Well, it’s been almost a month since we started Desert Bus 5, and thanks to our wonderful new shipping system and incredibly dedicated volunteers, many people already have their prizes. However, delays are inevitable, especially with postage this time of year, so if you don’t have your stuff yet, don’t panic.

Q: I don’t have my Fangamer Desert Bus 5 Shirt yet.

A: Fangamer has shipped all the shirts. If they haven’t yet arrived they will soon. If you live outside of the North America, shipping may be slower.

Q: My giveaway/silent/live auction item has not arrived yet.

A: We have shipped almost everything, but we’re still waiting for shipping information for a couple of items. Please check the email you used to sign up for a donor account with and make sure our emails aren’t going into your spam filter. If you do wish to inquire about your items, email:

• prize at desertbus dot org AND cc kathleen at loadingreadyrun dot com
• include your name, address and a detailed description of what you won and the prize ID number if you know it.

Please note that if you live in the UK or Australia, it’s likely larger items will not arrive until January.

Q: I haven’t received my Desert Bus 5 poster yet.

A: That’s because we literally bought ALL the poster tubes our supplier had in stock and we still needed more, so we’re still waiting for a shipment. The posters will be sent out as soon as the mailing tubes arrive. Expect delivery early January for Canadian/American addresses, later for international.

Happy Holidays!

Hey all! Although only one of you won this, our last auction of DB5, I thought you might like to see what good and weird things ended up in the box of memories.

Now that Desert Bus is over, we understand that you may be feeling a little lost, uncertain of what to do with your time, or where to go on the internet. Well, we have a few suggestions for you.

Desert Bus videos:
Having learned from past years that we always end up being too busy to upload videos of all the crazy stuff that happens during Desert Bus, many of our viewers have taken it upon themselves to post Desert Bus videos to YouTube for all to watch, enjoy and qwop to. We greatly appreciate this! This year there are a few YouTube accounts in particular that have uploaded a huge number of videos, and which are linked below.

VGMarathonFan
Cawendaw
Gamingnerd 

Crafts:
One of our crafters has very kindly put together a list of all this year’s Craft-Along contributors who have blogs, websites, Etsy stores, Deviant Art pages or Flickr accounts, along with the links to those places. So if you’re interested in some of the work you saw in the Craft-Along, if you’d like to do a little handmade Christmas shopping, ask about commissions, admire more of their work or tell them how awesome they are, have a look through this list. And many thanks to crafter Helen Cowart for putting together this list!

Twitter

Nearly all of the Desert Bus crew are Twitter users, so you can keep track of their breakfast choices, favourite ponies and general shenanigans year round. And if you’re not already, you should certainly be following the Desert Bus Twitter feed.

Alex
Ashton
Graham
Ian 
James
Jeremy
Johnny
Kathleen
Matt
Tally

Many of the crew are, of course, also the folks behind LoadingReadyRun.com, the sketch comedy group that began Desert Bus for Hope. They have shows on the Escapist and PATV which you should check out. In addition, Tally writes a weekly crafting blog with a new craft idea and tutorial posted every Friday. Ian, Cori and Beej are members of sketch comedy troupe Synaptic Chaos Theatre, and also post numerous amusing podcasts, videos and panel shows at tiltyhouse.com. Alex is promoting his new collaborative graphic novel project, Shards, and Kathleen draws a daily webcomic called Things My Cat Hates.

Online Community

It can be hard to get back to the “real” world after Desert Bus, spending time with people who didn’t experience the week of madness and magic and can’t understand why you keep yelling “Africaaaaa!” every time the photocopier breaks down.

To help in your quest for kindred spirits, we encourage you to connect with all the other folks who commented on the Desert Bus Facebook page and Twitter accounts, as clearly you have at least one very important thing in common. The LoadingReadyRun forums are also a great place to hang out, full of very cool Desert Bus-loving folks. And, of course, the chat will likely remain populated and active for quite some time.

We’d also like to remind you that if you’d like your own little piece of Desert Bus, you have until December 1st to order a copy of Mike Lunsford’s amazing Desert Bus 5 commemorative poster. A portion of the proceeds will go to Mike, to pay this remarkable artist for his time and talent, and a portion will go to Child’s Play.

Thank You

We simply can’t say it enough times: thank you to each and every one of you who tuned in to Desert Bus this year. You made this remarkable experience possible at all, by watching, telling your friends, donating, participating in the chat, bidding on auctions, buying the awesome Fangamer Desert Bus t-shirts, and supporting Team Ashton (the right choice). We are forever grateful for your remarkable support. To all of you: well dong!

AAAAAAAAAAAAFFFFFRIIIIIIIICAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!

THANK YOU!

This final installment of the epic Dengler & Butts series is brought to us by Tim Jablonski:

Dengler didn’t know if it was the pain in his leg or the weight of the mission, but he had cartoon theme songs stuck in his head.  Some part of him wondered if a dubstep versions existed, but there was no time for that.

Backup was largely out of the question.  They weren’t sure how high the corruption went up the chain, and they couldn’t afford to take chances.

