Hey Guys!

Nothing new Desert Bus wise to talk about today, instead I have a email from one Stephanie Collins who has put together a charity drive of their very own to help raise money to build a school in Cambodia. Here is her email that I recieved that should give you a good idea of what they are about.

 Hey James,

 We have been really inspired these last couple years by the story of Desert Bus For Hope. Not only are we big believers in charity, but we go to a “geek” school where a greater-than-average amount of a population knows about Penny Arcade, Loading Ready Run, and Desert Bus. It was right up our alley.

 I hope you guys don’t mind, but we modeled a fundraiser similar to Desert Bus for Hope to raise money to build an elementary school in rural Cambodia. It’s called the Worst Video Game Ever Marathon and in order to do it, we had the Game Developers Club at our college create a game even worse than Desert Bus. You can read all about it here: http://www.rit.edu/sg/cambodianschools/video-game-marathon-fundraiser/

 If you think the idea is as cool as we do, would you mind throwing a little something about it up on the Desert Bus for Hope blog? We were so psyched when we saw you guys mention the Battle Against Dysentery fundraiser - more people with the same idea! We could really use the help - right now our donations have us ending at around 6am on Saturday, and we’re afraid that no one will be awake to donate enough to get us to the point where people are awake to donate… does that make sense? Anyway, we’re not asking for money, just a little mention to get the word out there.

Thanks so much, for all you do!

Stephanie Collins
President, Students for Cambodian Schools at RIT

I just want to say thanks to Stephanie for the kind words, and big ups to them for taking charge and making something happen. I want to wish their entire team good luck, I know I will be checking them out during their event and I hope everyone else will do the same! Once again you can find the site HERE.

Hello one and all, and welcome to the first official update of DBFH 2009. Just wanted to pop in and say a couple of things and let you all know what is going on.

This past Saturday, after a couple months of not even thinking so much of a peep about Desert Bus, we took an hour or so to start talking about what we want to see happen this year. While its still entirely to early to give you any specifics this is what you can know.

We will in fact be doing this again. As of right now we should be expecting a late November time period, but of course this could change at any time.

That is pretty much all we have for you right now. I have no idea how many of you people will be seeing this, hopefully you stuck us in your RSS feed last year and this will just show up on your doorstep. So for all those who will be seeing this there are a few other things I quickly want to talk about. 

http://www.desertbuscraftalong.blogspot.com/ - Please go and check out this very cool idea for this years Desert Bus, I won’t bother trying to explain it all here, just click the link and see if its something you would be interested in.

Second thing i want to ask of you guys is this: At the end of Desert Bus last year we asked for ideas to make Desert Bus 3 even bigger and better than Desert Bus 1 and 2. We got some great ideas but I think there are many more where those came from. So if you have any ideas as to what we can do on our end to make Desert Bus 3 the best yet please email james@loadingreadyrun.com. I would also suggest sending it name suggestions for Desert Bus this year. 

So thats it for now folks, and probably all there is going to be for a little while. So just remember we are going to be back this year, bigger and better than before. We look forward to seeing you then.

Hey folks, just a quick note that the guys over at Geeks With Issues are doing a 24-hour run of Oregon Trail TODAY that seems . . . vaguely familiar. It’s called the Battle Against Dysentery, and while their game is obviously way more interesting than ours, I’m giving them major props for supporting the kids and testing their gaming marathon muscle. Also, we here at LRR are NOT fans of dysentery.

Check out their webcast, and toss a few dollars their way if you can! If you were late to the Desert Bus party and really wanted to be involved, this could be your chance to contribute! They may even name a wagoneer after you :).

The last PayPal eChecks are clearing the banks this week, and we can say that we didn’t just come close, but we actually did it! We broke through $70,000!

OFFICIAL FINAL TOTAL: $70,423.79!!

Wow. Just, wow.

Well, not really, but it very nearly killed our 5-year streak of a new video every week. So, to avoid such a disaster, we present this, for your enjoyment:

Amongst all the stellar photoshopping that was submitted for the various milestones, several viewers just outright drew us some awesome stuff that wasn’t pinned down to a given dollar amount. Enjoy it here:

Thanks to everyone who submitted them! If we missed your I’m sorry, we’ll find it while we wade through the inbox.

Well, the driving has finally ended. And nearly $70,000 later, we can all rest well. And rest very well we did, which is why this post is nearly a day late.

More posts to follow over the coming days with more of the fantastic images we’ve accumulated over the past week (it feels so much longer).

But for now, just some of the milestone pics we haven’t posted yet:

Thank you, everyone.

It’s the morning after, and I am still in bed. It was all I could to just to roll over and grab my laptop this morning after six incredible and exhausting days. We met some awesome people, raised a huge amount for charity, and (in the final moments) one of our best friends got engaged. Talk about a fantastic success!

The fact that the site still takes a while to load suggests a large amount of traffic, even though we’ve stopped driving, and I wanted to take a couple minutes to note where we go from here. It will take some time to bring the site fully up to date, but of course we want to post the remaining milestone pictures sent in by our viewers. Those of you who participated in our various contests and activities generated a huge amount of creative content, from insane video game names, to fables to limericks to slash fic, and we want to make sure that is also full archived. We have things to sign and mail out, and probably some more stuff to do that I’m blissfully forgetting at the moment. We expect our donation total to increase slightly over the next week or so as well, as outstanding e-cheques clear and are deposited to Child’s Play.

I also wanted to offer up thanks to everyone who helped us make Desert Bus 2 the staggering success that it was this year. Our current donation toal is over three times that of last year, and that success lies greatly on the shoulders of those who called in to wish us encouragement, who took time out of their days to come down and support us, and who used their personal blogs and creative outlets to promote us. You people are amazing. Thanks also go to the press for covering us, sometimes multiple times, and encouraging readers and viewers to prolong our suffering.

Last but certainly not least, I want to thank those of you who’ve been with us in the chat, and who have watched us over our web streams. All of us pointed to interacting with you as our favourite part of the whole experience, and it’s ultimatele the part that makes Desert Bus so special. Thanks also for the donations; $70,000 is a phenomenal amount to raise, but is more significantly a phenominal amount to donate, and all credit for that goes entirely to you. It wasn’t until I looked at Rosco’s facebook this morning that it really dawned on me how many individuals go in to making an event like this what it is, and I need to reiterate my thanks for the huge amount of support over the last several days.

Please come back and see how things shape up. If you’re interested in spending more time with us, stop by LoadingReadyRun and check out our forums, as that’s where we’ll be until next year rolls around. Also, make sure to add Rosco on facebook to keep up with his future adventures.

Cheers, beers, and thanks again for making Desert Bus a phenominal success!

–Jeremy Petter
Driver, duck wrangler
loadingreadyrun.com | desertbus.org

So late this afternoon we hit the 60,000 dollar mark. Something we didn’t even consider. I can, without doubt say not one of us ever thought we would hit this milestone. But we are here and that means we need some more pictures, which thankfully you guys keep sending.

Why to the even numbers always get the love?