Social Media and Casual Video Gaming

After my last blog entry, the question came up whether it is “that easy” to evolve from purely a casual game download company to a social gaming company.  The answer is NO and I am sorry if I implied it is easy.  Casual game download companies have many competitive advantages when moving into social media space but it won’t be easy and success is not guaranteed. 

First, the mindset must change.  We are no longer creating a discrete product but really providing an on-going service.  It’s not about developing a great game, testing it, testing it some more and shipping it to your on-line and retail distribution partners.  Although we are still creating a game, it is (hopefully) never finished.  The product that initially hits the market must constantly evolve, both to keep the player engaged over weeks, months and years and also to allow you to monetize the end user, as you no longer making one discrete sale and then done with it.  Development resources must stay focused on the video game.  Your team can’t just pack up on move on to the next project.  The shift from creating a product to providing a service has huge implications on your product pipeline and resource needs.

Second, the training wheels are off with social media.  You won’t be able to fall back on portals or distributors to handle the transactions, customer and tech support, hosting, localization, marketing and general hand holding.  It’s up to you to create a robust solution around your games that keeps your customers coming back and continually generates revenue from them.  The upside is you will now have direct interaction with your customers.   You will know what they like, what they hate, and who they are.  You will be able to cross sell them other games and build up a relationship that right now you are ceding to your distribution partners.  Oh yeah, and you will keep a much larger share of the revenue.  Rather then ending up with 25-40 percent of the gross revenue from sales of your game, you will get between 80-95+ percent of the gross revenue (which you must subtract your marketing and server expenses), which on a profitable game can be a big difference.

Third, marketing.  Although already touched upon in the previous point, you no longer will have a partner that can generate interest in your video game.  Some developers in the social media space are already spending $1 million plus per title on marketing.  In the casual download space, you can get buy spending virtually nothing and relying on the portals marketing to attract interest in your games.  Now you probably don’t have to spend $1 million per game per month (we are not planning on it).  There are a lot of creative and innovative ways to generate interest and build a fan base (after all, the beauty of social media is its viral marketing) without taking the brute force approach of just throwing ad dollars around.  Remember though…it’s never free and will take a lot of time.

I could probably list ten other points, but I have always considered three a lucky number so I want to throw out these key points as issues any casual game company should consider before trying the social media space.

Lloyd Melnick,
Merscom Chief Customer Officer

The @DreamWorthy Twitter Manifesto

Huh?  What is a Twitter Manifesto and why do we have one?  That, gentle reader, is a question will we answer in this post.

You probably found your way here because you follow us and want to see what we’re all about. We now guide our prospective or new followers to this post to learn about us, and how we participate on Twitter.  Or, you’ve followed us for awhile, saw the link we tweeted on Twitter, and came here to see what this is all about.

Either way, hopefully you’ll leave with a clearer sense of who we are and what it will be like to follow us on Twitter.

THE @DREAMWORTHY TWITTER MANIFESTO

About Us

Folks, we’re a business.  Well, we’re people, actually, two of them…  Kali and Mike Kunkle. But we run a small online business, DreamWorthy Gifts, which is a webstore featuring bath & body care products like shower gels, lotions, soaps, bath salts, bath sprays, bubble bath, and bath gift sets – and also offering thousands of gifts for all occasions, home decor furnishings, gift cards and more.

Here’s what we say on our website About Us:

“We are dedicated to providing a safe, productive and enjoyable online shopping experience for everyone with a computer, an Internet connection, and a need to shop for something for someone for some reason (including themselves, and hey, even if the reason is “just because!”).  Shopping should be fun and easy. You have fun – we’ll make it easy!  (Jammies and bunny slippers are optional.)

Despite our fun-loving, friendly approach to business and life, the DreamWorthy Gifts team is serious about running a business built on a foundation of ethics and common sense. Our founders have over 30 years of highly successful business experience with over 7 years of e-commerce experience.

But we are much more than business people behind a computer monitor. We’re also family members, Moms, Dads, brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, co-workers, neighbors, and everyday real people. We pay too much in taxes, are far too busy with work and life, and sometimes don’t know what to get that special someone, when it’s time to show we care.

