I’m starting a new PhotoBlog.

Wow, just writing that for the entire world to see is exciting in a “major loser coming out of the nerd-boy closet” kind of way. I’m actually tingling all over in awe of my own Geekiness. And right this very second, as I type these words out, I’m smiling in a cheesy consolation-prize-winning-game-show-contestant way. I could be wrong, but I also think my nipples are hard.

Yep. Hard like little, hot, pink diamonds.

Anywaste, in order to do this new site justice, I’ve gone out and designed a brand new website, complete with its own URL and all the other Geeky stuff that you don’t really care about. However, since I didn’t want to use MovableType as the main Blogging tool for this new PhotoBlog, I decided to give WordPress a try and installed it on this new site of mine.

Because I’m so cutting edge like that, yo.

Now, here’s the thing. I don’t know diddly about WordPress. I’ve read all the info on it and it seems pretty straight-forward when it comes to designing templates and themes and everything, but I can’t seem to wrap my tired mind around the conceptual discussions about WordPress themes that I’m reading on the web. Which is basically my way of saying that I understand, in theory, what I’m supposed to do to make WordPress look the way I want, but I don’t seem to be able to implement the design properly in practice.

Which is where YOU come in.

I’m looking for someone who can explain to me by example how to make my PhotoBlog design into a WordPress theme so that I can then create other themes in the future. I’m not looking for a tutorial about WordPress themes on the web (read them), or for a technical jargon infused dissertation about how the guts of WordPress works (read those, too). I just want someone who can look at my design and then explain to me, through email and/or IM sessions, how to take that design and make it into a WordPress theme, without my having to learn PHP. I want to learn how to create WP themes so that I can make them available for EVERYONE to use whether they understand the inner workings of WordPress, PHP, HTML, CSS or not.

I know people are doing this, I just need to learn how.

And, as a reward for helping me learn the proper way to create WP themes, I would then create for you a WP theme for your Blog. That’s right, help me and I’ll try to make your site look pretty… or prettier. Or not so Blogger-template ugly. Whatever. Hey, it’s a free site redesign by a guy who makes a nice living doing graphic design work for big companies. Who knows? You might even like the new design enough to use it! So, if you’re interested in giving me a hand please email me at geekman(at-symbol)themightygeek.com.

So, who wants to help me out?

I MUST be crazy.

Two years ago I put out a call to my readership to supply me with their wackiest sentences. From those I picked the ten I liked best and weaved them together into a story to entertain you while also giving the winners some linky-love. The result was Adam Dragonhart. It’s taken two whole years for me to recover from that experience, but now that I have recovered I think I might try it again.

No, I’m not on new medication. Now shut up.

That’s not to say that this story will necessarily continue Adam Dragonhart’s adventures. For all I know it will, but it’s just as possible that something new will come to my mind based on your sentences and I’ll go off on a wild tangent that has nothing at all to do with Adam. But whatever does happen, I’m praying to heaven above that it’s funny or I suspect you’ll all show up outside my door brandishing pitchforks, torches and rotten vegetables.

So, before you fire up your favorite word processor, here’s the rules.

The sentence you send should be in English and no more than 25 words long, although those words can be of any length. And if you’re going to use a made up word, please keep it to one per sentence because your made up words are rarely as clever to others as they are to you. The sentence can be about anything at all, but please no curse words. Any entries containing curse words will not be used and yes, that means you too, mom. Also, no proper names allowed. That means if you send me a sentence that reads, “Marsha told Greg to come to Alice’s room after Cindy left the house if he wanted some of her ‘special’ Brady pie.” I’ll simply ignore it, no matter how funny I think it is.

And boy, do I ever think it’s funny.

You may send as many entries as you wish, but each entry must be contained in a separate email and only one entry per contestant will be used in the final story. Please include your URL and website name with your entry email for proper linkage. If you have no website, make sure to indicate whether you want a link to your email address or if you’d prefer no link at all, in which case your entry will contain no link and finding it in the story to point out to all your imaginary friends at school will be difficult to say the least.

But I’m sure your mother will still be proud of you.

GeekMan, that’s me, reserves the right to not use your entry no matter how clever you might think it is, even if it does involve llamas. Once submitted, all entries become the property of The Mighty Geek. In fact, I reserve all rights to submitted material. You have no rights. None. Nada. Zip. Zero. The subject line of your entry should read Adam’s Revenge. All entries must be received by 11pm EST, Wednesday August 10, 2005.

Email your entries to: geekman at the mighty geek d0t c0m

That’s it. There’s no prize money or gifts being offered here, just the chance to see your words used in a yet another weird and (hopefully) funny story. Well, that and perhaps the gift of a few meager click-throughs from the readership here at The Might Geek. Now hurry up and dream up a few zany words and string them together so I can write something funny for you!

And don’t forget to spell check!

