Have you been checking out all of our sweet silent auctions? You should! There’s lots of really cool stuff up there that might not get mentioned on the live stream.

Remember! You must have a donor account to bid on these items! Don’t have an account? Signup.

Finishing at 2AM Pacific Time.

Embroidered Tardis messenger bag

This timey-wimey messenger bag is large enough to carry a laptop through time and space, to any spot in the universe you may happen to find yourself.

Nintendo Power Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time figurines

These classic Nintendo Power figurines have never been removed from their box, waiting patiently in a basement for their time to come.

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 cross stitch

This incredible cross stitch art shows the full title screen of Sonic the Hedgehog 2, in vibrant colours and thousands of tiny stitches.

Ending at 6AM Pacific Time!

Original Mayor of Avabruck comic by Inkwell Looter

In this comic, Inkwell Looter answers the question “What’s it like to hold political office in a monster-infested hellscape?” Originally published on Inkwell Looter’s website, this is the original comic art, signed on the back.

Journey, Shattered

Enjoy the fractured beauty of this one-of-a-kind paper artwork, a mosaic-like ornament that will improve any wall.

As night encroaches onto the Night Bus a shift change happens, Cam begins his driving shift, and I begin blogging. My name is Matthew, and as you’ve seen from previous posts all bloggers for Desert Bus must have names beginning with the letter M. If you are approached by a Desert Bus blog post claiming to be written by someone whose name does not begin with M do not listen to it, do not talk to it, and do not look directly at it. In fact you cannot do these things because those blog posts do not exist.

I want to take this moment to thank all of you out there, for all of the generous donations that you may or may not be aware that you just made. So far during Desert Bus we have raised over $36,000, which includes a  donation from a certain anonymous world leader. I can’t tell you who—let’s just say, большой спасибо президент Кэмерон! Thank you again for your involuntary support of Desert Bus. We couldn’t do it without the support of viewers like you, in conjunction with unethical contributions from nefarious organizations. And with that, I leave you alone with your thoughts, folks. Stay tuned for more exciting auctions and events. Good night, Bus Vale, and welcome.

My shift comes to an end, and I’m getting ready to hand the reins over to Matthew, the third “M” in the 3M Corporation [NO. -Legal Dept.] Tri-M-virate that is the DB7 blogging crew (Mia, Mike, and Matthew).

Our first day was, aside from some technical hiccups with the chat, an unalloyed success.

It took only a few hours to hit the 20k milestone — more quickly, I might add, than in any previous year! Way to go everyone.

The talented Kris Straub called in via the magic of Skype to answer questions and share what’s been going on in his world lately.

The crew took on the daunting task of 10 Challenges in 10 Minutes. In that rather short window — only 600 seconds! — the bussers showcased a panoply of talents, including some interpretive dance on the saga of Rob Ford — very avant garde. Did they actually get to 10? Hard to say; I lost count to tell the truth. But I’m leaning towards yes because there was just so much going on! 

Following that, we topped $22,805. So what? Well, those who have watched in previous years may know the significance of that seemingly arbitrary number: it’s a Desert Buck, or, the entire sum we raised in the inaugural Desert Bus! This year, we did it not only on the first day, but with the early-to-bed mid-November sun still high in the sky.

MC117, a Desert Bus fan and bard of surpassing skill, floored everyone at the Moonbase and watching around the world with “Bus Stop,” his beat-perfect parody of Macklemore’s “Thrift Shop.” MC117 is the nom-de-guerre of Jeremy Williams, parodist and rhyme-slinger who has opened for Desert Bus friends The Doubleclicks. We hope that Euterpe, muse of music, inspires him again before we finish busing!

Our second viewer contest challenged fans to draw Highwayman, a superhero of James’ creation, engaging in battle with arch-foe the Roundabout. Our winner, K. V1NN4, wowed everyone with a sensational full-colour image, and thereby earned a hand-drawn ink-and-paper Sleigh of the Wicked piece by Inkwell Looter.

James put his superb busmanship on show, and scored our first point of 2013, and we smashed through 30k well ahead of last year’s benchmarks, and poised for the most successful undertaking to date.

My shift is coming to an end soon, so I thought I’d compile some of the cool stuff you fans have sent in that doesn’t quite fit into a specific category but deserves recognition nonetheless.

From left to right: Phillip sent us this portrait of the House Stark extended family; Lord Crusher from Melbourne repped Desert Bus with his DB6 t-shirt while finishing the City2Sea 14k run in a lightning fast 1:16:41; and Danica did Foreign Affairs’ work for them in issuing a passport for one Roscoe P. Jangles.