That’s why we started DreamWorthy Gifts LLC. We want to help regular people like us find the right gift, at the right time, at the right price… but also without a few things, too… without driving around wasting gas, without the hassle of crowded stores and long lines, and without losing so much of your precious time. That’s our commitment to our customers.”

Our Focus on Service

You can learn more about us at our other blog, ShopWorthy and specifically our post on Why You Should Shop at DreamWorthy Gifts.  The one thing we’d like to repeat here, is that we stand behind our products and will do everything possible to ensure customers are completely satisfied with them, and with us. Yes, we have company policies, but we also apply reasonable logic, listen with empathy, use common sense, act with integrity, and make decisions on a case-by-case basis. Occasionally, we break our own policies to ensure a customer is satisfied. We take service seriously.

Segue to Twitter

So, as small business owners who joined Twitter to market through social media, we make no apologies for marketing our business on Twitter and for trying to maximize the positive power of social media networking and marketing. We’re certainly still learning on a daily basis and Twitter is certainly still evolving. Overall, though, it seems to be working and it certainly is fun.

By fun, we mean sending tweets, often almost in a chatting fashion, to talk to our followers, joke, tease, and laugh and smile together. We have met some wonderful people that we never would have otherwise, and this is by far the most enjoyable part of Twitter. 

We do, however, also send out what we call “Marketing Tweets.”  These tweets are aimed at educating and advertising our followers about our business, products and services. In these tweets, there are links to our ecommerce website.  We drive a good amount of traffic to our website via Twitter, and it is a valuable business and marketing tool. We have earned trust from many followers who have become customers, as well.  We are very grateful for these relationships, and only wish we had even more time to cultivate them and get to know our customers (and other followers) even better.

What’s a Marketing Tweet?

Here are just two examples:

SAVE ON SHIPPING with our shipping promo! Spend $25 get 25% off shipping ~ Spend $50 get 50% off shipping! See promos: http://tr.im/DWGPromo

DreamWorthy Bath Gift Sets: ORANGE GROVE BATH BASKET SET ~ http://tr.im/CufW ~ shower gel, body lotion, body scrub, body butter & more!

Some facts about our marketing efforts on Twitter:

• On our “Marketing Days” we might send out tweets like these hourly, every 30 minutes, or sometimes even as often as every 15 minutes (at the maximum).
• Usually these tweets will go out over a 12-hour period.
• We run these marketing days periodically… but usually no more than 3 days a week (often less, frankly).
• We use a service to send these messages… SocialOomph.com (formerly known as TweetLater).
• Usually we schedule these marketing tweets for when we are not able to be on Twitter personally, although sometimes we are there, tweeting personally with our followers at the same time.

For the record, our use of Twitter does NOT constitute SPAM, as we do not use auto-DMs or @replies to send marketing tweets to individuals or lists, and as far as we can tell, our approach is completely compliant with the Twitter Terms of Service and Definition of SPAM.  We do, however, eat SPAM, especially with scrambled eggs and cheddar cheese.

So why are we telling you all this? We’ve noticed that when we take a break from our Marketing Days, and then restart, we always have a flurry of people “unfollowing” us. We respect this, as it is completely the individual’s choice.  However, we do wish that some might try to engage with us first, before judging that we are spamming, or only interested in sending out marketing messages about our offerings.

Our Twitter Follow-Back Philosophy

Will we follow you back?  Well, probably, but “it depends.”  We try to follow most people or accounts who follow us,  but we don’t follow everyone.  As you’ll see below, we don’t follow porn and will block those accounts and report them, if appropriate. If you DM us consistently with unsolicited advertising messages or affiliate links, or even send @replies to us consistently with unwanted links, we will not follow you, unfollow you, and/or report you as SPAM. You can send advertising or marketing tweets all day long without being blocked… but we may not follow you back if that’s ALL that you do. We obviously respect the marketing tweets, but we also look for people like us who try to also engage and talk with those who want to talk back. (At this writing, we have almost 7,000 followers… we obviously can’t tweet routinely with everyone… but we do reply to everyone who addresses us with a @reply.)  And while we do have some wonderful international friends and will probably always follow them, we are a domestic, U.S.-based business with no international expansion plans in the foreseeable future. So, if you live outside the United States, we may not follow you unless we know you personally.

