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It had taken two days and a night, but at last mad Dr. Whittlemore had finished carving and sanding smooth his wooden beaker.

With this, he thought, I'm sure to take third place in that mad scientist contest and win that wooden beaker I've always wanted. And all it took was the will to carve this wooden beaker.

Haha, is this really your entry?

One more day and voting begins...

  Fun entry Ghost!

  Dude just make a small goofy adventure game or a platform arcade type in AGS.  Basically go rape-free for your first game.

Is there no bronze beaker? What if I take third place? Must I go tragically trophy-less?

Ah yes good point, I almost forgot the leaky Wooden Beaker...

...if anyone discovers otherwise through use of the program or by fiddling with the source code, I would greatly appreciate hearing about it.  These things are very important.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_elephant_gift_exchange

You could add options for some of the secret santa variations.  

Anyone who likes classic video games should enjoy this...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTBXvP89Now

[The Golden Beaker!]

  It's ALIIIIIIVE!  Your challenge is to write a story or poem that includes at least one mad scientist.  He/she/it can be the main character integral to the plot or even a bit player.

 The deadline is December 20th!

And the trophy prizes are:

The Golden Beaker!

And, meh, the Silver Beaker...

  Cool, that was fun Ghost.  8) 

  I'll flesh out my idea for the next competition a bit more, and put it up in a day or two.  Right now I'm thinking stories that somehow involve Mad Scientist(s).

Ponch!

  "So how about, "She's Bangtastic!" and then I look at the camera as it zooms on me with a big cheesy grin and give a thumbs up?" asked Donny "The Hammer" McGee.  Leo Scheisterini, Donny's agent, replied, "No, I think Michael J. Cox used that one before...As you well know Vixengag Productions expects you to have several ORIGINAL catchphrases in the chamber ready for you to shoot at any give time - no pun intended - depending on the scene and actors involved.  You are big time Donny, but your career has sorely lacked trademark catchy phrases."  There was a lengthy pause, and then Leo abruptly ended the phone conversation with, "You are a creative sort; test some lines with friends and/or other actors and figure it out.  Goodbye." Donny set the telephone down, and then paced around his spacious apartment contemplating the next big catchphrase in the world of softcore entertainment.

  Later in the day, Donny made his way to the gym several blocks over from his flat.  As per routine he swaggered in and headed to the locker room for twenty minutes of eyebrow trimming, though during the course of this session he randomly blurted out potential catchphrases.  Donny tested "I'll bring this HAMMER down!" into the mirror while plucking rogue hairs from his left eyebrow, and then tried "Oh yeah, Donny's love dumpster!" in the midst of slicking down his right eyebrow.  Just before making his way to the unibrow, Donny belted out, "Yea! Who's your Donny?!".  A locker room attendant asked him to quiet down when Donny's professional archnemesis sauntered into the room.  "Well Donny, the only thing worse than those kooky eyebrows is hearing you try new cheesy B-movie slogans", said Rod Ramrod amidst cackles.  Donny turned red-faced, pointed a pair of tweezers at Rod, and said, "Hey at least I'm still up in the big leagues on Max, word on the street is that you got bumped down to Cinemax 6, and even there you are a late show."  Rod shook his head and calmly replied, "Chill out...Look I'll make you a deal:  Put in a good word for me with the big-wigs and tell them that incident on the set of "Das Booty" was a one time thing, and in-turn I'll help you come up with some trademark lines."  Donny put down the tweezers and replied, "Whatcha got for Donny Hot-Rod?"  Donny and Rod fired barrages of catchy lines back-and-forth, though neither was happy with the other's ideas.  It was right after Donny yelled, "Its HAMMER time!" that Rod snapped.  He corrected, "You can't steal other people's stuff, a trademark line has to be your own!  You know what I say every time I play a pizza delivery guy?"  Donny said with an eye-roll, "Good thing you didn't hold the sausage."  Rod nodded and said, "Yes!  And my fans associate that line with me!"  Donny and Rod continued shouting lines at each other until the manager of the gym stormed over to them and said, "I don't care if you idiots are exchanging mindless catchphrases or reciting Shakespeare, but keep it down...You know what I tell everyone around here?  More de-flabbing and less gabbing!"

  The next morning Donny woke up, made his coffee, and went into his "mirror room"; a room with mirrors for the floor, ceiling, and walls that Donny had specifically designed for evaluating his physique and overall appearance at various angles.  Donny used his hand to mime a handgun shooting and shouted "Boom!  Big Don up in your bidness!" at all the reflections of himself.  He then leaned up against one of the mirror-walls in a seductive manner and attempted, "C'mon, Don the Don."  Donny paced for a bit as he noted that his lats were lagging slightly behind other muscles.  He struck a "Thinker" pose complete with a hand under the chin and tried, "Now THAT, is genius baby" while imagining a camera zooming in on his face.  Donny moped out of his special room tired, annoyed, and out of ideas.

  Donny "The Hammer" McGee stretched out on his neon purple velour recliner and contemplated.  If he doesn't come up with a "moneyphrase" (as the television executives call it) then he could risk getting bumped down to a lower Cinemax or, God forbid, hotel pay-per-view.  Donny was drifting off to sleep just as he heard his cell phone ringtone blaring "Open Sesame" by Kool and the Gang.  Donny groggily answered, "Whatcha got for Donny?"  Donny's cousin Lance responded, "Hey are you still trying to come up with a new gimmick phrase?"  Donny replied, "Hey Lance, yea why?"  Lance advised, "You know what I say after I've been with a woman?"  Donny guessed, "You've been Lanced?" to which Lance answered, "Yep.  Look you gotta change your name into a euphanamism, or whatever that fancy word is, for sex."  Donny said, "Thanks alot man!  Now let me get back to mulling this over."  Lance gave his usual parting comment of "Cool, take it sleazy!" and hung up.  Donny thought for a bit, and then dozed off while muttering "You are ON the DON."

  Donny dreamed of famous catch phrases from various movies ranging from "Gone With the Wind" to "The Terminator", and less famous and cheesier ones from his niche in show business.  The most famous from amongst his contemporaries/peers would be Rolf Bushburn, who is known for having abnormally large sideburns.  Whenever his on-screen love interest runs her hand across Rolf's face, he always exclaims, "Sweetie, them burns is for holdin'!" and she latches onto them like handles.  Rolf had appeared in a brief cameo in one of Donny's first movies, and was shoehorned into the plot by the studio simply because of his popularity - which was partly due to his having catchphrase gold in terms of delivery and content.

  After waking up from his mid-day nap, Donny walked over to his "snapshot shelf" and started cleaning his collection of framed photographs of himself with various adult film starlets as well as those of just him - of which there are many.  He wondered if putting himself in the kinds of situations that his characters often find themselves in would be a productive way to start the mental gears working, but he couldn't imagine impersonating a plumber or a milkman.  Donny had just finished wiping down an especially prized photo of himself with a scantily clad Shannon Tweed when the doorbell rang.  He looked out the peephole and saw a SpeedyMail delivery girl, and thought it was perfect timing.

  Donny opened the door greeting with his usual, "Whatcha got for Donny baby!"  The delivery girl sighed and with an even tone said, "Package for Mr. McGee, please put your John Hancock here" and then motioned for Donny to sign.  He looked her up and down, debated a play on words with "Hancock", and confidently said, "How would you like to Don the Don?"  The delivery girl only rolled her eyes in response.  Donny said, "How about you bring this HAMMER down?"  The girl at Donny's front door said in an exasperated tone, "Man, I am not in the mood for this.  I'm still groggy from getting my drink on last night.  I mean I was so H-" Donny interrupted by snapping his fingers and proclaiming, "I've got it!"
 

  A week later on the set of "Carpentry Babes 7: Woodshop" Donny bragged that his new slogan is destined to be mindlessly repeated by Cinemax audiences everywhere, to which the director half-kiddingly replied, "Whatcha got for me Donny?"  Donny assured him not to worry and they continued filming.  In the climactic scene Donny's character teaches an attractive young woodshop student, who according to the plot recently quit modeling to pursue her newfound love of carpentry, how to properly drive nails into wood.  The shop teacher (Donny's character) and the student nailed legs onto a small table, and then proceeded to make love on top of it after several of the requisite bad double entendres about "wood" and "tools".  Shortly afterwards, Donny swung his hand down in a striking motion and exclaimed, "Baby, consider yourself HAMMERed!"

