Tag: birthday contest

Geekly Speaking About… “Happy Birthday to Us!”

Late birthday cake is better than no birthday cake at all!

It’s the end of another calendar year, and I thought it was the perfect opportunity for me to start working on the podcasts again, starting with some episodes that slipped through the cracks. This was recorded towards the end of May and marked the anniversary of this site being up; hence, the name of the episode.

There’s not much more I can say about this, so let’s get to the show notes, hmm?

  • To start, I think this episode was recorded on Jill’s phone and I have to say the audio quality isn’t that bad. It’s not the best, but it’s not terrible, either.
  • Our birthday contest went very well, with Toronto, Canada writer D.C. McMillen winning the grand prize. You can read McMillen’s other works here, and do some stalking via Twitter as well.
  • Sadly, I haven’t gotten back onto the writing horse on any of the projects I have on the back burner; however, I am very proud of the flashback chapter I contributed to the “Dengler & Butts” fanfic which by itself raised $100 and as part of the entire story raised $1,000 for the Child’s Play Charity during the Desert Bus for Hope Internet telethon. (‘Netathon? Intelethon? We really need a better descriptor for what DBFH is.)
    Midnight in Paris really is that amazing; just re-read my review if you need some convincing. I’m not sure if Owen Wilson will be nominated for an Oscar on the basis of his acting work in it, but I’d give a statue to Kathy Bates for her supporting role as Gertrude Stein. The fruit-named movie that Jill was thinking about was Bananas.
  • How is it that the Manic Pixie Dream Girl archetype only became codified in 2008?
  • If you’ve never seen The Room and would like to attend a screening, check out this list.
  • Now that John Rogers is back to updating his blog with posts about “Leverage,” I need to finally sit down and watch the season four episodes I missed.
  • According to this article from May 12, Stephanie Krikorian wrote in The Wall Street Journal that an executive producer revealed that many of the voters for American Idol are girls, but also their mothers, too. So I’m calling that a partial win for my argument.
  • It was the blind auditions like Beverly McClellan’s which made me love watching “The Voice” at first. (I lost interest right around the time that my boyfriend and I finally started moving in together.) The fact that both Adam Levine and Christina Aguilera wanted to work with her reaches out and touches that part of me which feels really strongly that truly talented people will always win out over what is superficially attractive. Call it the egalitarian socialist in me.
  • Because YouTube/Google is really lock-stepped with NBC’s copyright lawyers, here’s the Nico Nico version of the Voice battle between Vicci Martinez and Nikki Douglas. Best iTunes money I spent this summer. If the official site still had the video on it, I’d link there but…
  • For current events and historical archives purposes only, I am linking to the Wikipedia article on Harold Camping, a Christian radio broadcaster who believed that the world was going to end first on May 21 and later on October 21 in 2011. Because otherwise, I wouldn’t have remembered why I made that joke about the Rapture.
  • It’s almost as if The Guardian knew we’d be finally putting up this podcast this weekend. Check out Nick Cowen’s recent interview with developer Ken Levine about Bioshock Infinite, which will be released some time next year. As for the game’s official website, it’s a little buggy, but can be accessed here (after you verify you’re a legal adult, that is).
  • Seriously, the catalog of games available for purchase at Good Old Games is staggering, and the price is just about right as well.
  • If you haven’t seen the footage of the new Lara Croft in the reboot of Tomb Raider, all you need to do is click here, courtesy of IGN’s YouTube channel. Normally, I’d link to the game’s official website, too, but for some reason it doesn’t want to play nicely with my version Firefox and I can’t even select my language. Also, this is the Topless Robot article I’m referencing, written by a former co-worker of mine, the wonderful Rob Bricken.
  • No, I still haven’t finished Mass Effect, let alone started working on a male Commander Shepard playthrough. This crystal-infused leather isn’t going to skin itself, you know…

And that’s another episode in the can! Next up will hopefully be more interviews from the New York Comic Con as well as a special interview that we’re recording this week on Wednesday. If you have any feedback or questions about anything we talked about, please let us know in the comments.