By the way, if we do not follow you back, we also completely understand if you choose to unfollow us.  No harm, no foul, no hurt feelings.  Unless we make a conscious decision to follow someone or some company’s highly interesting tweets regardless of whether they follow us, we normally expect people (those whom we specifically select to follow) to follow us back.  If you do not, we will eventually unfollow you.

Here’s one better.  Nothing aggravates us more than people trying to just build raw follower numbers.  If you follow us, and then wait until we follow you back to unfollow us, we’ll dump you as soon as we figure it out (and we will, because we check).

• Our Target Twitter Follower: It probably makes just as much sense to tell you who we love to follow back.
  • We prefer to follow adult individuals (and couples) or other businesses who engage with their followers, or some subset of their followers.
  • Other than “adult,” age is unimportant.
  • Religion doesn’t matter, unless you’re a Satanist. We have an unsually wide berth of tolerance for beliefs different than our own, but we stop a few steps short of tolerance for worshipping Satan or Hitler or anything hateful. We’d fight to defend your right to believe what you want and live in freedom, we just don’t want to be associated with you, personally.
  • We love to follow people who are generally kind, thoughtful, and respectful, with a good sense of humor.
  • Moms, dads, and animal lovers (and animals) are especially welcome, because we identify with you, but don’t misread or read between the lines… others are still completely welcome.
  • Funny (within our behavior guidelines, listed below) is wonderful. Teasing is okay… we can certainly dish it out, and we can take it with a smile.
  • We prefer to follow people who are at least “generally positive.” Hey, everyone has bad days and times, real life is tough sometimes, and that’s what friends are for.  We certainly have “our moments.”  But a positive outlook is a preference.
  • As said elsewhere, we prefer people who live in the United States, only because we are a domestic-only business.

Our Twitter Behavior Guidelines:

Here are some general (but not always concrete) guidelines that we apply.  Some of this will also give you an indication of whether we’ll follow you back.

• Sex: We are cautious about the expression of sexuality on Twitter. We will not, under any circumstances, knowingly follow any accounts associated with pornography. At the same time, we do follow @Dr_MiaRose (formerly “TheBetterSexDoc”)  as one example, who does not blatantly use sexual terminology in her tweets. If you visit her website, however, be prepared for appropriately detailed “educational articles.”  I’m sure this is a fine line that will confuse some folks who see things as “black or white,” and we understand that. But we see a difference between a trained psychologist/counselor trying to help consenting adults express their natural sexual nature, and allowing those folks to “opt in” to following her and her messages, versus porn.  But we do tend to shy away from sexually-oriented Tweeters, so the ones we do follow, like Mia the sex doc, are few and far between.
• Discrimination/Hatefulness: There’s a little bit too much of both in our world for our taste. You won’t see this from us, and if you see something that we typed quickly or it’s hard to interpret in 140, trust that neither of these are ever intended. Well, except that we hate haters. Either of these behaviors will get you unfollowed quickly. We respect freedom of speech, we just don’t have to subject ourselves or our followers to it. That’s our freedom of choice.
• Vulgarity: *#&%#, I hate this topic. Just kidding… that is a vulgar as you will ever see. We do our level best to steer clear of vulgarity. You may see an occasional mention of that place far south of Heaven, or a reference to poop, which is something we have to stop tweeting and take our dog outside to do.  But you can buy an educational and funny book for kids called “Everyone Poops,” so we feel we’re in good company.  In general, if we see too much vulgarity from you, we will unfollow you. Depending on the severity or tone and intent, we forgive everyone an occasional “moment,” so we judge based on consistency.
• Humor: Another thin grey line…. humor. This one is tough for us, because humor is a real outlet for us, and we find things funny in jokes that we do not find funny in real life.  We know this confuses reasonable, normal people, therefore, as a business account, we find that we need to temper ourselves.  We do better at this sometimes than others.  We will use some PG-13 humor and teasing innuendo from time to time — and occasionally tweet something that we didn’t intend, which “came out wrong,” too, which is a difficult thing about communicating in 140 characters.  But generally we try to keep it cleaner and more respectful than prime time TV programming will ever be again. Our aim is generally to be funny and make someone laugh. We enjoy that. We never intend to belittle, hurt, discriminate or offend. We’d actually appreciate that you’d tell us, if you ever think we do.
• Politics: We vote. That’s our expression of politics. We might participate in a humorous discussion of political events or topics, but you won’t see us spouting our political beliefs, stumping, or using Twitter as a bully pulpit (like we have any clout on Twitter anyway). We do follow some folks who are heavily political, and have some very nice #TCOT friends (who have their own Twitter hashtag, which still makes me grin), but we don’t endorse one thing over another. I’m not saying we don’t have our personal views… we certainly do. It’s just not normally like us to be espousing them on Twitter.

Our Twitter Unfollow Philosophy

If you don’t follow us back, it’s likely that we will unfollow you. If you consistently cross over one of our thin grey lines that we’ve written about here. We’ll unfollow you. If you are porn, hateful, offensive, or SPAM, we’ll unfollow you and likely report you.

Our Twitter Pay-It-Forward Philosophy

If you check out some of the other posts on this blog, you’ll pick up our philosophy quickly. We intended to do more with this blog, and will someday, but real life (work, family, home, small business) intervened, and it didn’t go as far as we intended as fast as we wanted. Nonetheless, we are pay it forward kind of people. We try to help others, albeit only in small ways sometimes, but we like to do it.

• RTs: When we see things we like on Twitter, we try to ReTweet them. We tend to RT great quotes, inspirational things, and downright funny things, as we come across them.
• Tweets to help our followers (bloggers, businesses, charities, etc.):  We especially like to send traffic to followers’ blogs, give their business a shout-out, help a cause, push along a marketing Tweet, or forward on an affiliate link that we think followers might find interesting or helpful. It’s like a little random act of kindness, and we like doing it.
• #FollowFriday: It can be exhausting for us, but we love Follow Friday! You can see a post on this blog here that lists many of our favorite followers. We try to tweet out this list every Friday night, as well. Occasionally we can’t, and on those weeks, we direct people to the blog post instead. You’ll find a good number of really great people on this list, and we’re lucky to count them as friends. Please also note that we try to say something about many of them individually, but yes, we do still have some that we send out in a group.  This doesn’t diminish them as recommendations… it’s simply a matter of time and tweet limits. They’re all worthy (perhaps we could even say “dreamworthy”). In fact, this list could easily grow to be too large to manage. There are plenty of other great people that we just don’t always have time to recommend, so sometimes the list changes. Watch on Twitter or check back here from time to time.

Well, my friends, I believe that wraps up our @DreamWorthy Twitter Manifesto for now. Perhaps we’ll add something later or you will think of something to add and write to us or make a comment.

Thank you for reading. We hope you found this helpful in some way, and better understand what we’re about and what we are trying to accomplish.

Tweet ya later…

Kali & Mike Kunkle
_____________________
DreamWorthy Gifts LLC
Shop at: http://www.DreamWorthyGifts.com
Read our Shopping Blog: http://tinyurl.com/ShopWorthy
Read our Networking Blog: http://tinyurl.com/DreamWorthyFriends

Refer-A-Friend Promotion: Refer friends and they each get a coupon for 25% off. When they buy, you get a coupon for 40% off!  There is no limit to the number of friends you can refer or the number of 40% coupons you can collect. See the Refer-A-Friend banner at http://www.dreamworthygifts.com/ to participate.

JOIN US AT:
http://www.twitter.com/DreamWorthy – Follow us!
http://www.tinyurl.com/KaliOnFacebook
http://www.tinyurl.com/MikeOnFacebook
http://www.tinyurl.com/DreamWorthyOnFacebook – Become a fan!
http://www.linkedin.com/in/DreamWorthyGifts

The Redemptive Value of Facebook

Mike Pohlman Executive Editor, The Gospel Coalition

Can Facebook be redemptive? In other words, can this social networking phenomenon be a means of helping Christians grow in grace? Can it be spiritually edifying? Can it promote godliness?

Yes.

My “yes,” of course, is not without qualification. I realize Facebook can be used for banal, unhelpful purposes. (Carl Trueman, for example, offers a good critique of our Web 2.0 world.) But today God’s grace was extended to me through the Internet; today Facebook was a blessing. Let me explain.

I was tagged in a friend’s list of “25 Random Things About Me.”* While I have yet to fill out one of these lists, I have enjoyed reading them. It is a good (and efficient) way to learn interesting things about a person. And these lists are all the more intriguing when you haven’t kept up with someone for, say, twenty years.

The particular list opened with this amazing declaration: “I would change nothing about my life!”

How many people can say that about their life? It’s one thing to say, “I love my life.” Or, “I have a great life.” Or, “I’m living the good life.” But to say, “I would change nothing about my life”? That got my attention.

The list of “random” things proceeded with unmistakable joy.

24. “I am very happy.”
18. “I am thrilled that I have gotten in touch with so many family members and friends on facebook.”
14. “I have two dogs and a cat. I am not big on pets, so having them is a testament to how much I love my children.”
13. “I don’t feel that I could have a more wonderful husband.”
12. “I have four children and wish I had more…..6 would have been nice!”
7. “A perfect day for me is spent with my husband and children.”

Reading these things was inspiring as they spoke to my friend’s deep love for her family. I smiled as I recalled how I used to play little league baseball and Pop Warner football with her husband. Now we both had four kids. More importantly, I found myself thinking about my wife and children and what a blessing they are to me. But then, as I continued down the list, I ran into these sobering statements:

6. “It is a good thing that my life will never be the way it was before I was diagnosed with cancer.”
5. “My life will never be the way it was before I was diagnosed with cancer.”

I didn’t know my friend had been diagnosed with cancer. I paused to let it sink in. Cancer. That word has a way of arresting our attention like no other. And rarely, it seems, is gratitude accompanied with it. But here in a list of “25 Random Things” was the phrase, “It is a good thing….” How could my friend preface any mention of cancer with “It is a good thing”?

The answer came at the end of the list:

1. “The LORD is always #1.”

This is the “thing” that makes all the difference in the universe. When the Lord is first in our lives then everything takes on new meaning–our marriages, parenthood, jobs, ministries, leisure time, and, yes, even cancer. We realize that nothing is truly “random.” When we see our heavenly Father in His providence orchestrating all our days then we can say radical things like, “It is a good thing that my life will never be the way it was before I was diagnosed with cancer.” In other words, God used cancer to help me.

In Matthew 5:16 Jesus says, “In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” Tami’s light is shining brightly today and I’m giving glory to God for it.

[*All references to my friend’s “25 Random Things” used with permission.]

From Facebook to Faithbook

Dan Johnson

HomeWord

Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, ‘Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?’ They came out of the town and made their way toward him.
John 4:28-30

Do you have a Facebook page? It’s a well-known website that allows people to upload photos, biography and contact information to network with other people. Mark Zuckerberg founded this social utility site while attending Harvard in 2004. Website membership was initially limited to Harvard students, but continued to expand to other colleges. Now students and non-students around the world connect to each other daily. Facebook had over 70 million visits to its site in April of 2008.

I couldn’t help but notice how friendships are rekindled and created on social networking sites and wondered if Christ followers might not learn something from this. Technology relies on the same old human behaviors to succeed. But having faith requires divine intervention for us to understand our need for God, and being faithful isn’t always easy in the offline world. Our faith spreads the old-fashioned way, one person reaching out to one person at a time.

