Mental Magma

Hallmark Shmallmark is right.  You guys rocked this week.  What can’t MM’ers do?  Compose classical music?  Beethoven Shmeethoven.

Given that we limit the finalists to the top five entries, each week we like to take the time to recognize some of the other outstanding submissions.  The following entries were either staff or crowd favorites: Etmoose’s terrifying traditions, Pennydreadful’s magic finger, Gig661’s birth control admonishment, pjmomof3boys Aunt Agnes, Etmoose‘s holiday car, Lisa‘s winter wonderland, R.E.D.’s drunken sot, Beverly‘s Goodwill jester, jupchu’s they’ll behave, SomeGuyNamedDoug’s unspeakable name, Arkansas‘ handkerchief boob job, cgomez‘s nativity scene, erumpleton‘s Hasslehoff cover, Taylor‘s chloroform,

This week the MM Mob showed that they only need a single word change to able to cause mayhem, mischief, high jinks, and last but not least, tomfoolery.

We have several extra entries to mention this week.  These were all entries that, despite missing the finals, were either crowd or staff favorites.  These included Silent Tuba’s right to keep bear arms, fuzz on the concept’s right to keep koala bears, Lalaith’s civil trial by fire, pennydreadful’s due process for zombies, erumpeltin’s right to bear Chuck Norris, and Alex’s powers reserved to the Fonz.

We’ve moved into a new world now that we’ve started hosting photo contests.  Despite my love for our writing-based contests, the web is really made for photos. Plus, it’s fun to get to see our users.  We’ve worked some bugs out and are ready to go for future photo-based competitions.

There won’t be any special mentions for this week, so let’s go straight to your five finalists.  The five most creative costumes were Snoconegrl’s Bob Ross, amueth’s Rorschach (from The Watchmen), Lalaith’s flying purple people eater, Jakutz‘ high tide, and Mach3’s Alex Trebek.

The polls will be open until 5pm EST on Thursday.  Remember, there’s a sweet $50 Amazon.com gift certificate riding on this as well as the title: winner of the first MM photo contest.

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This week’s contest was ambitious.  Some said we were Icarus flying too close to the sun.  I think we proved that, no matter how formidable a contest is, the MM mob will rise to the occasion.

Now that we have our pool of entries, we have to decide which author composed the best fakelore and which fakelore we want to spread around the internet (possibly, but not necessarily, the same entry).

We just have a few extra people to mention this week, but I’d like to thank everyone who competed.  Staff or fan favorites included Billard’s Jacqueline Dowell, Garrett’s Uncle Jack (and S.G.N.Doug’s Uncle Jack song), greg’s night before All Saints Day, and Mach3’s sobering-perspective-lore, (as named by giraffe1089).

The five fakelore finalists this week are Ian Randal Strock (with his dentist-engineered Halloween), jupchu’s kin of pumps, Barnaby Hayes’ regifting Santa, Tiago’s mad arab Al-o-ween, and Alex’s more macabre Hansel & Gretel.

In the very early days of MM, we were on easy street when whittling down the entries into five finalists.  Usually there would only be about five that were really standouts anyway.  This is a stark contrast to recent contests, which have taken a herculean effort to narrow the field down.

With an increasing number of people showing off their prodigious contest skills, it increases the pool of entries that are in the category amazing-yet-not-chosen-for-the-finals.  Some good news is that we’ve decided this will be a merch contest.  We’ll announce our selections for those in a few weeks.

This week we learned that Short Round has some strong support, that you thought Contest #16 was a good break from our more complicated contests, and that Jakutz is actually all but 3 of the people on MM.

I’m happy to report that we had a bunch of new people enter the contest this week, some of which made the special-mentions and the finalists.  In addition to lauding the finalists, each week, we also mention entries that didn’t make the top 5, but were either crowd or staff favorites.

There were Greg’s menial magnifier blogy-thingy, Alex’s cash only gas station, David’s one-man China, Taylor’s swear jar, Gig’s bailout bucket, Misha G’s Ethiopian baby adoptions, Katie’s superstring theory, and jbirdpower’s Pac-man goal.

Let me first say that when you vote today, don’t forget to log in so that you can be eligle to win the participation rewards prize this week.  If you haven’t registered for a username, you can do so here.  If you haven’t completed the other component of the eligibility, you could post on the forum or add a link in our collaborative story game (keep the story going!).

The range of entries was this week was quite wide.  We had old school PSAs, completely new PSAs, and even a sprinkling of consumer-targeted prescription medicine ads.  We had several new users enter the contest this week, including one who achieved our new highest ever ranking (although you can’t really make a fair comparison with pre-double thumbs up contests).

Each week we recognize users that, despite not making the finals, were either staff or MM user favorites.  There were Jakutz‘ AT AT recall, Anahita’s Lucky Lightsabers, Taylor’s Save-a-Ton Ton campaign, Zabo’s Avoid-the-Droid, Mrs Sanchez’ Anti-Bullying message, and Jbirdpowers‘ drug to prevent spreading the Force to your partner. 

Another week, another batch of entries.  But we did more than just engage in the sacred act of creativity this week.  We’ve made it possible for young students (mad) everywhere to prove they’ve got a flair for science (evil).

Unless this is your first week here, you will not be surprised that I’d like to recognize a few entries other than the finalists that were crowd and/or staff favorites.  There were fooly cooly’s memory problems, Shirin’s minion army, soleil’s enemy question, nmrboy’s blade runner tortoise, Kimberly’s plan B, Jakutz’s dead nemesis, Ian Randal Strock’s nanotube analogy, and greg’s 1st question on the MSAT.

The finalists you’ll be choosing between this week are Alex, SomeGuyNamedDoug, Mach3, R.E.D., and Brendan (whom I am legally obliged to point out has a chance at becoming our first 2x champion).

Let me first say that I love the sign pictured here.  Just think about it for a minute.  Second, don’t forget to go to the previous post and vote on the issues.

So we’ve finished using our proprietary finalist selection process and have your top 5 entries of the week.  Like most weeks, I’d like to recognize other entries that were with staff favorites or received many votes.  There were nmrboy’s hating kangaroos, Lalaith’s Anti-Alliteration Area, Ian Randal Strock’s elect-with-caution, Soliel’s chest-staring weirdos, SomeGuyNamedDoug’s collapsing probability wave, and Jackie’s good-on-paper threesome.

This week was amazing.  In addition to the excellent variety of villain-based limericks, we were also treated to an epic 3-way poetry battle between Greg, Jakutz, and Stevel Knievel.  Neither Greg nor Jakutz made the finals, so the awesomeness that infuses their cells and makes them slightly luminescent in low light will have to be their only reward.  The week also saw the release of what is, thus far, my favorite set of merch: MM’s Portmanteau Collection.

There are plenty of users to recognize this week who didn’t make the finals, but were nonetheless noteworthy (either for being popular or MM Staff Favorites).  There were Zabo’s Skeletor, Padma’s Bush, Greg’s Drunk Driver, Drewbert’s Bush, Dawson’s Narnia, Brendan’s MM Contest Villains, and Jim Pettit’s Wicked-ass Witch.  Lastly, Alex, also in the finals for another poem, wrote an interesting limerick composed mostly of unrhymable words.

So this week was a little tough, eh?  Only about a dozen brave MMers had a pitch for us this week.  I suppose it’s good to throw a difficult one your way every once in a while to keep you guessing.  Well, it’s time to determine who the best of the bunch is.

I’m not going to single out any entries other than the finalists this week.  But I would like to thank everyone who showed their movie pitch magic and entered the contest.

Because the entries tended towards very lengthy, I’m only going to include a brief description of the factions in the poll.  I’ll include a link to the original comment below the poll.  You can read the pitch in its entirety by clicking on the link.

Contest 10 has been fantabulous.  Would that I could award each of you a cool, refreshing Piemonade (you could eat it for brunch, with your celebrity friends Brangelina).  But, as all Magmaddicts know, there’s never enough Piemonade to go around.

As we do every week, I’d like to give credit to the users who, though not making the finals, had entries that were crowd or MM staff favorites.  They were Vlad’s Arachnicrat & Palintology, drewbert’s evangealousy & folklorticulture, Alex’s mellifluenza (and I have to recognize R.E.D.’s great & awful & great again pun: “One time my friend, Melli, thought she was a bird so Mellifluenzawindow.”), Mrs. Sara’s telepatasker, and Jakutz’s pair: gonadequate & erogenerosity.

Let’s all remember that this week’s contest was created by user Bunny Slippers.  If not for her, we would have run our contest about choosing your favorite shade of brown.

The four finalists MM chose this week are Jakutz, Fluphy, Greg, and Kyr.  Bunny Slippers chose c2 as her guest-judge pick.  The poll will be open until 5pm EST on Sunday.  Remember, a $25 Amazon.com Gift Certificate and a $15 Mental Magma Online Store gift certificate are on the line here.

We need more people to enter MM contests, not because we’re not getting enough high quality entries, but precisely because everyone’s answers are so freakin’ good.  I’m trying to separate the wheat from chaff and you people aren’t producing any chaff.  So, please tell all of your bumbling, ineloquent, creatively-barren friends to come on over to MentalMagma.com so you guys can have some people to make look bad.

Anyway, we loved the entries this week.  You all came up with so many good ideas that we’ll be mixing them into our contests for years to come.  Keep in mind that, just like a merch contest, ALL of the entries are in play for possible future contests, not just the finalists.

For anyone not familiar with the term, see the definition of leet here.  This week’s entries raised a point we’ve debated on MM before.  How far can people stretch each contest’s specific instructions before they’ve gone too far to be in the running?

The short answer is that we’ll have to decide on a case by case basis, mainly dependent on if we feel the entry is within the spirit of the contest.  So entries this week that wrote more than just a headline are fine.  The entries that wrote a headline but didn’t include something about an Olympic internet event are not really considered.  My best advice is that if your entry is pretty good, and just bends the rules a little bit, go ahead and submit it.

This week’s contest seemed to bring out the best in everyone.  You all sparred verbally over whose minion would best lead to world domination, but you did it with a sense of decorum.  That’s what is missing in the world - aspiring evil doers with a sense of civility.

Before revealing the finalists let me mention a few evil geniuses and their minions who, despite missing the finals, were beloved by the community or the MM admins.  There were Tiago’s hippopotami with kangaroo legs, Mrs Sara’s teddy bear hamsters with jaguar claws, Mrs Sanchez’s cheetah with a T-rex head, Ian Randal Strock’s flying elephants, Mannequin’s human Males with mule bodies, and Dlawhon’s tigers with scorpian tales.