Hey everybody, some unfortunate news to report. The planned Desert Bus pre-show with LRR composer Bradley Rains will not be going ahead this year due to a family emergency.

In Bradley’s own words:

Dear LoadingReadyRun and Desert Bus fans,

It’s with a heavy heart that I write to you today to tell you that the LoadingReadyLive! Desert Bus pre-show has been cancelled. My father has had not one but two medical emergencies in as many days this week. He’s stable now, and the prognosis is good, but I must attend to him at this time. 

I will continue to make music for LoadingReadyRun, and we WILL do a free live show for you in the near future, I promise! 

Thank you all for your love and support over the last two and a half years, and happy Desert Bussing!

-bradley

Additionally, from me personally, I know Bradley was putting massive effort (and a lot of money) into this show, so if you happen to have a couple bucks around that aren’t earmarked for Desert Bus, his Paypal address is bradley@bradleyrains.com

He’d never ask for it himself, because he’s an awesome guy like that.

Thanks.

What would Desert Bus be if it wasn’t packed full of incredible video game collectibles that you can’t get anywhere else? This year video game lover and philanthropist Steven Dengler has dug deeply for the children this year and put together some absolutely incredible lots of beloved, classic games, all signed by their creators.

What we’re creatively calling “Steve Lot 1” contains:

• A very rare copy of Daikatana (PC), signed three times by John Romero: on the box, cover, and CD!
• Planescape Torment, the very rare “big box” version (PC), signed by Chris Avellone and a ton of the team!
• A very rare copy of Anachronox (big box) (PC), signed by Tom Hall
• Bioshock (PC) signed by Ken Levine
• Freedom Force (PC), signed by Ken Levine
• Freedom Force vs. The 3rd Reich (PC), signed by Ken Levine
• This lot will be auctioned on November 22nd at around 4:30 pm PST.

I’ll let you digest that for a moment…

“Steve Lot 2” is also a collection of games that would be at home in any museum. It contains:

• A very rare copy of Daikatana (PC), signed three times by John Romero: on the box, cover, and CD!
• A very rare copy of the Doom Collector’s Edition (PC), signed three times by John Romero: on the cover, sleeve, and CD!
• A very rare copy of Anachronox (big box) (PC), signed by Tom Hall and John Romero
• Bioshock (PC) signed by Ken Levine
• Freedom Force (PC), signed by Ken Levine
• Freedom Force vs. The 3rd Reich (PC), signed by Ken Levine
• Planescape Torment, “small box” version (PC), signed by Chris Avellone and a ton of the team!
• This lot will be auctioned on November 23rd at about 4:30 pm PST

BUT WAIT, there’s more. Steve has also donated:

A delightful collection of Obsidian games that will be auctioned off at 1:00 pm PST on November 19th:

• A very rare copy of Planescape Torment, “big box” version (PC), signed by Chris Avellone and a ton of the team!
• Fallout New  Vegas (PC), signed by Chris Avellone and a ton of the team!
• Knights of the Old Republic 2 (PC), signed by Chris Avellone and a ton of the team!
• Neverwinter Nights 2 (PC), signed by Chris Avellone and a ton of the team!
• Mask of the Betrayer (Neverwinter Nights 2 expansion) (PC), signed by Chris Avellone and a ton of the team!
• AND Alpha Protocol (PC), signed by Chris Avellone and a ton of the team!

A sweet Irrational Lot containing:

• Bioshock (PC) signed by Ken Levine
• A very rare copy of System Shock 2 “big box” version (PC), signed by Ken Levine
• Freedom Force (PC), signed by Ken Levine
• Freedom Force vs. The 3rd Reich (PC), signed by Ken Levine

AND we also have a Brütal Legend Lot filled with goodies signed by Tim Scafer we’ll auctioning at about 4:00pm PST on November 19th and a Psychonauts Lot that we’re putting up for silent auction on November 19th at 6:00 pm PST.

As always, to participate in these live auctions, all you need to do is sign up for a donor account, register your email and hop into our IRC chat before the auction begins. Detailed instructions on how to do this can be found in our FAQ.

Over our five year history Desert Bus for Hope has gotten quite the reputation, not only for raising ludicrous amounts of money for Child’s Play but also for having some of the best auction lots of any fundraiser, online or not.

This year our official sponsor Wizards of the Coast has pulled out all the stops, donating some jaw-dropping one of a kind Magic: The Gathering and D&D items that are so amazing we’re promoting them ahead of time. If you know anyone who likes Magic, tell them about these lots NOW.

