four hours after it was posted, and I would really have pressured Jim into awarding a third point if you had it right. See, when I told Jim about it, I was wrong.
Back in October, I titled a post His only crime was being born delicious! in reference to Phin smoking Jim's mascot. For some bizarre reason, I thought I got that phrase from a Simpson episode--the one with Pinchy the lobster--and that's what I told Jim.
A few weeks ago, that phrase was thrown in my face while I was re-watching one of my favorite Mystery Science Theater 3000, Manos: The Hands of Fate, when Crow T. Robot uttered that phrase during the invention exchange (The Chocolate Bunny Guillotine).
I would have accepted MST3K or Manos for that answer...after having the shock of reading it wake me up and get me to Google that phrase to make sure I was wrong.
So, there you go. Had Dafyd googled all of my post titles, he would have found that and ended up tied with Tiffani for Grand Snooze Points Champion of 2005. As it is, Tiffani stands highest on the podium, where she belongs.
Remember this SnoozePoints™ post from back in June? It's the one where y'all told me what presents you'd like if I won the lottery. I've kept it open pending my buying an actual lottery ticket. I've come to the conclusion that if I haven't purchased a lottery ticket in five and a half months it is pretty unlikely that I'll buy one in the next two weeks. Therefore I say screw the lottery and award the points!
There are seven winners in this contest: two each in three categories (3 points for winner, 1 for the also ran runner up) and the overall best (6 points). Without further ado, here they are:
Category: Real Presents
Winner, RP with a puppy.
Runner up, Rachel Ann with books. Lots of books.
Category: Humorous Gifts
Winner, Phin with porn sheep, evil clown and casual wear.
Runner up, Jeff with a baby buffalo for companionship and sustenance.
Category: Alcohol Related
Winner, Margi with tickets to Atlanta and beer.
Runner up, Simon with beer company stock.
The overall, number one winner
This was a runaway (bouncing) victory. Tiffani, with a boob job.
Congratulations all! With the SnoozePoints™ season coming to a close we've got quite a bit of movement on the back stretch. I'm considering accepting bribes.
Just used this handy little utility to put up shank's email addy* in spamproofed format. It's over there on the sidebar in the "Authors" section now.
If you want to put your email address out there for people to use but hide it from spambots I strongly recommend running it through an encoder first. This one is the best that I've found.
* Everybody should send him a happy greeting.
Right now.
Really.
Copy me on it and I'll give you a Snooze Point**.
** Offer limited to one point per person. Void where prohibited by law. Odds of winning are approximately 1 to 1. Offer expires when shank threatens me with bodily harm.
Well, not quite exactly the same. Snooze Button Dreams is now a multi-author blog. Shank and Paul are joining up as SBDs co-hosts. Give them both a warm Snoozy welcome!
Yay!
Okay then, let's take care of the questions:
Q: Why the multi-author thing?
A: I've been toying with the idea for quite some time. In typical form I procrastinated for months before finally deciding I had to shit or get off the pot. I decided to shit.
Q: But why?
A: A bunch of reasons. First and foremost is you, my lovely reader. It is incredibly flattering that I get hundreds of hits a day even when I post once a week like I have been lately. You deserve better than a post a week. Second, I think it's the way of the future. The incredible plethora of blogs out there means that individual blogs are getting less and less attention. By teaming up with other authors who have similar tastes this blog will hit higher on the attentionometer. Third, I view having direct authoritative input into the blog as a good thing. More ideas, hopefully better ones, will help SBD grow into its maturity. And beyond!
Q: Why Paul?
A: We fit well together. We have a similar sense of humor, compatible writing styles, and work well together. In fact, we work well enough together to co-author shorts. Remember Protomonkey?
Q: Why shank?
A: Mostly the death threats. He knows where I live.
Q: No, really.
A: Pretty much the same as with Paul. I've known him for a long time from his comments around the neighborhood and from his own blogs. He cracks my shit up. He's also able to go from poop humor to delicate insight in a single post. You gotta love that.
Q: So is this really a multi-person blog or are you just letting them post here?
A: It's really a multi-person blog now. Majority rules and all that happy stuff.
Q: What about my points?!
A: Points continue. shank and Paul will be handing them out too, if they want.
Q: Are you tossing the Snooze Crew™?
A: Nope. The Snooze Crew™ is a highly valued part of the site. Only now, any of three will be able to tap their mad blog skillz when needed.
Q: Can I join up too?
A: Nope. Not right now anyway. We need to get through the transition period and get comfy with managing a group blog before we consider taking on any more owners. Paul and shank have been doing it for a while but it's new to me. No big bumps are expected but, as Confucious say: Man who live in glass house should dress in basement.
Q: What the hell does that mean?
A: Nothing really. I was just trying to end this on a humorous note.
Q: You failed miserably.
A: Yeah, I know.
A: Hey! Look over there! Something shiny!
It's time to shake things up a bit. I've got some plans for the Snooze that I'll be implementing shortly. Can anybody guess what they are? I'll toss some points to the first person to nail them.