There are similarities between our online lives and our “real” ones. To make friends online, we have to reach out. It’s as simple as clicking a button and requesting that someone be our “friend.” When we make new friends online, we get exposed to their ideas about life, their likes and dislikes; we get to know them. What’s really amazing is that we get to view their other friends who are listed there.

The real question is who is on our “Friends” list? Does it include all kinds of people or just folks who look, act and talk like us? I’ve been wondering lately what Jesus’ Facebook page would look like. We read about how He talked to women in a culture where open social contact with the opposite sex wasn’t allowed. He hung out with leaders who became His followers. He called common people to greatness. There was diversity in His crowd of followers and then unity in mission.

 

Today is a great day to look down the street and reconnect with some local friends and neighbors. It may also be the time to search out a forgotten friend. There’s a whole world out there waiting to be invited as a friend.

Perhaps consider doing an inventory of your friends. Are there some friends you need to reconnect with? Are there some new people you’d like to have over for dinner or talk to over a cup of coffee?

Instead of feeling anxiety or guilt about evangelism, is there a simple way you could reach out to someone and then see where God takes it from there?

Further Reading

Matthew 9:37-38; Matthew 28:18-20

Dan Johnson is the Lead Pastor of Next Church in Tacoma, Washington and CEO of the Next Leadership Association.

***Facebook users: Be sure to check out the Christianity.com Devotionals application! Get access to all of the devotionals you enjoy on Crosswalk.com and Christianity.com right on your profile page. Just type “Christianity.com Devotionals” into the Search function on Facebook to get started. Let your friends know!

life after Facebook.

Last week I quit Facebook. And Twitter.

It was a decision that I didn’t even think twice about and now I am super glad I did it. I can honestly say that I do not miss it.

The reason I quit is because both Twitter and Facebook had become a vacuum in my life. I was wasting too many hours every day on pointless stuff. There’s a lot of pointless stuff out there, especially on Facebook.

I have decided to “re-brand” things I say with my mouth to life after facebook.

I will share with all of you lovely people the things I did instead of sitting on Facebook for two hours…things that aren’t so…pointless.

Today I ran 3 miles with my wife, and it was awesome.

How much time did you spend on Facebook?

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Facebook's a Cockblocker!

I’ve had an online presence for about a decade.  I’ll even admit it: I was on HotorNot.  Friendster.  FacetheJury.  They got old.  These days it’s on to Facebook, Myspace, Twitter and a blog.  Well, it was Facebook.  But as of this morning, they’re mad at me.  So, rather than throw up a half-assed new one, I’m dipping out.  (To my 768 friends, I still love you!)

It’s almost like God is giving me a bunch of extra time to work on my projects.  Funny thought though, because the farther you go down that road, the more you’ll find it leading back to you.  I posted those pictures.  I pushed the line.  This was all coming, all in due time.

That’s how I feel about this crazy video project too.  It’s something we had to do.  We couldn’t have planned this!

Saturday started with the 5th Annual Zombie Walk.  Of course Vinny and I went, camera’s rolling.  We shot the hell out of it!  The day before, I’d put an ad on Craigslist to help entice zombie killers to show up.  They came in a huge black bus with fake riot gear, gas masks and guns, but their imaginary ammo was no match for thousands of zombies marching and groaning through downtown Portland.  At the end, the zombies convened in Pioneer Square, where they performed their rendition of Michael Jackson’s Thriller video.  It was incredible!

As if that wasn’t enough fun for one day, Vinny and I headed home to clean the blood splatters off and have a quick wardrobe change: him into his usual suit and tie, me into my usual jeans, tank top with a sweater and running shoes.  Then we rolled down to the 5th Annual Distiller’s Festival at Bossanova.

Always looking for a back entrance, I ducked up a narrow walkway around the side of the building.  It ended at an unlocked gate to a little patio.  Vinny followed me in.  Oops!

This was not where we wanted to be.  Camera rolling, I led us into the tiny building, down a long hallway, through a dining area, the kitchen and another dining area until we came out the front door.  We’d gone in a circle!  After our little detour, we opted to go in via Bossanova’s main entrance.