Dengler’s tracing knowledge had led them to the bulk of the remaining terrorist forces, including the leader.  Actually, he may not have been the leader, but Butts and Dengler had yet to see a terrorist henchmen that wore both an eyepatch and a monocle.  He was definitely the priority in all of this.  It was like the roots of a plant or the head on a zombie, get rid of him and the rest would wither away.

Unfortunately, this man had dozens of armed guards, something plants or zombies never had (plants have been known to arm themselves on rare occasions, but this is the exception that proves the rule).

Dengler and Butts crouched behind a dumpster, just outside of view.

“Any more bright ideas, Rookie.”

Dengler shook his head.  “I don’t see how we can get close enough to take him out.  We’ll be spotted the second we move.”

Butts nodded.  “We need some kind of diversion.”

The two pondered their predicament.  This would be a tougher than a mile long QWOP.  It would normally take 20 men to run this operation.  They weren’t twenty men, but they were two Steves, and that would have to be enough…

 

Tigre had taken a moment to wipe off his monocle when the commotion broke out.  He placed it back in to see a strange person flailing his limbs to and fro as he meandered down the street.  His men were moving in to question the man, who Tigre noticed was not wearing a shirt.  However his men were smacked relentlessly by the stranger’s flailing limbs.  Eventually, the man was taken into custody after he attempted to climb the stairs and fell.  Rather than pick himself up, he simply continued to flail on the stars.  Eight of his men finally managed to restrain him.

Tigre approached the man, raising an eyebrow.  “You really shouldn’t be here.  What, pray tell, are you trying to pull?”

The man stopped flailing for and looked straight into Tigre’s eye(s?):

“I was going to the store.”

Tigre didn’t have time to even brace himself, as Butts crashed into his side, tackling him to the ground.  Dengler broke free from the men that had been holding him and moved to take Tigre’s weapon, pointing it to the mans head.

The remainder of the terrorist forces simply stood in stunned silence, not quite sure if what they saw was actually occurring.  One by one, weapons were laid down and hands went up in the air.

 

1 MONTH LATER

“You’re sure about this?”  Butts had never been one for flying.

“Don’t worry!”  Dengler called from the cockpit.  I’ve practiced this literally ones of times!”

“I’m taking a vacation after this!”  Butts jumped out of the plane.

But Butts will never take a vacation, for crime never sleeps, and neither do…

 

DENGLER AND BUTTS:  CRIME-FIGHTERS EXTRAORDINAIRE

1st Place:

2nd Place:

3rd Place:

There were a a number of fantastic submissions to this challenge, but the winner is:

With a close 2nd place going to:

Thank you everyone for your awesome artwork!

Submissions are now being accepted for ‘Pro Team Ashton’ art submissions. The winner and runner-up of this challenge will receive DJ Hero Renegade Edition for Wii or Guitar Hero Aerosmith Edition for Xbox. Added bonus: the winner will also receive Tally’s ‘Team Ashton’ t-shirt! Tally and James must be included somewhere in the image cheering Ashton on.

Send your art into [email protected]

**Update: Submissions will close at 9pm.**

We just hit $325,000!

I didn’t get any other milestone pics, but we got one  when we had Pi donated:

We all love pie here at Desert Bus. The action is winding down, but we’re still here for a few more hours! Watch! Have fun!

Chapter 9 of the thrilling Dengler & Butts series is up, written by Gavin:

FLASH BACK

“Buss it Pitts! The case is over. Who ever they are, we can’t touch them.” Butts remembered saying.

The case had been a disaster. The inhabitants of QWOP would never been the same. The flailing. The horror. Than whoever they were, were gone. And Butts was ready to give in. Pitts never would though.

“I can’t let them go. What they’ve done. Africa. The QWOPing. They can never be allowed to think there isn’t someone out there ready to punish them!” Pitts snapped.

Butts saw Pitts leave the room. He always saw him leave the room. Every time he closed his eyes he remembered Pitts walk out alone to face an enemy he knew required two. And every day he hated himself for letting his partner face his death alone. Because Pitts turned back one final time and offered him some final words:

“One final thing Butts. I’m gonna take them down, alive. And make them see justice. Because we’re better than them.”

Than he was gone. Forever.

PRESENT TIME

Dong was begging for his life. Only making Butts hate him more. Like Dong had a right to live. But he knew the rage was pointless. He could never pull the trigger and betray Russ yet again.

“You’re right Dong. I am better than you. And Russ knew it. You’re gonna get to live and watch me take you down.”

Butts tossed the gun away. Dong laughed bitterly, trying to ignore the blood staining his mouth.

“You’ll never find them.” Dong laughed.

“We already have.” Dengler chuckled, staggering up, bloody and battered, but holding Dong’s mobile. “They called you. I specialized in mobile call tracing back in Training.”

For a second Dong realised this. Than he closed his eyes, as if willing himself to die. Hating himself, a pain worse than death. As Butts smiled at the pain, he finally saw the potential in this seemingly useless rookie.

“Come-on Rookie.” Butts muttered, staggering up and tossing a gun to Dengler. “This is a job for two, and I can’t believe I’m saying this, you might just actually be him.”

They turned away, ready to face the final battle that Butts should have faced so long ago. Finally redemption was available, and for a brief second, Pitts appeared to him, offered a few words of advice:

“Kick their Bus Butts!”

TO BE CONCLUDED…

—