Announcing the winners of the “50 Word Story” contest!

When I say that it was tough for micro-fiction author Tim Sevenhuysen, co-editor Jill Pullara and myself to judge the winners of our first annual birthday contest, I’m not exaggerating. We received over 25 entries from 17 participants (because a person could enter more than once), and all of them were very, very good.

Below, in no specific order, you can see examples of entries we thought were serious contenders:

Moving On
by Dashiell Powers

He refused to believe that it was over. Despite his best efforts, he was just too good at it to stay forever. He’d seen many come and go, and only a few remained. He waved goodbye one last time.

John, at twenty years old, was finally forced to graduate kindergarten.

(Based, sadly, on a true story)
by Ray Stillwell

Jill brought the newspaper ad to her knitting group:

For sale: baby shoes. Never worn.

She’d answered the ad. They now knit blankets for babies stillborn at a nearby hospital. For a few moments at the end of a tragedy, they can be held with love, and buried with dignity.

The Fifty First Word
by W. V. Kahler

The famous Detective stroked his petite mustache as he looked sternly at the gathered suspects.

They, in return, waited in trepidation for his declaration.

After twenty minutes of verbal reconstruction of the sinister events—followed by two minute of deafening silence—he removed his pince-nez and announced:

“The murderer is

The Dangers of Genre
by Jeffrey Williams

“Just…have to stop,” Emily thought.

She didn’t stop. She typed, “It climbed the stairs; its footsteps shook the house,” and her house shook.

“Just have to stop….”

She typed that it burst through the door. Her door burst open.

“It saw her.” Weeping, fighting, Emily typed. “Now it had her.”

Untitled
by Art Carey

Driven by an uncontrollable, ravenous hunger, Ethan wielded the gleaming spoon like a lethal weapon, stabbing and scooping the sodden grains of rice, barley and rolled oats with ferocious energy. But his photo would never appear on the wall of a post office because he was only a cereal killer.

The winners are as follows:

Tim Sevenhuysen’s Choice:

A Trashy Story
by Chris J. Fries

In a neglected corner of a sprawling trash heap, a tattered teddy bear softly shed a tear of joy.

The rumbling bulldozer had made a rare visit, dredging up a broken dolly in the dozer’s diesel wake.

Dolly smiled at Teddy through dirty blue eyes.

Teddy was no longer alone.

Jill Pullara’s Choice

The 8:15 Train
by D.C. McMillen

We purposely collided on the 8:15. Before reaching this pivotal moment, we’d spent weeks admiring each other from afar. She laughed, taking the blame for our faux collision. Some small talk, then we played hooky at a nearby hotel. Now I take the 7:45.

Trisha Lynn’s Choice

I Think Yes
by Leslie Hanna

I’m blocking the tall guy’s camera with florid Bhangra dance moves but he’s nice, laughs, says “you’re awesome,” kisses me on the cheek.

Away we dance.

Later he finds me, pulls me aside.

“I have a confession.”

Whispers, “My name is Diego. I’m not Indian.

Smiles. “Can we get together anyway?”

Each of the above will receive an electronic edition of Sevenhuysen’s book Fifty-Word Stories: Volume One. In addition, a $25 gift certificate will go to D. C. McMillen as our Grand Prize winner, who chose to go with Amazon.com as the online retailer of choice.

Congratulations to all of our entrants and happy birthday to us!

Final hours for GeekingOutAbout.com birthday contest!

