Before we officially start this year’s marathon, the entire organizing committee would like to extend an official thanks to one of our organizing partners The Escapist.

2012 marks the third year of our partnership, and once again the Escapist has pulled out all the stops to help promote Desert Bus and bring it to an even bigger audience. The team at Escapist HQ have been working tirelessly to help us this year. For Desert Bus 6 they’ve created a special mini-site, set aside advertising space for the event, sent us a huge assortment of prizes and helped us round up our biggest assortment of corporate sponsors yet. The Escapist is also doing its annual Publishers Club for Charity Drive, donating the proceeds of its premium Publishers Club memberships to Desert Bus, and sweetening the pig with a huge assortment of prizes, many of which are exclusive to Desert Bus. You can find out more about the Escapist’s Pub Club donation drive by visiting http://www.escapistmagazine.com.

It was the generous support of The Escapist that helped propel us north of $380,000 last year so we’re thrilled to be working with them again this year.

Just who is this mysterious Liz?

Geek? Pop Culture Guru? That crazy person who keeps asking us for spare change? Maybe all of the above!

Dammit Liz (aka Liz Smith) is a freelance event consultant based out of the Seattle area who specializes in geek culture and the glory that surrounds it. This year Liz has pulled out all the stops, helping out with her incredible organizational skills, lining up awesome call-ins, and even donating from her own personal vault of swag! We can’t say how happy we are to have her on board or how cool she is.

No event too big, no fandom too small, Liz is there to help your project get rolling and back on track. You can find her on her website, Twitter or Facebook.

Seriously, what else can be said about a woman who led a battalion of Storm Troopers down the streets of LA?

Once again Steve Dengler of Dracogen Strategic Investments is returning to Desert Bus as a sponsor!

Besides founding currency conversion giant XE.com (today ranked as the 359^th most popular website on Earth), Steve is also an Angel Investor, philanthropist, comic strip character, and a grade-A, power-level-over-9,000, geek. (Did we mention that he’s a comic strip character? How cool is that!)

Steve is one of Desert Bus’s most dedicated sponsors and is giving from the depths of his heart and his own personal collection to help make this year’s Desert Bus an even bigger success than ever before.  We’re honored and grateful to have you back again this year, Steve!

Daddy Ashton instructs you on how to setup a donor account so you can bid and challenge with the best of them!

He also takes you through our new “Live” page and how to login to the chat. Important information for the full Desert Bus experience!

Desert Bus may not start until tonight, but we’ve already received our first Milestone picture commemorating our tech test!

One of the biggest ways our viewers participate is by sending in Milestone pictures, art, songs, participating in art challenges and making all sorts of awesome things for us to post on the Desert Bus blog and share with everyone else watching.

So how can you submit stuff for the Desert Bus blog, and where should you send it to? I’m glad you asked!

1. Milestone Pictures

If you want to commemorate a Desert Bus milestone (say $50,000 raised, or 10 points) you can send your pictures to: milestones (at) desertbus.org

Please make your pictures no larger than 1000 x 1000 pixels wide, and use the following file formats: JPG, PNG, GIF

2. Other Cool Stuff

Did you rewrite the lyrics of ‘Call me Maybe’ to ‘Call me Bus Baby’? Do you have a picture of your cat wearing a Desert Bus hat? Did you draw a sweet picture of Roscoe wearing a wizard hat and blasting Batman with a fireball? Send it to stuff (at) desertbus.org

Please make your pictures no larger than 1000 x 1000 pixels wide, and use the following file formats: JPG, PNG, GIF

3. Contests

We give away a lot of stuff during Desert Bus. Often we’ll challenge our viewers to come up with something creative, and award our favourite submission a prize. For example, we might ask you to compose a Haiku about the bug splat, or draw the crew as My Little Ponies. You send those submissions to contest (at) desertbus.org

Please make your pictures no larger than 1000 x 1000 pixels wide, and use the following file formats: JPG, PNG, GIF

We look forward to seeing everything that comes in!

Desert Bus starts on Friday! (AAAAAAAAAAAA!) The fun is only a matter of hours aways now, so why not tide yourself over by looking at our incredible selection of prizes!