Merry fricking Christmas.

It’s Christmas Eve and I’m getting ready to go out for dinner with some friends so I’m going to be quick about this. But before I start handing out the prizes to the winners, let’s take a moment to acknowledge all of those who entered but lost. In other words;

Let’s talk LOSERS!

The Biggest Loser Award, of course, goes to my lifelong friend Mr. Hentai. Not only is he a loser for knowing me in real life for over 25 years, but he also can’t seem to follow simple contest instructions like my rule number three which clearly states that he needed to leave “a link to my award on your site.” By simply leaving a link to his site in general, poor Mr. Hentai gets nothing but coal in his stocking this Christmas. Schmuck.

The Runner-Up Loser Award is… a tie!

NeverSwallows, a curious moniker which I’ve been told means that she gets all her nourishment through an IV, didn’t win for the same reason Mr. Hentai didn’t. You see, just like Mr. Hentai, she can’t seem to follow directions. Awwww, poor baby.
FatDude, or FatGuy, or whatever he calls himself nowadays, is a Runner-Up Loser because he tried to enter the contest after the end of the submission time period. By email. With sad-faced emoticons, puppy-eyed begging and everything. For being too lazy to actually submit to my whims and pump my ego by giving me an award in time for my contest, I bequeath unto FatDude the Runner-Up Loser Award and a swift kick to his immense and grotesque arse. And this time I’m leaving my galoshes in there, too. Maybe it’ll teach him a lesson. Then again, maybe not.

Next we have the… uhhhh, the uhmm…

The Nominated But Still Not A Winner Awards!

This award goes to everyone who, ahhh… entered but didn’t win. Any resemblance to a pity link in the hopes of not actually alienating those who took the time to enter this contest is purely coincidental. This is an actual award and should not be looked upon as a last minute addition to appease my readers who may or may not be mentally unstable lifetime members of the NRA and able to find Brooklyn on a map.

I’m not kidding. Stop rolling your eyes.

Anywaste, the Nominated But Still Not a Winner Award goes to the following Bloggers, all of whom aren’t only non-winners, they’re non-losers, too!

• FriedKitten
• SpaceMonkey
• JJ Redick’s woman
• Eclat

But enough about the losers non-winners, let’s get to the meat and potatoes. Speaking of which, I’m damn hungry, so without further ado, let’s talk winners!

The Miss Congeniality Award is a wonderful award to win. Usually, nobody wants to be Miss Congeniality because all it means is that you lost the real prize, but not this time. No, in my stupid Christmas contest the Miss Congeniality winner will receive any item they choose from The Mighty Shop!

Oh yeah, I can smell the jealousy.

May I have the envelope, please? And The Mighty Geek Miss Congeniality Award goes to…

It’s a TIE!

JadedJu and SpreeGirl!

Well, the judges are obviously on crack or have been bribed in some way because we all know that those two didn’t deserve this award. But, rules are rules, so JadedJu and SpreeGirl, if you’ll be so kind as to email me accepting your reward for giving me an award, I’ll send you your award reward.

Did that make sense? Ah, who cares? Let’s get to the next Award!

The Runner-Up Suck-Up Award winner will receive $25 in PayPal money OR any item off of their Amazon wishlist worth $25 or less. This is a nice prize and it should be going to a worthy person who has done something truly wonderful… but instead it will go to…

Jen of Random Gestures!

Jen, send me an email accepting your reward and we’ll set up the awarding of the reward. It’s a pity that we’ll have to do some sort of currency exchange in order for you to get your prize, but I’m sure you’ll find a way to use the ¤2,847,902.11 Drachma you’ll receive after the exchanger takes his 95% cut. Maybe you’ll buy a piece of Canadian candy or whatever it is you foreign people like to eat. Damn Canadians.

But enough about those rotten foreigners, let’s get to the true main event!

The 2004 Mighty Geek Super-Ultra Brown-Nosing Suck-Up Award winner is…

Solonor!

Not only did he give me an award on his site, he gave me EVERY award on his site! That level of brown nosing for a cash reward is rare indeed and all of you would be suck-up’s should go grovel at Solonors feet and devote your entire life to emulating his brown-nosing expertise. As the winner of The 2004 Mighty Geek Super-Ultra Brown-Nosing Suck-Up Award, Solonor will receive $40 in PayPal money OR any item off of his Amazon wishlist worth $40 or less. Sol, send me an email telling me how much you love me and I’ll make you $40 richer.

I hope you’re all happy. Now, if you’re reading this on Christmas, I have a special message just for you;

Get a life!

Merry Christmas. Every won.

I’m feeling the spirit.

