Well guys, I’m announcing this early so you have plenty of times to ask your questions!

The CEO of Hothead Games, Joel DeYoung will be here on Monday at 11:00 PST to drive the bus, give away amazing prizes and answer your questions in a Q&A session – so if you have any burning questions about the video game industry, PA Adventures or Ron Gilbert’s DeathSpank, post them in the comments below!

Some folks in our community have speculated what the “orbiting underground moonbase” that we broadcast from actually looks like. Here are some artistic renderings:

I saw a couple in the chat that aren’t here: if you made one, make sure to send it to stuff@desertbus.org

Yes, we have bested $12 000 in the great drive of love for the children. Incidentally when we passed $7000, we also passed $100 000 raised over the last three years, which is great :). Go Child’s Play! We love you!!

DesertBus has passed $11 000 — and we’re only two hours in. Things look dire for our heroes … and in D&D dire means BIG. James is holding up quite well under the circumstances … give him another nine hours though :).

Congrats, you cruel, cruel people. Thanks to your generosity, our own James Turner now has to play Desert Bus for 12 hours. This is more Desert Bus than I think anyone has ever played before in one sitting (possibly a lie?), and certainly enough to kill a man. You should all be proud.

Thanks to Owen at Kotaku for the fantastic writeup :). Remember, the more coverage we get, the more viewers we can grab, and the more viewers we have, the longer we’ll probably have to go. Let your favourite blog know about Desert Bus :).

We just had a MUCH FASTER internet connection donated at the 11th hour. We are about to make the switch, but be aware: something could go wrong. Stay tuned.

Update: As of right now it looks like we’re going to start a little late; however the new internet connection works, so that’s a plus. We wont be very late in any case (and obviously we’ll honour the actual start time). Sorry guys!

James has just returned from Denver to remind us of the rules for his $10 000 challenge.

I am also publicly stating my $10,000.00 challange. If we can manage to raise $10,000.00 before the event starts I will personally drive for the first 12 hours of the event. 6PM until 6AM. If we are at $8000.00 or more at the start of the event you then have 4 hours (my first official shift) to raise the final $2000.00 and I will honour the challange and go for 12 hours straight (at which point I will probably cry myself to sleep)

This means we have 30 minutes to raise just shy of $1,860 to get an extension on the $10 000 we ultimately need to raise make him drive for 12 straight hours. If you’ve been holding out for a worthy reason to donate, this might be it! Let’s make him drive until his thumbs BLEED.

Hold on to your seats, guys and gals: Elevator’s own Woody Tondorf has entered the LoadingReadyRun moonbase. Incidentally did you see the latest Elevator update? The one that’s more-or-less a giant Desert Bus promotion?

It’s awesome: go look!

Also: Rosco P Jangles IV had entered the building.

Our friends at The Escapist Magazine have started a fantastic portal on their site, amalgamating our feeds, our twitter, our donation total, and some cool content of their own on a super-sweet hub site. If you’re a member of the Escapist community–and even if you’re not–totally go check it out; you could win a special avatar badge :).

Update: also check out the fantastic writeup The Escapist has done for us. Thanks, guys :)!