Tara is the Geeky Hostess; she created the site in 2010. The Geeky Hostess is dedicated to incorporating geekiness into everyday life through parties, gift ideas, home decor, recipes, etiquette, fashion, and more.

This is Tara’s second year on the bus and we’re glad to have her with us again. She survived last year and came back for more! Thank you Tara for supporting and being with us on this crazy journey and helping people find out more about Desert Bus through your PR skills.

$5.55 x n until 9:50am

We’re sending off Andy’s first full driving shift with a Donation Drive! Up for grabs is a package of
very rare and unique Dungeons & Dragons items! This D&D pack includes several items never available for sale, including a leather Rage of Dragons notebook case, a Tiamat Pinny Arcade pin, a selection of 5e D&D sourcebooks, all SIGNED BY THE D&D PRODUCTION TEAM, and more!!!

D&D fanatic? Newbie looking to get into the game? Looking for a one-of-a-kind gift for a D&D player for this holiday season? If any of the above describes you, you’re going to want to get your hands on this!

Until 9:50am, donate $5.55 or multiples thereof for a chance to win this pack! That’s it! As always, donate multiple times for multiple entries!

Ashly Burch will be calling in at 11am PST on Sunday, November 15th.

Ashly Burch is best known for creating Hey Ash, Whatcha Playin’? alongside her brother Anthony Burch. HAWP is an absurdist comedy series focused on video games and industry trends.

Along with her role as Tiny Tina in the Borderlands franchise, Ashley has lent her vocal talent to numerous projects within both the game and animation industries. Whether it’s Adventure Time or Attack on Titan, Ashly can be heard in a wide variety of roles.

Got a question for Ashly? Leave it in the comments below.

We’re on a Star Wars theme with our giveaways right now, so how about a Star Wars themed art challenge?

Andy wants to you to create a Desert Bus-themed Star Wars-themed droid. Up for grabs is an official Desert Bus 9 T-Shirt!

Send your submissions to contests@desertbus.org with “Desert bus droid” in the subject line. Be sure to include the name or handle by which you’d like to be announced on air should your submission win. We’ll be taking submissions until 9:50 AM PST.

The force is strong with this Donation Drive… and well, that’s probably because this sweet The Dark Side – Star Wars painting is up for grabs.

Donate $7.15 (or multiples thereof) for a chance to win this painting. We’ll run this donation drive until shortly after 7:50 AM PST.

During Andy’s shift, we asked you to submit your Shakespearian sonnets about dinosaurs. Here’s the winning sonnet and runner-up, respectively:

An Ode to Stars & Lovers

By Hunter Esquire

When ‘neath the jewel lit sky we lied,
Your reptile eyes bewitching mine,
Running fingers though your spines
I held you close as we both spied.

That across the night, now blazing red.
The wind began to burn and bluster,
Filling hearts with endless dread
And feet as fleet as we could muster.

I ran, my mind in instinct acting
And ducked into a cave to hide
When then I found, my heart redacting
That behind me you had not arrived.

The tears for you were gently falling,
much like the sky did without warning.

Requiem for a Tyrannosaurus Rex

By LandfishAttack

We fight and hunt with tooth and claw,
Primordial battlegrounds we scout and stalk.
The weakest of our kind, the herbivore,
Their fate, unjust, uncouth, they squawk.

Here we stand, so tall, proud and heroic.
Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous,
An age of reptiles: Mesozoic!

Imagine we were a park of sorts,
Corralled together by some feckless twit.
Would he see the reckless fate that he courts?
… A flight of fancy. Forget I said it.

We shall live forever, we’ll never die!
Wait… what is that rock falling from the sky?

Time for another Donation Drive! From now until just after 6:30 AM PST, donate $8.38 (or multiples thereof) for a chance to win these A38 Wireless Headphones and a set of PAX speaker tags.

During Andy’s shift, we asked you to give us your best artistic interpretation of the vampire mythos. Thanks to everyone for your submissions; here’s the winning drawing by Hotliquidjello:

And here’s our honorable mentions…

Check out the rest of the submissions after the jump.

A new sponsor this year is Legacy Books Press, a publisher from Kingston, Ontario that specializes in non-fiction and classics. They are dedicated to exploring those interesting corners of history, both modern and ancient, that tend to be overlooked, but still shaped the world as we know it today. They have kindly supplied sets of Caesar Americanus, The Secret History of Star Wars, and Garwulf’s Corner to Desert Bus 9. Thank you very much Legacy Books Press for your support of the run this year.

What would Shakespearian poetry sound like 65 million years ago? Maybe something like “Rawr rawr rawr ra rawr grawr?” We’ve no idea, but for our next challenge, in honor of this handcrafted Monster Hunting mug, we’ll be looking for your creative suggestions for a Shakespearian sonnet about dinosaurs.

(For convenience, here’s an article on iambic pentameter, which is the rhyming scheme commonly used in Shakespearian sonnets. We had to look this up too.)

Winner gets this handcrafted Monster Hunting mug that’ll conveniently hold 20 ounces of your favorite delicious beverage of choice. You’ve got until 6:09 AM PST to submit your poetry.

Send your submissions to contests@desertbus.org with “Dinosaur Sonnet” in the subject line. Also, please include with your submission the name or handle by which you’d like to be announced on air should your submission win.

RAWR!