UPDATE: Phin guessed the big change. SBD will shortly be a multiple author blog. Yay! 5 points for Phin!
There are a couple of smaller changes that will be occuring, generally in support of the resident additions. I'll give a point each for each of the small ones if anybody guesses them by...um...what's today? Wednesday...all day meeting again...okay, we'll make the deadline Thursday morning my time. Guess either the small, yet important, changes to the blog and/or the identities of the new SBD partners and you'll get points.
The end of the year is coming soon...get those points while you can!
I haven't been posting much. The rather massive project I previously mentioned (the one that went nuclear) is demanding seriously large chuncks of my free time. Enough chunks where I've fallen behind on my blogreading by about 300 posts and haven't put out anything worthwhile here since my promotion came through.
So let's make it official - I'm on blog hiatus until things calm down and I get some of my free time back. For those of you who are calendar oriented that will be Aug 23 at the earliest (as the presentation to senior management is Aug 22).
In the meantime, anybody who has author rights here (hello, Snooze Crew™) is encouraged to post. It's a shame to let this prime real estate lie fallow.
And I'll leave you with this little gem:
Burger: Girls don't have penises.Lovely Wife: That's true. What do they have instead?
Burger: Belly buttons!
...but I call it an opportunity to hand out some Snooze Points. I've made three changes at my own neglected blog, Publius & Co.. If you can tell me what the changes are, in the comments here at SBD, you will receive one Snooze Point for each change you point out.
Trey wants to move to our neighborhood. Being inclined to rationality he's realized that Wordpress is icky and that Munuvians kick it old school. Heading to mucountry is a no-brainer once you nail down those two facts.
Anywho...head on over to his nomination thread and chime in.
I last checked any of my blog stats, referrals, etc. I check the unique visitors for Zero Intelligence every 3 months or so in order to keep my BlogAds profile current but I have no reason to do anything similar for SBD. Every once in whenever I get an email from SiteMeter that says how many visitors I'm getting here but I can't remember the last time I bothered to open it. I haven't joined a carnival in forever.
I used to be a massive traffic whore and lived or died by my site stats. What's up here?
I'm not disaffected, I just don't care. I could be down to 50 visitors a day and it wouldn't bother me as long as they were the regular readers and friends I've made over the past year or two.
I'm in a happy place, blogwise, and that's pretty cool.
GreenZap, the alternative to PayPal, is set to launch on June 1. I think this is just too cool. I'm all about better capitalism through competition and until now PayPal was all alone in the ball park.
If you sign up for an account now you'll get a starting balance of $25. If you sign up through the link above I'll get a $5 signing bonus. There's no mention of if/when the $25 new account thing will go away but I expect it will shrink down to $5 or so at or around the launch. I'd much rather you get $25 than $5 so sign up now!
Welcome to the First Whenever Snooze Crew™ Awards. These awards recognize distinguished service in the line of duty with a Snooze Point (how come there's no ™ for Snooze Points?) for the best post in each category. Without further ado, here's the winners:
Best "Jokin Around" post goes to vw bug for this bit of Tasteless humor.
Best "News & Notes" article is awarded to Diamond Dave for You Have Been Chosen.
The best "Snooze Button Dreams" post was a steal by Phin with A memo from the boss
Post that should have been left in the "Deferred" category goes to Rob P for With my apologies.
Best "Match That Quote" post goes to Victor for Match that quote, special Snooze Crew edition!
Best True Stories post (even though nobody shared. you bastards.) is awarded to Denise for The Great Lengths One Will Go To.
And in the special non-category categories the winners are:
Diamond Dave for "Best Suck-up" post with his entry SBD's Greatest Hits (according to Jim's fans).
"Best Use of Non-sexual Imagery in a Sexual Context" goes to Phin for It's travel time. Alternately, this could have won for "Greatest failure of a trackback party in the history of the blogosphere".
Last, and most certainly least, is the "Best Post Poking Fun at Jim", which is awarded to Phin for A letter home from Jim.
Thank you and good night!
PS - The Snooze Crew™ roll of honor has been preserved in the sidebar blogroll. Yay!
Damn, what a mess! Rodent droppings under the blogroll, passed out gay midgets in the archive and I don't know what the hell that stain on the banner is. Sure tastes salty though...
The trip was a lot of fun, details to trickle out in the next couple of days. I've got over a hundred emails in the inbox and 450 posts in the newsreader. Expect my commenting to be light over the next couple of days.
Many thanks to the incomparable Snooze Crew™. I think my readership actually increased over the past week. Hmmm...I might have to do this again in the near future. I'll be handing out some bonus points for the best posts and hosts. Details, as they say, to follow.
In the meantime, any Crewmembers who awarded points please send me a tally and I'll update the list.
Poor Jim. He leaves for a week, gives us the keys to the castle, and all we can do is humiliate him on his own blog.
I think us regulars ought to honor Jim instead by sharing our favorite SBD posts. Posts that make us laugh, cry, think, scream, mutter "whadafuk", spooge, hurl, etc. Who knows, several of us may mention the same posts.
My favorite post went something like this, I think: