Ladies and Gentlemen we are on the home stretch. With less than seven days until we get that bus rolling again we are running around trying to get everything ready to go for next Friday. We are all super excited, but with everything that still needs to get done in the next couple days I don’t think we’ve had the chance to really appreciate the support we’ve already received.

In 2007 when we first did this we racked our heads to figure out “The Goal”. This whole online video game marathon hadn’t been done before. Could we really expect to raise $1000.00? Or should we aim higher? We knew going in that at the very least our fan base (which back in late 2007 was considerably smaller than it is now) would support us. So we decided to go with $5000.00, it seemed like a whole lot of money, I don’t believe anyone of us thought we would end where we did when we started up the feed. But as we all know it went farther than that goal and then some. Fast forward to this year. We’re still just under a week from the start of the event and with no incentive like last year we have already raised $2500.00!!! Thats half our goal from the first year. That blows me away, you guys are absolutely incredible. Thank you!!!

So back to this year. Things are shaping up pretty good this year. We hope to be doing our tech run Wednesday evening so if you wanna watch us screw around setting things up and maybe playing a game or two of Magic then check back during the evening on Wednesday (probably between 6PM-10PM PST) I have no idea when we might go live with it or how long we’ll stay online but come check it out.

We also will have a complete list of everything going up for auction this year. And we’ll give you a good idea of when you’ll want to be watching if you want to have your chance to compete for it!

Hope you guys are getting excited! This is going to be another great year!

Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the official kickoff of Desert Bus 2010.

Over the past several months we have been hard at work to organize what we think will be the best Desert Bus yet, and we can’t wait for the event to get started! With only just over 4 weeks until we start up the bus for the 4th time we decided to start our countdown and open up donations. As is with tradition LoadingReadyRun has made the first contribution of $100.00 which takes us a healthy 30 hours into the event.

We have been receiving some great stuff for the craft-a-long this year and with only 10 days until our cutoff date, if you still have something you’ve made and have yet to send it out, now is the time. Along with the stuff you have been making we should be receiving some really cool stuff from various companies that wish to show their support, which means a lot of cool auctions and prizes for you guys!!

And there is one last thing. As many (if not all) of you know in the past we have had 4 drivers working 4 hour shifts, this is no longer the case. After some discussions we decided to change things up. So this year instead of 4 drivers there will be 5 (James, Jeremy, Morgan, Bill, Kathleen) and instead of 4 hour shifts there will be one 24 hour shift. Yup, you read that right, each of us will take one 24 hour shift, and if by some chance we get all the way to Thursday evening @ 6:00PM (we have never made it that far in the past) then James will jump back in the driver seat.

This year should be the best year yet and we can’t wait to get started. We hope you guys feel the same!

Make sure to check back here to see the latest news and information leading up to the event!

And make sure you follow us on Twitter & Facebook

Calling all craftsy, artistic and creatively inclined people: the Desert Bus 2010 Craft-Along is here! Desert Bus 2010 starts November 19, 2010, and it’s time to start preparing.

That’s right, in this blog post you’ll find Craft-Along guidelines, contact information and even an instructional video from the Desert Bus cat-girls themselves. Can you handle it?

Here is how you can participate, in three easy steps!

1) Make your craft. Please email craftalong@desertbus.org to let us know what you’re making though. If you have any questions or concerns about what to make, the appropriateness of a particular craft or idea, or anything else you wish to discuss with us, we’d be happy to discuss it with you. We’ll also provide you the address you can send your craft to when it’s done!

2) Ship your craft in recursive packaging. We want to minimize the time we have to spend packaging and shipping prizes, in order to maximize the time we can spend on camera during Desert Bus, entertaining you with silly songs and crazy dances. To this end, we ask that you double wrap your stuff before shipping it to us. For example, put your craft in an unaddressed, unsealed envelope. Then put that envelope into a larger envelope on which you will write our address and your return address. Then ship it. Or, put your craft in a box that has plenty of blank space for us to write on, then wrap the box up in paper and write our address on that. This way, all we have to do is remove the outer layer of packaging, address the inner packaging to the auction winner and ship it. Then we can get right back to the business of making you laugh at our outrageous antics.

3) Once you have shipped your item, go home and send us another email. In this email please include:

• Your full name (If you would like your craft to be credited to a nickname or forum name instead, please notify us of this in your email.)
• Your full mailing address
• What your item is
• If you have one, the url for your website, Etsy store, Deviant Art page, or anywhere else you post photos and examples of your work. We will include this link on www.desertbus.org so that people can see more of your amazing work.

Send this email to craftalong@desertbus.org

DEADLINE: Your Craft-Along item must be received by us no later than NOVEMBER 1, 2010 in order to be included in the Craft-Along. We strongly recommend that you mail your item several weeks ahead of time, in case of delays or general post office screw-ups. Stuff happens.

Points of Interest:

The Craft-Along will function a little bit differently this year. All but a few Craft-Along items (selected by intensive review and several committees – which really means selected by the illustrious Rosco P. Jangles IV, possessor of Canard Knowledge) will be displayed in silent online auctions over the course of Desert Bus.

All Craft-Along items, along with all other Desert Bus prizes and auction items, will appear on www.desertbus.org a couple weeks before the start of Desert Bus, for your perusal and to build drooling anticipation.

With Gratitude:

We’d like to say a special thank you to all the wonderful LoadingReadyRun fans and forumites who, entirely of their own volition, began the wonderful Craft-Along tradition last year. You guys are awesome! We absolutely cannot wait to see what amazing arts and crafts you will come up with this year!

That’s everything – now go get crafting!

DESERT BUS 4

Friday, November 19, 2010. 6:00pm PST.

IT BEGINS!

More details will be forthcoming, but for now just rest assured that it is happening and it will be bigger, better and more awesomer then ever before.

Oh yes. That’s right.

You heard us make reference to “we’re recording this” during the run, but you may have heard the ultimate plan. Our tech setup allowed to archive all the best parts of DB09 in full HD, for future generations to realize that it’s… actually not as fun to watch unless you were there…

But still! It’s lives, and we’ll be trickling out the videos as quickly as we’re able to conveniently upload them. There’s over 200 recordings in total, so that may take a while.

Link! http://www.youtube.com/desertbus09

Example!

Hey everyone,

As many of you know, Desert Bus was just a little break from our everyday lives and jobs, which we’re all now trying to catch up with, even as Loading Ready Run continues to make multiple videos a week. In the midst of all this, yes, we are working on packaging, labeling and mailing the mountainous pile of awesome prizes and auction items from Desert Bus.

We totally understand that those of you who won cool stuff or donated hundreds of dollars for cool stuff want to know just where your cool stuff is and when you might be getting it. Here are a few answers (or the closest we can give to answers).

Did you get the email with my name/address/other random info? I didn’t hear back from you!
Yes. Unless we have emailed you specifically saying, send us your mailing address b/c we don’t have it, we got your email and have taken note of your mailing info. We greatly appreciate all your informative emails and the many accompanying messages of encouragement, but due to the high volume of emails we’ve gotten (and the fact that they mostly arrived during Desert Bus, when we were busy with other things like singing silly songs for you for the children in front of the camera), we have not been able to respond to all of them. So you should really only have heard from us if there’s a problem. In this instance, silence is a good thing.

How can I be sure that you got my information and that I will get my prize?
Trust us. We’re good people. Mostly. No really, we have your prizes, all of which have now been packaged and labeled, and we will send them to you as soon as we can. If you’re really really worried, shoot us an email at prize@desertbus.org and we can verify that we have your information and that it’s correct. Would a catgirl lie to you?

WHEN will I get my stuff?
Isn’t life more fun when it’s full of little surprises? Honestly, we can’t tell you exactly when things will arrive. We are currently in the process of physically putting items in the mail – this will be happening over the course of this week and next. Everything is being sent via Canada Post Expedited Mail (a fairly fast service), which gives us a tracking number for each item. We understand that there are many valuable prizes being sent out and we want to do everything we can to ensure that they get to you safely. Due to factors like the high volume of mail at this time of year, we aren’t able to provide estimates of arrival dates, but with the tracking numbers we can make sure that items are on their way to you.

We’d like to say thanks again to everyone who participated in Desert Bus this year and made it so totally bussing awesome. And when it comes to sending you your sweet winnings, be patient with us please – we are but mere mortals!

Are you Colin Voyles or Geoff Bell? I’m happy to tell you you won a fantastic draw prize during Desert Bus!

I’m unhappy to tell you that because we haven’t been able to contact you, we might have to re-draw. If you are one of these folks (or you know one of them them) we need an email from the address connected with your paypal account (so we can verify your identity) by noon PST on Monday to prize@desertbus.org.

Otherwise, we’ll re-draw from the same list of eligible donators we drew from initially.

Cheers!

Anyone who was around for last years Desert Bus hopefully saw our weekly LoadingReadyRun update get a bit of a Desert Bus jolt. Also known as “Desert Bus Killed the Internet Star”

Well it would appear we are setting our selfs up for a bit of a tradition around these parts, by producing yet another musical themed Desert Bus video to wrap everything up. We hope you guys enjoy… TUCSON OR BUST!

Even with our event over, and our ChipIn marked as closed, those of you still watching this site will notice that our donation total continues to rise. Is this a mistake? Absolutely not!

In fact, these are more amazing Desert Bus donations contributed via e-cheque, that are only now clearing through PayPal. As a result, our total has risen almost $5000 since Desert Bus came to a close last Thursday.

How high will it get? We honestly don’t know — we have no way of really tracking e-cheque donations. We’ll announce our final total at the end of the week, by which time we’re pretty sure everything will have gone through. Can we break $140 000 (double last year’s total)? The answer is mere days away.

Did you donate money during Desert Bus? If you did, you can claim your donation to Child’s Play as a donation to a registered US charity –  it is therefore tax deductible. Child’s Play’s tax ID number is 20-3584556.

If you have any questions about donations and tax, or would like to get a receipt for your donation, please contact:

childsplaycharity@childsplaycharity.org