The contest this week is to write a classifieds ad that will find someone who will help you eradicate the zombie infestation.  The trick is that you can’t be obvious about what you need.  If the government goons spot your ad and think there’s an outbreak, they’ll nuke the whole region.  You must get the right person for the job without revealing your predicament.

Limitations: Imagine you are posting this ad in the surviving regional newspaper.  It can be any kind of classified ad (garage sale, personals, help wanted, etc) as long as it has the goals described above.  You must be succinct.  You are allowed no more than 3 lines, each with no more than 10 words per line.

Standard contest timeline and contest rules apply this week. By leaving an entry you are agreeing to those rules. The entry voted the favorite by MM users will earn its author Max Brooks’ The Zombie Survival Guide & their choice of a $15 Amazon.com gift certificate OR a $20 gift certificate to the MM Online Store.

Contest Summary
Assignment: Write a classifieds ad covertly seeking help with zombie eradication
How to enter: Post your ad in the Contest Entries section 
Deadline: Friday, November 21st at 5pm EST
Prize: choice of gift certificate and Max Brooks’ The Zombie Survival Guide.

Photo by Flickr user Dr_Doom

We shan’t be surprised if Hallmark contacts Mr On The Concept and offers him a job.  The quip that earned him the win was:

Hoping all your hallucinations are harmless this Holiday Season!

F. on the C. will receive a $35 gift certificate to the MM online store.  Our MM Participation Rewards winner this week was Dana, who wins a $20 MM online store gift certificate (We doubled the amount to $20 in honor of contest 20).

This was a merch contest, so we’ll be making real cards out of some of these card ideas and selling them in our store.  We’ll try to have that done and announced in the next week so you can send them out as holiday cards.  Let us know if you have a favorite you’d really like to see make the cut (merch selections can be chosen from any entries, not just the finalists).

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,

Your five finalists this week are diggyk, Alex, fuzz on the concept, Greg, and Mike Fo’ Sho’.  The poll will be open until 5pm EST on Sunday.  Don’t forget to log in to vote if you want to be eligible for the MM Participation Rewards.

photo by flickr user spacepotato

Introducing the 2nd set of six designs from:

Contest #13: Alternative Hazards.

Telescope by fooly cooly	Molten by Jakutz

Fist by Ella Minnow Pea	Format by Zabo

Yield by Zabo	Kangaroo by nmrboy

We’re also announcing a total redesign of our store. The new store has been upgraded, enhanced, and then sprinkled with bits of unicorn horn.

The new store sports:

• More merchandise options (like hoodies and $12 value tees)
• Larger display images
• New Designs & Top Designs sections
• Better organization
• Less dark matter

Feedback is appreciated. Let us and the users who came up with the ideas know what you think of the new designs and the new store. Post your thoughts in the comments section (of this post) or in the forum.

Being a unique website (well, I’m not aware of any other site like us), the traffic we receive from Google usually isn’t very useful.  Sure, there are some people searching for “creative contests” or some variation like that, but most of the Google traffic comes from people searching for bizarre words and phrases that just happened to be mentioned in our contests.  I always wonder why these people are searching for these terms and what they think when they find us.

Here is a sample of the terms people have searched for on Google and arrived at MentalMagma.com.  I’ve also noted my best guess as to why MM showed up in these searches.

Search: What rhymes with villainous?     
“Villainous” was mentioned in title of Contest #12.  The answer to their question…nothing.

Search: What happens when a hotdog gets stuck up your ass?
“Hotdog” mentioned in title of Contest #4.  It’s unfortunate the searcher ended up at our site since MM has never really tackled this interesting and important question.

Search: twi’lek hooters
I’m a bit abashed to say that Contest #15 did mention this topic. (In a contest entry)

Search: racist jewish limerick poems
Again, Contest #12 is the culprit here.  I haven’t gone back and read thoroughly, but I think the searcher left our site disappointed.

Search: prima nocta halloween photos
Prima nocta was mentioned in Contest #17.  This is one of those where I can’t imagine what the searcher was really looking for.

Search: free poetry contest for unpublished adult in massachusetts 2008
We’ve had several contests involving poetry.  Unfortunately, our Adult-in-Massachusetts-unpublished-poetry-contest is scheduled for 2009.

Search: bajong
An onomatopoeia word I thought I made up and used in this video.

Search: how many candy corn in gallon jar?
Apparently this is a popular question because a number of people have found us using this.  A contest entry in Contest #16 mentioned it.

Search: MissMagma.com
I guess we showed up on this search just because of Magma.  This one reminds me of one of SomeGuyNamedDoug’s posts.

Search: mental thing or pic
I guess this guy/gal was in one of those moods where you want to either read about, or see pics of, mental things.

And finally there is the thriving practice of arriving at us by spelling our name wrong (Good ol’ Google gets them to us anyway): mental megma, mental mangma, mentl magma, menta magma, mental magama, and metnal magma.

So there you have it; if any of these searches were you, own up!

The contest this week is to write the inside text for a holiday greeting card. You’ll be writing these captions for your choice of the images below.  This is going to be a merch contest so we will be choosing some of the entries and making them into actual holiday cards available in our online store.  Who wants to send their relatives bland and banal cards when you can introduce your loved ones to the output of Mental Magma minds?

Standard timeline and contest rules apply this week. By leaving an entry you are agreeing to those rules. The entry voted the favorite by MM users will earn its author a $35 gift certificate to the MM Online Store.

Here are the images you can choose from (click on the image for larger version):

You can refer to these as (starting with top left) Bed, Candle Head, Handkerchief, Sleigh, Two Blokes, and Train.  Please begin each contest entry with the name of the image for which you are writing a caption (I’ll go through and insert the image above your text after you write it).

Contest Summary
Assignment: Write the caption for a holiday card (displaying one of the images above).
How to enter: Write your entry in the Contest Entries section.
Deadline: Friday, November 14th at 5pm EST
Prize: a $35 Mental Magma Online Store gift certificate.

Announcement: This contest is closed. Feel free to continue to leave your answers here, but you’ll be doing so strictly for our edification. Why don’t you see what’s going on in the forum or check out the latest update or contest?