Moviebob will be joining us for a call-in interview on Wednesday, November 20th at 9pm PST.

Bob “MovieBob” Chipman is a film reviewer and the host of The Escapist features Escape to the Movies and the Big Picture. Bob has an unapologetic love of ‘80s and ‘early ‘90s video games and a hatred for bad movies with large fan-bases.  MovieBob uses a review style that has been called “college-lit class style close reading”, which also incorporates overlaid imagery to support his points. He also has an admitted love of and weakness for TV Tropes.

In addition to his features for The Escapist, Bob also hosts The Adventures of Game OverThinker, a series that combines video game news and commentary with a comedic narrative. OverThinker follows a more story-driven analysis of gaming culture that blurs the lines between reality and video games, and led to the creation of a forth series, Overbytes, which focuses on culture and tropes.

Bob has also written a book titled “Super Mario Bros. 3: Brick-by-Brick”, in which he deconstructs the game in the form of a “novelized Let’s Play” while analyzing the cultural significance and history of the Mario Bros. franchise. Bob is also very active on his blog and on Twitter.

Have questions for MovieBob? Ask them in the comments below.

Desert Bus is happy to welcome back Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw for a call-in on Wednesday, November 20th at 6pm PST.

Yahtzee is an English ex-Pat based in Australia who is the genius behind the hilarious and cutting online game review series Zero Punctuation. Yahtzee’s moniker became a gamer household name in 2007 when he reviewed Fable: The Lost Chapters and a demo of The Darkness and released the videos on YouTube. Shortly after their release, Yahtzee was contacted by online magazine The Escapist who presented him with a shiny contract for a weekly series. Since then, Yahtzee releases a new video every Wednesday, each full of scathing wit and rapid fire criticism. Yahtzee also stars in a series on The Escapist called Jim & Yahtzee’s Rhymedown Spectacular, which features original poetry.

Yahtzee writes his own video games and provides the graphics and animations himself using a combination of Adobe Photoshop and Microsoft Paint. He’s the creator of several independent adventure game lines, such as The Arthur Yahtzee Trilogy and The Rob Blanc Trilogy, as well as many other standalone titles.

In 2010 Yahtzee added “Write A Book” to his list of achievements when he released his first novel, Mogworld, which tells the story of a miscreant zombie hero named Jim. He released a second novel in 2012 called Jam, which fittingly involves “an apocalypse… WITH JAM IN IT”. Yahtzee is also one of the four founders of The Mana Bar, a video game cocktail lounge with locations in Brisbane and Melbourne.

If you would like to ask Yahtzee a question, please leave it in the comments below.

We have two exciting
media appearances coming up shortly!

Al Jazeera America are LIVE at the Moonbase tonight! EXCITING!

Tune in at 5:40 pm and 8:43 pm Pacific Time, to see the live broadcasts. Use the table below to find the appropriate channel for your locale and provider.

ATT  – Channel 189
COMCAST – Channel 107 (Seattle)
COMCAST – Channel 125 (rest of US)
DIRECT TV – Channel 347
DISH TV   – Channel 215
VERIZON – Channel 114 and 1750
Wave Broadband – Channel 236
RCN Cable – Channel 236

Reporter Allen, who has been covering the story, has also indulged us in some Desert Bus shenanigans by driving the bus while broadcasting, and testing his journalistic chops with a hilarious game of “Newscaster”!

Then, at 4:50, CBC Radio Vancouver‘s On the Coast, British Columbia’s most popular radio show, will be calling in by Skype for a live interview! Check out a digital stream at this link or on your radio at 690 AM or 88.1 FM if you live in the Vancouver area!

The ever-fluffy Baxter proved to be a big hit with you guys, as attested by the mountain of fan art we got for Graham’s contest.

Top honours went to Si Sweetman, who gave us this wonderful portrait of Baxter in his favorite haunt

Ben was runner-up with his interpretation of Baxter as a Magic card.

Merav rounded out the podium with this adorable entry

All the rest of the entries are included below the cut.

The Moon Base was attacked by giant lobsters.

There were three people here that had the same name so obviously 3 Ian Moon had to happen!

We also found out what Engineering will do when you tell them to do whatever they want with the switches.

Andrew Ferguson, our photographer extraordinaire, posted another great set of pics for your viewing pleasure!

Dix managed to keep a straight face for the children.

Alex got loves (thanks for making this Ariel!)

Click “more” for even more!

We hit $250,000 due to a generous donor buying a big bag of dice for $9001.00 all at the very beginning of Graham’s shift!

Phil Plait called in and auctioned off huge Bad Astronomer Lot including this little guy.

A real iron Sikhote-Alin meteorite from space.

Oh, and Graham crashed the bus… on the LEFT.

Al Jazeera America is back, braving the Moon Base for the second day in a row!

They were really great sports
Cam-Butt is much loved by the Chat and Graham worked with what had.

It has been an exciting morning folks, keep an eye out for more exciting news this afternoon.

Get some wicked cool threads via Fangamer’s Official DB007 T-Shirt

Only $23 USD this is a great way to get Desert Bus merch and still donate to the cause
All profits go to the Children!!

Check out our Official DB007 Poster

only available until the end of our run for the low low price of $12.00 USD so order it now!

Hello Al Jazeera America!

We are TV famous! We are super excited to have these guys at the Moon Base and if you were with us yesterday you may have seen them getting their tease filmed.

Check them out online here or check out the list below for your cable provider’s listing.

Channels for Al Jazeera broadcast

Bioshock Mask by Volpin Props

This one-of-a-kind prop is going to auctioned off live at 1pm PST (that is just under an hour and a half from now)

So it is time to check your bank balance and log into your donor account. We will be waiting for you in the chat.

Baxter The Cat

Want a chance to win the the LoadingReadyRun fan lot?

Well, get your art on! Draw Graham’s cat Baxter and profit

Use these pictures to help really capture his Majesty and fluffiness!
You only have until 1:00pm PST (about two and a half hours from now)

Submit your best Baxter to contests@desertbus.org

Bad Astronomer Lot

We will be auctioning this off LIVE in just over an hour from now so sign up for a donor account right now! This lot has been put together by the always awesome Phil Plait (aka The Bad Astronomer) and includes the following:

• honest to space meteorite (the meteorite is 3.5 cm across and weighs 30 grams)
• some tektites
• lithograph pictures from Spitzer Space Telescope
• an Earth squishy ball
• two pairs of eclipse glasses that let you safely view the Sun (donated by Phil’s friend Stephen Ramsden of the Charlie Bates Solar Observatory)
• an issue of Astronomy magazine that has an article Phil wrote about UFOs
• a “Krieger’s Army” sticker given to Phil personally by Lucky Yates from “Archer”
• two books: “Bad Astronomy” and “Death from the Skies!” (the latter is the Chinese version – because reasons)