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…

—

Do you want 2 tickets to the Child’s Play Charity Gala?

Head to http://desertbus.org/silent-auction-item/281/ and put in your bets!

Chapter 8 comes to us from 2nd time author Joshua:

Butts lept to his feet and charged Dong, trying to tackle him to the ground. Dong threw him aside, but Butts was able to pull off a piece of Dong’s sleeve, revealing a tattoo all too familiar to Butts, but one he had never seen on his old pal and former detective Dong-Ki-Kong.

“That tattoo, that’s the same as the Themiston cartel’s!” Butts gasped.  “How could you join them Dong? They killed Russ, they even killed your old partner Diddles!”

“Correction, Butts, I killed Russ and Diddles. He was getting too close, he knew too much for his own good Butts, so I took him out,” said Dong with a very unsettling smile. Rage burned in detective Butts’s eyes as he pulled himself up from the ground. He spit out one of his teeth as he reached for his gun.

“What are you trying to do Butts. There’s no way you’ll be able to pull your gun out before I give you a mouth full of buckshot”

“Why, Dong? Just tell me why you killed him. Why you betrayed us all”

“Money, Butts, just the money. Cartels pay nicely, as do the terrorists that hired me to take you two out.”

“What about the children, Dong? What about them? You’re robbing a charity Dong. How can you sleep at night?”

“Bus the children! Bus em’ all to the pit of bussville!”

Suddenly Dong felt a horrible pain in his shoulder. Behind him layed a horribly injured Dengler.

“You missed!” Dong said to Dengler with a laugh.

“I won’t,” said Butts as he let a round escape the barrel of his pistol. Dong turned back just in time to greet the bullet as it lodged itself in his chest. He fell to the ground and dropped his shotgun as he coughed up a mouthful of blood. Butts stumbled over and picked up Dong’s shotgun, taking aim with it at Dong’s head.

“Butts, y… you wouldn’t.” Dong said between coughs of blood. “Y… you know Russ wouldn’t want this, he wou… wouldn’t want you to ki..kill me for him. He wouldn’t want y…you the become a murderer for him.”

Not only have we surpassed last year’s total by over $100,000, for a total of $311,000.00 so far!

We have raised over $750,000 in the 5 years we’ve been doing Desert Bus.

That is 3/4 of a million dollars.

And we still have 8 hours left to go!

At 1:00PM, we will be joined by Russ Pitts, former Editor-in-Chief of the Escapist and good friend of LoadingReadyRun, who will be calling to wish us well, and chat with us for a bit. Russ has been in the games press for a while, and has been a driving force in making new media more accessible and interactive for end users. He’s a great guy, and we look forward to chatting with him.  Currently his writing can most often be found at his blog, http://www.falsegravity.com/

If you have anything you’d like to ask Russ about, you can post it in the comments for this post. Tune in to hear what he has to say!

I have to say, when I got in this morning and saw this collection of artwork, I was a little concerned. Amused, mind you, but concerned. What happened while I was away?!?!

Adam “The Garbaler” judged these himself and the winner is:

With a close 2nd and a good chuckle going to:

And 3rd place:

A big thank you to everyone who submitted and made wading through your submissions an interesting morning adventure  

Wil Wheaton, actor/writer and occasional LoadingReadyRun special guest, has always shown himself to be a genuinely nice guy, (even if he doesn’t always play one on TV). It’s not then surprising then that the law of Internet civility was given his name (Wheaton’s Law).  With acting credits ranging from Star Trek: The Next Generation, to Big Bang Theory, to Leverage, to The Guild, and writing credits including Just a Geek, Memories of the Future: Volume 1,  and Happiest Days of our Lives, Wil is well known as a Geek Icon.

He’s calling in at 10:00AM, have your questions ready and tune in then!

We hit $300,000 at 8:00AM on what will almost certainly be our last day (unless some deranged millionaire gets us going for another day, which would be awesome, but heartbreaking). We couldn’t more thrilled, since most of us are exhausted!

In honor of the Giant Creepy Doll auction, we held a Creepy Doll Art Auction! We’ got more art for this one than any other contest so far, over 85 entries! But at the end, we chose this one by Rhiannon:

The first runner up was this one, ALSO by someone named Rhiannon! I thought they were by the same person when I was sorting them (and trust me, this was CLOSE: BOTH of these are amazing).

Here’s a few other great entries (like the one from our forum friend Tensen):

Or this spooky one from Kelsey:

Here’s all the entries in one convenient location! There’s so much gold here, I’m gonna grab an ice pick and call myself Jeb, by cracky!

And one entry that was too late to be considered, but I wanted to include, is below.