We’ve raised $100,000 dollars, about as much as the first two Desert Buses combined, in forty-eight hours.

No jokes right now. No ribaldry. No zaniness. Just gratitude. Thank you, every single person who has bit, every single person who has watched, who has told their friends, the people in town who brought us food, everything… thank you all.

Make sure to be watching at 6:00PM when co-host of Revision3’s Tekzilla Podcast, Veronica Belmont, calls in to lend her support to the Desert Bus crew. In addition to her role on Tekzilla, Veronica is known for her work as the host of Sony Online Entertainment’s monthly gaming-lifestyle show Qore, as well as for work on CNET’s Buzz out Loud, Mahalo’s Mahalo Daily podcast, and the Sword and Laser sci-fi/fantasy podcast.  She will also be cohosting the upcoming TWiT gaming show Game On!

Please get your questions ready and post them in the comment section below!

Astro Gaming are the makers of an almost staggering variety of premium gaming headsets, mixers, cords and other accessories. They’ve sent us some of their incredibly sweet A40 wireless systems, and their Mixamp 5.8 bundles that turn any headphones into a wireless surround sound experience . They’re not cheap, but being stingy about your headset is sort of like buying the cheapest shoes; for something you use all the time, you really don’t want it to pinch you and sound like a robot with bronchial disease.
You can check out Astro Gaming at www.astrogaming.com.

Vegeta! It’s ten times more money than we thought at first! $90,000! It’s incredible!

Hothead Studios is near and dear to Desert Bus, and not just because they’re located in nearby Vancouver. They’re an independent studio responsible for Deathspank and Penny-Arcade Adventures: On the Rainslick Precipice of Darkness, the game with the most incomprehensible acronym (PAA:OtRPoD) since RBION!TROML (One point goes to whoever knows what game has that acronym).

Hothead has graciously given us download codes for The Baconing, the latest installment in the hilarious Deathspank series. Please note winners will have their choice between Xbox, Steam and PS3. Visit Hothead Games at http://www.hotheadgames.com/

If you know of the Mythbusters (and I’m sure you do), you almost certainly know of Grant Imahara. What you may not know is that in addition to his time on the show, he’s also worked for Lucasfilm’s Home THX division, as well as for Industrial Light and Magic. He’s credited on a number of films, including Jurrassic Park: The Lost World, the Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, The Matrix Reloaded, The Matrix Revolutions, and Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines.  He has additionally competed on the televisionseries BattleBot, with his robot Deadblow.

Grant will be giving us a ring at 4:00PM, so make sure to be watching, and have your questions ready to go!

The incredible Mushroom Blanket is about to go on auction! The last blanket by this crafter broke a record, and this one is poised to do just as well! Be there or be square! Many squares! Many squares tied together to make a blanket!

Here’s an entry that has fallen through the cracks. Recently, we had a Nano-Rhino contest for a 100 word story with a few common elements in it. We awarded Dylan Mead the prize for this entry:

Life is difficult for a nano-rhino like me. You may have heard of the North American House Hippo. Their preferred diet of the crumbs of peanut butter on toast, and their threatening demeanor, endangers the very lifestyle of my kin. They leave traps to protect their meals; pomegrenades, lemon bombs. It’s citrus madness for any rhino who dares to seek a meal. We’ve assembled those of us with the largest horns into an attack force. I, Master Desert Rhino, have been placed at the head of this team. Though, our nanometric scale ensures our defeat. I fear for our families.

Runners up include this one from JD:

Once upon a time, in the kingdom of Kingdomia, there lived a very small rhino named Fred. Now Fred had a problem, which was this: he lived in the middle of a minefield. He sent out a global call for explosives experts to come and disarm the mines, but to no avail – they were all blown to tiny pieces. Fortunately, along came Baron Von Lemonbomb, from the neighbouring barony of Barony, and his magical lemon bombs. With one lemony KABOOM, the landmines were safely detonated and free lemonade rained down throughout the land. And they all lived happily ever after.

And this one from Jairus:

Long Island, New York, 1932. The door to my office burst open as the dame strolled in, filling the room with the explosive smell of lemons. Cocking my my eyebrow, I noticed an abnormally large rock on her finger, gleaming in the slits of light. She spoke, her smooth, velvet voice entering my ear. She said she was the President of the Nevada Bus drivers association, I laughed a little inside at a memory. Mumbling something about a duck, she suddenly screamed and charged at me with a knife like an abnormally small rino, sticking me in the gullet. Why Roscoe, why….

Thanks to everyone who entered (and there were hundreds of you, so many words…)

With those awesome Super Mario Bros’  pillows, we broke $80,000 like it wasn’t even there! We haven’t put up some milestones, so let’s rock them right out!

Conducting a marathon the size of Desert Bus is no easy feat, especially when you consider all the technology it takes to run everything we do. Desert Bus would not be possible without the generous contributions of our technical sponsors:

Shaw Communications supplies high-speed cable for the live stream of Desert Bus for Hope, free of charge. It’s easy to gush over the neat toys donated from gaming companies and the like, but this is a donation that almost cannot be overstated. Shaw gives us the “fattest pipes” to run the all-important live stream and reach all the willing donators around the world. Without this, it’s unlikely Desert Bus would exist as it does today.

ServInt is a web hosting service provider based in Virginia. They have provided all the hosting for Desert Bus for Hope (which is substantial). Donating web service isn’t as exciting as donating an XBOX made of chocolate, but every time you load the site and don’t get an error, you can thank the generous folks at ServInt. Visit these magnificent folk at http://www.servint.net.

But technology doesn’t stop with fat pipes and hosting. This year Conti has generously loaned us the 52″ LCD TV that we use to watch the chat on, a donation that viewers of earlier Desert Buses will understand the importance of. Finally Boutique Mac has loaned us a Mac Tower, which because it supports multiple firewire cards, now means that Desert Bus support multiple cameras!

The whole Desert Bus crew would like to extend very heartfelt thanks to our 2011 technical sponsors.