Well, not really. But I figured that maybe since everyone else was busy spreading this “Holiday Cheer” stuff all over each other in a desperate orgy of last-minute yuletide bribery in the hopes of making up for the past years’ sins and finally receiving that tickle-me-turrets Elmo that they’ve been begging for, that I might as well join in with some “good intentions” and get my rocks off at the same time. So, while I was in the shower this morning I dreamed up a little contest. Hopefully some of you will actually enter this time because it has a cash prize.

In case you missed it, CASH PRIZE!

Yep, that’s right people. The Mighty Geek, that’s me, is going to bestow upon the winner of this little contest either $25 in PayPal money OR one item off of your Amazon wishlist costing $25 or less.

It ain’t much, but it’s $25 more than you’ve got right now.

All you’ve got to do is enter my little contest and you could be the recipient of a little bit of holiday cheer you would never have expected in a million years. But hang on there, Quickdraw McGraw. Don’t blow your wad just yet; there are rules to this here contest so be sure to read them all at least twice so you don’t screw up and come hunting me with a sawed-off shotgun and a scatter-shot present with my name on it.

But first, a little contest background.

It seems to me that around this time every year people go gaga for online Blog award type things. Almost every Blogger on the net seems to be handing out awards, or attempting to coerce their readership to nominate them or vote for them for somebody else’s silly awards. Everyone seems to be soliciting their readership to vote for them in categories like; “Best Blog In The Universe, Ever” or “Best Blog Using The Color Green And The Veranda Font” or “Most Banal Blogging Banter Involving Neutered Pets”.

It’s enough to drive a person mad.

So, since it seems to me that anyone on the web can create an award for anybody they damn well choose, I think it only fair that I get an award from everyone! Don’t you agree? Well, I bet you’ll agree when you realize that that’s the contest… ingrates.

Contest Rules:

1. You must have a Blog or Online Journal to enter this contest. If you don’t have one, too bad. I can’t help it if you’re not smart enough to go to Blogger and create one simply to enter and win this contest. I mean, it’s almost as if you want me to spell these things out for you in advance or just give the money away for nothing. Sheesh!
2. On your Blog, create an award, any award, and designate me or my website as the winner. (Hint: it helps if you actually link to my site) The award can be for anything, anything at all, and in any form. You could designate me the winner of the YourBlog’s “Best Blogger” award, or if you’re feeling creative you can create a picture of a trophy and an award category like, “Blog Most Likely To Cause Projectile Vomiting” and present it to me on your site. Whatever makes you happiest. Use your imagination or, if your imagination is on vacation this week, then borrow somebody else’s. I don’t care.
3. Come back to this site and leave a comment on this post and this post only with a link to my award on your site.
4. On Thursday evening at 11:59 EST, I will close the comments for this post and then begin viewing my awards. On Friday, Christmas Eve, I will chose the award that I find to be the best based solely on my own opinion and nothing else. The winner might be the funniest, saddest, most offensive, least offensive or even the last award I look at because I’m tired and it’s fricking Christmas. Whatever I choose, my decision is final.
5. The winner will be posted here, with a link to their site and the winning award. The winner will then contact me through email to collect their prize.

Now get busy. I’ve got an acceptance speech to give.

*** UPDATE ***

The Polls are now closed! If you didn’t enter, guess what?! You didn’t win!

I’ll never be an A-Lister.

My writing contest, which I thought had some pretty cool prizes up for grabs, has yielded a whopping THREE entries. And since I just happen to be giving away not one, not two, but three prizes, I guess I don’t really need to go through the whole agonizing task of reading through thousands of entries to narrow my choices to the top three and then fend off a slew of angry emails from all the jilted hopefuls.

In a strange way that could almost be considered a plus.

Anywaste, to show my three loyal minions just how benevolent and generous I am I’m going to forego the whole first, second, third prize thing, and simply offer each of them their choice of which of the three prizes they want. Each of them can choose any of the three they want with no penalties should two, or even three of them want the same thing. So they can all choose to have an item from the TMG store, or two can get something from their Amazon wishlist, or they can all get different things.

Aren’t I a great guy?

You may be asking yourself, who are these lucky SOBs? Well, wonder no more for I shall tell you. They are;

• Cableman for “Bird World”
• Michelle S. (no website given) for “A Living Nightmare in Periwinkle”
• and, Solonor for “Quack Another Day”

Congratulations winners! You have just proven that you have no lives.

It’s contest time!

At about this time last year I held a fun little contest where I asked you, my loyal minions, to send me your wackiest, weirdest, wildest and funniest sentences. Choosing the ten sentences that I deemed the best of the bunch, I did my best to use them in a logical and meaningful way while writing a funny short story. I thought it would be simple. I thought it would be fun. I thought it would be easy.

It was not.

Incorporating ten disparate sentences supplied by weirdo’s like my crazy readership was a whole lot harder than I originally thought it would be. In fact, it was so hard that I don’t think I ever want to do it again. Well, at least not until I know I have a whole week free to write it so I can take my time and make it a little more coherent…

Wait. What the hell am I saying?! I’ve got to stop smoking the Crack.