  It would be great, but its not realistic to expect a thousand people to send in their contributions on-time all of which fit together like a perfect puzzle.  I think no matter what is proposed, simply due to the sheer number of people involved, it will always end up being something like a Byte of the Draculator II style of development in that a project manager will have to aggressively pursue swarmites for contributions and fill in the blanks himself/herself.  This isn't a bad thing if you have a willing Baron, but I think anyone less than him would throw their hands up in frustration and go back to their own project.  To be honest I'm surprised that the game turned out so awesome and within a good timeframe even with 20-some (?) swarmers.

Doesn't Amazon have higher standards, or can anything be published there?

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/amazon-removes-pedophilia-book-store/story?id=12119035

I think anything goes unless they can potentially lose business from bad press.

"allowing disparate content sources to be curated into cohesive, relevant, and informative books."

What does that mean? To me it means, allowing you to copy and paste web pages into a book (for profit).

The usage of the word "curated" in that context is more than a stretch.  Yea, someone gave the scammer a thesarus.  I think anyone with a half a brain can decipher that nonsense into what it really means.

Ghost

Updated the first post to fix the dead screenshots.

Thanks for the comments Duals and Ascovel!

  I'm still working on this on-and-off...Pinback did a stunning background for the huge scrolling room, and he made a bunch of really cool objects.  You may recognize Greenboy's Frankenstein (from a Halloween contest on here a while back) in one of the screenshots.  His Frank is playable via 2 player co-op, which is a pretty basic implementation but it works.

  The game is 85-90% done.  The major projects left are to code the main boss and then tweak the levels for balance.  I'm hoping to finish up when on vacation in December/January.  I keep adding and changing little features here and there (zombie hit recoil has been tweaked about 1000 times for example), and that needs to stop.

Also, the World's first zombie piledriver:

  Wow, some stunning backgrounds in there.  Thanks for releasing the code!

  Thanks Baron, and fellow swarm-ites.  8)

I ran into the bedroom screaming and leapt into bed,
being sure to pull the covers safely over my head.

While my old, knobby knees were shaking,
my previously snoring Wife began waking.

She glanced over, rubber her eyes, adjusted her pajama-thong,
and then wanted to know what exactly in the blue hell was wrong.

I excitedly told her that out in the hall lies Michael Bay’s Ghost,
while she stared daggers at me and angrily kicked the bedpost.

She loudly questioned how I could ever get such a notion,
and I responded, “there is a ghost in the hall having sex with an explosion.”

My Wife shook her head slowly and asked if there was a sure way to know,
and I clarified that it must be Bay because he was doing it in slow-mo.

She told me to wait and then went into the hall,
while I quietly thought to myself that at least it’s not Uwe Boll.

My Wife returned shortly with a serious look of dread,
agreeing it was him though adding she didn’t know Michael Bay was dead.

I wondered aloud how to banish Bay’s Ghost and really show it whose boss,
my Wife exclaimed, “Get a realistic movie script and hold it up like a cross!”

My Wife and I carefully crept out of the bedroom door,
anxiously awaiting to see what this particularly weird haunting had in-store.

There in the hallway was Bay’s Ghost as if he was on set,
he looked at us and moaned, “OOOooo…Robots…Boobs…Robot Boobs…Get!”

My Wife calmly asked, “This isn’t a film or the afterlife, so why are you here?”
to which Bay’s Ghost replied, “OOOooo…not melodramatic enough…dear.”

She told the apparition she wasn’t his actress with a disapproving nod,
Bay’s Ghost floated towards us and said, “OOOooo…Of course…Don’t have the bod.”

My Wife angrily slapped through him and asked, “Bay isn’t dead, so how could you come by?!”
The "Ghost" of Michael Bay grinned and simply replied, “C-G-I”.

  Hmmm, Michael Bay or ghosts...In that case I might submit a story or poem about Michael Bay's ghost for a doubly valid entry.