(L) Gabriel provided this colourful rendering of what Jer’s storied Lava Bears might look like; and (R) Chindar recreated our DB7 logo in Terraria.

and last but not least, Lord Hosk sent these photos of the Littlest Lady Hosk taking in her first Desert Bus, in a custom embroidered onsie, no less.

Adorable!

We’re conquering the world here at Desert Bus — conquering it with charity and kindness that is. The territory in blue in the image above — a sprawling empire to put the Achaemenids, the Romans, the Ottomans, and even the Mongols to shame — represents all the countries that have tuned in so far, which comes in at 98 out of some 200 or so nations on Earth. Ninety-eight!

The US, UK, Canada, and Australia round out the top four countries by total visitors. UK, good morning! Australia, good afternoon! Germany, in fifth place, is the most visiting non-English speaking country. Guten Morgen, Freunden!

We’ve had visitors from every continent, including nearly every country in Europe and South America.

The whole Scandinavian bloc — Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Iceland — has dropped by. So have the three Benelux powers (Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxembourg) and the three Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania). China and India, our planet’s two billion-sized nations have each contributed viewers. And the entire Mediterranean coastline of Africa is painted blue as well — so to Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco: hail and well met!

Twenty countries have sent just one visitor, including, but not limited to: the Åland Islands, chilling in the Baltic Sea; the Faroe Islands, presumably on their break between toiling away on a pyramid, unless I’m thinking of a different kind of pharaoh; Gibraltar, harried at their keyboard by angry macaques; and Macau, possibly from within a casino. Now I’m not sure all of these meet the Westphalia definition of statehood, but we’re happy to have them nevertheless!

So wherever you are on the globe, welcome, and thanks for visiting!

Our Highwayman and Roundabout contest has a winner! K V1NN4 was in the fast line, blazing past six other finalists, and is the winner of Inkwell Looter’s Sleigh of the Wicked artwork.

Congratulations K V1NN4! A gallery of the other finalists’ entries can be seen after the break.

(more…)

Stand and deliver! Another contest is upon us! Artists and illustrators out there, the challenge is to draw the Highwayman, James’ comic book superhero, and Roundabout, the Highwayman’s arch-nemesis, locked in an epic showdown.

Highwayman’s superpower is laying down perfectly straight overpass in front of him wherever he goes, so that he always takes the most direct path to his destination. Roundabout is the exact antithesis, plugging annoying roundabouts in nice straight roadway to create needless congestion, gridlock, and traffic!

So, fire up your imagination and get your art in to us asap as the contest ends at 6:30 local time! (That’s really soon!)

The winner will receive original Sleigh of the Wicked art by Inkwell Looter — check out the prize at https://desertbus.org/giveaway/75. That’s one spooky Christmas!

If anyone was wondering how long it takes for us to get some jaw-dropping, amazing, astounding user-submitted content, you now have your answer: this long.

MC117, Desert Bus fan and rhymesmith nonpareil, sent us “Bus Stop” a DB-themed parody of Macklemore’s “Thrift Shop”,  presented below for your listening pleasure. All I can say is wow.

Check out the clip and view the link on YouTube for the full lyrics, which are magnificent.

MC117 was also kind enough to include a link to the high quality version for download. It’s free, but MC117 suggested — and we agree! — that you consider making a donation to Desert Bus if you enjoyed the song!

Desert Bus for Hope if very excited to welcome Matt Fraction to the fray. He will be calling in on Saturday, November 16 at 6:00pm PST.

Matt Fritchman, best known by his nom de plume Matt Fraction, was the Eisner Award-winning brain behind The Invincible Iron Man, The Immortal Iron Fist, Uncanny X-Men, and Hawkeye for Marvel Comics. He also wrote Casanova for Image Comics.

Matt began his career creating comics with small publishing houses such as IDW Publishing and AiT/Planet Lar. He quickly became known for his work on his own books, The Five Fists of Science and Casanova, which earned him fancy gigs at Marvel Comics.

At Marvel, Matt wrote for Uncanny X-Men, The Immortal Iron Fist, Hawkeye, The Mighty Thor, and The Invincible Iron Man, for which he won the 2009 Eisner Award for Best New Series. He was also a consultant on the film Iron Man 2 and wrote the tie-in video game adaptation. Matt also wrote the limited crossover series Fear Itself for Marvel Comics and rebooted the Defenders series. He’s quite active on Twitter, as well.

Got a question for Matt? Add it in the comments below.

Well Mia has more than capably blogged the pistol-shot and first few hours of Desert Bus, and now the baton passes to me. My name is Mike and I’ll be chronicling Desert Bus goings-on for the next little while, and I couldn’t be more excited about it.

So sit down, buckle your seatbelt, and brace yourself for plenty of awesome as the Desert Bus rolls on! (What? Buses don’t have seatbelts?)