Anywaste, this time around I think I’ve come up with a fun little twist on that old contest that just might interest some people out there. Not only will it be immensely more fun for me, it will also be exponentially less stressful and thus much simpler and easier, which will make me happy. And isn’t my happiness all that really matters to you?

Good minion. Have a cookie.

This time things will be different because I won’t be doing all the hard work. You see, for this contest I’ll be supplying the sentences and you’ll be supplying the story. In fact, just because I’m a lazy S.O.B., I’ll only give you the very first and the very last sentence of the story so you can be as creative as you want.

Plus, there are prizes for the winners!

So, since I can see some of you want me to stop with all my jabbering and get right to the whole contest thing, let me lay down The Rules.

1. Entry Application
   Your entry must be emailed to: geekman (little ‘at’ symbol) themightygeek (period) com. The email must have the subject line, “Minions Write To Win Contest” and must contain the following information in the body with each piece of info on a separate line;

   Your name and/or alias
   Your email address where you can be reached
   Your website URL (if you have a website)
   And the title of your story

   All stories must be sent as an attached Word file, or at the very least as an attached plain-text file. No WordPerfect files, HTML documents, Adobe PDFs, scanned images of typewritten pages, snail-mailed stone tablets, or any other attachment aside from Word or plain-text will be accepted. Each story must be a minimum of 500 words. There is no maximum word count.

2. No Strong Curse Words
   This is a PG-13 site. I don’t use any words stronger than what you might hear on an American TV soap opera and you shouldn’t need to either. Entries with strong curse words will not be considered for this contest, but I will take great joy in printing them out and marking each curse word and/or phrase with a fat, red pen and then mailing the printout to your mother. With a bar of soap.
3. No Entry Limitation
   You may enter this contest as many times as you like, but each entry must be sent in a separate email.
4. I Own It
   Once submitted, all entries become the property of The Mighty Geek. The Mighty Geek reserves the right to use, or to not use, your entry for any reason whatsoever. The Mighty Geek also reserves the right to publish any and all entries in any format and at any time.
5. Deadline
   All entries must be received by 11pm EST, Monday May 10th, 2004.
6. Judging
   The three ‘winners’ will be picked by The Mighty Geek on using purely arbitrary methods of divination possibly including a ouija board, some soggy tea leaves, his own judgment, and/or the psychic hotline. These three ‘winners’ will then be publicly judged using a method to be determined by The Mighty Geek at a future date, which will most likely be a cheesy online poll. There will then be three prizes awarded.
7. Prizes
   There will be three separate prizes;
   • Any single item from the TMG store chosen by the prize winner.
   • A single item from the winners Amazon wishlist worth $25 USD or less.
   • A PERSONAL website designed, or an existing PERSONAL website redesigned, for the winner by The Mighty Geek.

   The entry dubbed the best by the public judging will choose one of the three prizes. The second place winner will then choose from the two remaining prizes, and the third place winner will receive the castoff leftovers, because let’s be honest here, third place is just a polite way of saying that you’re the loser of the winners. The website prize is subject to the following qualifications;

   • Winner will receive two to three jpeg images of design concepts for the website which will be created by The Mighty Geek.
   • The winner will choose one design of the three.
   • Using only HTML and CSS, The Mighty Geek will create a website template for the winner.
     The Mighty Geek will not do any back-end programming, flash creation, database implementation, troubleshooting or anything else other than design a website. The Mighty Geek is not responsible, nor can be held accountable, for any damages, losses, snafus, maladies, data corruption or harm that may be incurred to the winner due in whole or in part to the design supplied by The Mighty Geek.

   Basically, I’ll design and code a really nice site for you and give it to you free of charge, but I won’t be responsible if something goes wrong when you’re uploading it to your server. If you use Movable Type for a Blog then I might help set that up with the new design I give you, but if something goes haywire don’t blame me. I’m a designer, not a code monkey.

For those who couldn’t make it through all that, let me sum up;

If you send me an email by May 10th with your story of more than 500 words that’s written in Word and containing the two sentences below, you could win one of three fabulous prizes. Should you lose, you can’t blame me. If you win and don’t like your prize, you can’t blame me. If your prize causes you problems of any kind and you want to beat the heck out of someone or sue them until even their children’s, children’s, children’s paychecks are being direct-deposited into your bank account, you can’t come after me.

Basically, write a story, win a prize and don’t blame me.

Got it? Good. Because now’s the time for what you’ve been waiting for; The Minions Write To Win contest is about to begin. Below are the two sentences that MUST be used in the story you submit. The first sentence below MUST be the very first sentence of your story, and the second sentence MUST be the last sentence of your story. Remember, this is supposed to be fun, so try to enjoy yourself. OK, everyone ready? Great! Here we go!
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