This year we are auctioning off:

• 3 uncut sheets of the latest MtG expansion, Innistrad in FOIL – one commons/land, one uncommon and one mythic/rare. Each sheet contains 121 cards and measures approximately 28” by 39”.
• A MTGO account with 4 of EVERY card currently in standard
• Complete sets of M12 and Innistrad, in foil
• A Legend of Drizzt Rulebook, signed by Drizzt creator R.A. Salvatore & Rulebook author Peter Lee

And we’re GIVING AWAY stuff that’s just as amazing!

These lots are for the serious MtG fan and collector. The uncut, foil sheet of Innistrad commons/land will be auctioned off on Sunday, November 20th, the MTGO account on Monday, November 21st, the foil uncommons sheet will be auctioned on Tuesday, November 22nd and the rares/mythic sheet will hit the hit the block on Wednesday November 23rd.

For more information on all the Wizards of the Coast lots you can check out our live auction listings page.

The foil Innistrad rares/mythic sheet. Holy cow.

Calling all bidders! You could be the future owner of amazing Desert Bus auction lots! Our incredible database of prizes is now live and active, showing you the brilliant corporate and Craft-Along items we’ll be auctioning and giving away this year. So have a look, plan out your bidding and drool to your heart’s content.

We are still hard at work getting all the items and photographs listed, so come back for continued updates to the list. Please be aware that there may be changes made, as we are still finalizing the listings.

And if you haven’t yet, now is the time to sign up for a donor account. It’s fast, it’s easy, and all you need is an email address. This account will help you to track your bids and donations, and will help us to get your items to you more efficiently and with less loss of sanity. We’re crazy enough already, after all. You must have a donor account in order to bid on the auction items. Learn more here.

We’ll see you at the auction block!

Everyone here at Desert Bus HQ is pleased to unveil the official t-shirt of Desert Bus for Hope 5.

It was way back in the summer when the very fine and generous folks at Fangamer expressed an interest in being more involved in Desert Bus this year, and offered to create a very special, limited edition Desert Bus 5 t-shirt. Several months later and Fangamer have really knocked the design out of the park.

100% of the profits from each shirt go to Child’s Play, and if you buy during the marathon Fangamer is offering to donate an additional 10% of the profits from  whatever else is in your cart.

The counterpart to Tally’s craft-along prep, is Kathleen’s corporate prizes. She walks us through a couple in a new DBD:

Auctions, challenges, and giveaways are a long-honoured tradition of Desert Bus for Hope, and a great way to raise money for the kids. Last year we implemented a back-end system for Desert Bus in order to track these events, and to introduce our silent auction system. On the whole, we felt that it worked out very well, but there’s always room for improvement!

This year, we’ve updated this system with some new features both on our end, and on yours. These changes should make our lives easier as we progress through the run, and they’ll allow you to do all kinds of cool new things!

The first thing you need to do is head on over to donor.desertbus.org and register an account. You will be required to register if you want to issue a challenge, or bid on a live or silent auction item. All you need to give us in order to register is an email address, so that we can contact in the event that you win yourself a prize.  Then, using this personal account you can:

• check the status of your challenges,
• track the silent auctions you are bidding on,
• view your donation history,
• pay for accepted challenges and won auction items,
• add shipping information, and
• manage your donor profile.

 
On your homepage you’ll also receive messages if you have any outstanding items, like an auction item that needs a shipping address.

The account registration process is already live and running, so if you plan to make us act out a scene from the musical Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark with every role played by a person doing a lousy impression of Sean Connery, or throw down with Octopimp in order to win a lot of autographed widgets, you may want to get this taken care of right away.  You wouldn’t want to miss out on an auction because you weren’t signed up!

See you Friday!

Update: Please note: you should use the same e-mail address to register a Donor account as you use for your IRC login. Bidbot will only recognize emails it knows! If you used a different address for your IRC login, you can add that address as an “Additional E-mail” in the “Edit Profile” section of the Donor site.

Bradley Rains has been composing music for us at LoadingReadyRun for a couple years now, and when he asked if he could perform some of those songs for Desert Bus, I figured that an opening act would be the best way to do it!

Starting at 5:00 PST on the 18th, an hour before the marathon starts, Bradley (joined by his brother and dad) will be performing a set of music he’s composed for LRR, and a couple other things as well.

Check out this promo he put together, and watch the pre-show here, at 5:00PM PST, on November 18th.

Well, it took nearly a whole year, but they’re finally online. Videos from the LAST Desert Bus.
There’s a myriad of technical reasons why this took so long, that I shan’t bore you with, but they’re online now.

Enjoy them in the embedded playlist below (mouse over for the selection controls), or at the following link: Desert Bus Video Archive.
Hope you enjoy them! (There’s a few more coming!)

On Saturday, Tally took some time out of processing all the crafts to give me a little rundown of what her days are like right now.