Head on down to our Live Auctions and Silent Auctions pages to see all the amazing stuff you can bid on, and what times all our prizes will be auctioned. This year we’ve dramatically boosted the amount of things we’re giving away, so don’t forget to check out the Giveaways listings to see all the incredible items we’ll be awarding via random draws and as contest prizes.

So what kind of stuff can we expect to see this year? How about?

• A custom N7 leather jacket made to your exact measurements?
• Your own custom song, written for you by the Doubleclicks?
• Exclusive limited edition, signed lithographs from Obsidian Entertainment?
• Complete sets of Magic: The Gathering cards in foil?
• Halo concept art?
• An enormous box of incredible swag direct from the offices of The Escapist?
• A custom, full colour 11 x 17 drawing by Ken Steacy?
• An original Bill Amend inked drawing?
• A game journalist exclusive talking Dishonored clock?
• A signed Homestuck book?
• Wil Wheaton’s Fez?
• Tons of awesome stuff from Fangamer?
• Or… I don’t know… full, foil, uncut sheets of Return to Ravnica?!

Much is made of the men and women who drive the bus. In past years, each driver’s shift has taken on a life of its own, with its own memes and running gags. We’ve switched it up over the years—from 4-hour shifts, to 24-hour shifts—and this year we’re switching it up again!

Desert Bus 6 features 12-hour driving shifts, so we can get more faces in front of you. And as an added bonus, each driver is going to have their very own, super-special giveaway item, and it’s going to be up to them who wins it and how.

Here’s the faces you can expect to see behind the controller (though, as always, there’s ample chance of surprise guests):

• Friday @ 9:00PM — James
• Saturday @ 9:00AM — Paul
• Saturday @ 9:00PM — Matt
• Sunday @ 9:00AM — Cam
• Sunday @ 9:00PM — Ashton
• Monday @ 9:00AM — Kathleen
• Monday @ 9:00PM — Johnny
• Tuesday @ 9:00AM — Bill
• Tuesday @ 9:00PM — Graham
• Wednesday @ 9:00AM — Tally
• Wednesday @ 9:00PM — Alex
• Thursday @ 9:00AM — Morgan
• Thursday @ 9:00PM — Jeremy
• ?????

Start your engines! This year we are doing something a little different—and a little awesome. Since the driving does not officially start until 9 p.m. PST, we are kicking the drive off with an opening lap … of ENTERTAINMENT!

Join the Desert Bus team as we live stream from the Moonbase and from remote locations across North America, featuring special performers John Anealio and The Doubleclicks for an event before the event. The Opening Lap starts at 7:30 p.m. PST and drives us right up to our official 9 p.m. start.

Singer-songwriter John Anealio will entertain us with geek inspired music from the world of comics, Dungeons and Dragons, and so much more, streaming live from New Jersey.

Nerd-folk duo The Doubleclicks, streaming from Portland, Oregon, will perform their humorous geek-flavored music. Mixed in between our talented performances, we will be showing a behind-the-scenes tour of the Moonbase and what it takes to put on an epic event like Desert Bus for Hope.

We know that you’re all living in feverish anticipation of next Friday, when Desert Bus will begin and for days on end you will be able to donate money and yell “Dance monkeys, dance!” to make us, in fact, dance. For you. On the internet. Yes, we understand why you’re pretty stoked for next Friday to get here.

To ease the pain of nearly 7 more days of waiting, we have something to distract you: a whole bunch of shiny, amazing, wondrous handmade things for you to drool over and lust after. That’s right, the Craft-Along listings are here! Check out our Live Auctions and Silent Auctions to see all the amazing stuff you can bid on. Scheduled auction times for those listings will be added shortly, so that you can plan out your bidding. And be sure to look through our Giveaways listings, to see all the incredible items we’ll be awarding via random draws and as contest prizes.

You can also see a list of all our crafters, with links to many of their websites, blogs and online stores.

And keep coming back all week to see corporate prizes and auction lots added to the list! Updates will occur randomly, so keep your eyes peeled for the appearance of even more awesome stuff you might want to bid on or win.

Get excited everyone! Just to give you a taste of who and what you can expect to see, I whipped up a little “sizzle reel” for Desert Bus 6. All your favourite faces will be here to do your cruel bidding as we bust our butts earning donations.
Share it around!

(The music is a fine pair of LoadingReadyRun remixes by Jimmy Hinson)