Hemingway would be very disappointed if you didn't enter this contest

As a reminder, you have just 12 more hours left to enter the first annual GeekingOutAbout.com birthday contest! The deadline is midnight Eastern time tonight, and once again, here are the entry instructions and rules:

1. Write an original short story of exactly 50 words in length. Yes, “original” means no fan-fiction. You can enter as many times as you like, but each entry should be in a separate email, and only one of your entries can count as a winner.
2. Send the story in the body of an email to geekingoutabout@gmail.com, with the words “50 Word Story Contest” in the subject of the email. If you want to give your short story a title, you can also do that in the subject line of the email.
3. Tim Sevenhuysen, co-editor Jill Pullara and myself will be picking three winners, all of whom will receive an eBook bundle containing all of the electronic versions of Fifty-Word Stories: Volume One . One Grand Prize Winner will receive the above and a $25 dollar USD gift certificate to the online retailer of your choice.

Once the contest is over, we will be evaluating all the entries and the winner should hopefully be announced by no later than June 7, with the winning entries posted here in the blog.

Good luck, and may the best short, short story writer win!

Reminder: Write a short story, win a fabulous prize!

"Overcoming Writer's Block" (c) Stefan Mueller

Just a friendly reminder to let you know that there are only six more days remaining to enter the first annual GeekingOutAbout.com birthday contest! The deadline is May 31 by midnight Eastern time, and once again, here are the entry instructions and rules:

1. Write an original short story of exactly 50 words in length. Yes, “original” means no fan-fiction. You can enter as many times as you like, but each entry should be in a separate email, and only one of your entries can count as a winner.
2. Send the story in the body of an email to geekingoutabout@gmail.com, with the words “50 Word Story Contest” in the subject of the email. If you want to give your short story a title, you can also do that in the subject line of the email.
3. Tim Sevenhuysen, co-editor Jill Pullara and myself will be picking three winners, all of whom will receive an eBook bundle containing all of the electronic versions of Fifty-Word Stories: Volume One . One Grand Prize Winner will receive the above and a $25 dollar USD gift certificate to the online retailer of your choice.

Once the contest is over, we will be evaluating all the entries and the winner should hopefully be announced by no later than June 7, with the winning entries posted here in the blog.

And if you’re curious as to what a fifty-word story looks like, here two of my recent favorites of those posted by Sevenhuysen at his site:

Broken Lines

She stood at my door
one black glove, one red
and a lacy half-veil

Good evening, ma’am
icily

I didn’t want what she was selling
but my kids did

Of course, they hadn’t heard
the asking price
the surcharges
the cost-to-benefit ratios

Just the allure
the affect

I’ve been there

and

The Warm Numbness of Hypothermia

A final luxury granted to the condemned: “How would you like to go?”

He contemplated deeply, finally requesting the warm numbness of hypothermia.

In this land of sun and sand, his choice spoke to a greatness of spirit that moved the tribunal’s hearts.

But it didn’t move them that far.

Happy writing, everyone!

Geeking Out About.com’s first birthday comes with presents for readers and writers

My first love has always been reading and the written word, so I was pleased to receive this guest post from Tim Sevenhuysen about microfiction. And after I finished formatting it for the website, I thought, “What better way would there be to celebrate GeekingOutAbout.com’s first anniversary (which was May 1), but with a creative writing contest?”

With gracious sponsoring from Sevenhuysen, we’re pleased and proud to announce the first-annual Geeking Out About.com birthday contest, and here’s how to enter:

1. Write an original short story of exactly 50 words in length. Yes, “original” means no fan-fiction. You can enter as many times as you like, but each entry should be in a separate email, and only one of your entries can count as a winner.
2. Send the story in the body of an email to geekingoutabout@gmail.com, with the words “50 Word Story Contest” in the subject of the email. If you want to give your short story a title, you can also do that in the subject line of the email.
3. Tim Sevenhuysen, co-editor Jill Pullara and myself will be picking three winners, all of whom will receive an eBook bundle containing all of the electronic versions of Fifty-Word Stories: Volume One. One Grand Prize Winner will receive the above and a $25 dollar USD gift certificate to the online retailer of your choice.
4. All entries must be received by midnight EST on May 31 in order to be eligible for a prize.

If you have any questions about the contest, reply to this post and we’ll answer them as best as we can.

Good luck, and good writing!