“Lets do this the old fashioned way,” I said.  “We’ll ask nicely.”

The lady in the booth was pleasant and perfectly compliant.  We went upstairs.  Vinny and I split up to do our thing.  We managed to taste everything in the room: bacon vodka, chili-pepper vodka, absinthe, lots of bourbon and more.  But I had a half-marathon to run in the morning, so I had to take it easy.

I pulled out my list.  There was still so much to do!  And it was early.  We decided to push through.  Next stop was the 350 climate change awareness party.

Beer was free and entertainment was top notch.  The Sprockettes performed a few of their choreographed dance routines to local indie rock music, complete with tiny bikes!  I was telling them we should make a pro-bike video…  Naturally, I volunteered Vinny as cameraman.

It was right about then that an adorable little chick caught my eye, with a magnificent paper blossom on her head.  Her name was Gwen.  I just had to photograph her!

Gwen told us about how she made the accessory that I so admired.  It was modified from a Chinese lantern.  What a creative lady!  She explained that she recently moved to Portland to work as a PA in the film industry and she’d love an opportunity to be a part of our project.  (Isn’t that cute?!  She must not realize how low/no budget it is.)  Moments later, Vinny announced that he’d just got word of a bus full of naked people preparing to streak around Portland with pumpkins on their heads.  It was leaving in ten minutes.

“I don’t believe it,” I said, “but if it’s true, we have to get on that bus.”

Vinny agreed enthusiastically, “we have to get on that bus!”

Suddenly my hopes of running a half-marathon the next morning were dashed.  (Needless to say, the sacrifice was worth it.)

Vinny looked around frantically for a pumpkin, Gwen and I observing.  Was this really happening?  Vinny spotted a big one on a nearby shelf.

“Maybe I should steal it,” he wondered aloud, “the pumpkin is mandatory.”

“Well,” said Gwen, “I carved it.  How about I just let you have it?”

“That works!”  Vinny grabbed the pumpkin, quickly carved a hole in the bottom and ran for the bus.  I was already there.

According to the rules, everyone except for camera people had to have a pumpkin for their head and be completely naked.  (Turns out, the definition of “completely” does vary, depending on accessories.)  We’d be hitting several populated areas around Portland, streaking through a bunch of bars along the way.  What a hoot!

Before too long, the line between photographer and participant disappeared.  The other camera man and myself found our clothes being removed.  A lovely lady wearing only purple paint took care of my shirt and bra for me.  My pants stayed on.

Predictably, the police showed up.  The naked people weren’t even the problem – it was the flaming pumpkin on top of the bus.  Go figure.  I threw my shirt back on to film the lecture.

“This is purely an artistic endeavor,” explained our nearly naked leader, Gustav, “We know there’s a fine line between nude and lewd and we intend not to cross it.”  We do love pushing boundaries, don’t we?

The police man, visibly straining to contain his amusement, pulled out his notepad, asking our comrade’s name.

“Here, let me give you my card,” Gus said, one-upping.  (Where he had cards stashed remains a mystery.)  He reassured the police officer that no one was being sexual in any way.  Without further delay, the fire truck pulled away and the cops returned to duty.  Back on the bus, Gus shouted a warning:

“They’re letting us continue as long as we remain decent.  No jiggling your junk at anybody!”

“Vinny,” I said, “that means you.”

It was getting late.  The tour ended back where it began and everyone migrated inside to party.  Dudes were hilarious.

“I work for a member of congress,” said one of my fellow naked bus-riders, “Guess which one.”  I refused to guess – I didn’t care which!  My internal homing beacon began firing.  It was time to go.

I left the party on foot.  Within a minute or two, I heard someone following me.  He was trashed.

“Are you trying to give me a ride?”  I asked, “Because you look too drunk to drive.”  I laughed at myself.  “Which one of us is being more creepy right now?!”  He was so wasted – he couldn’t even reply.  “Give me your keys,” I said.  “I’ll drive.”

Poor guy.

He let me drive myself home, despite the fact that I couldn’t bring him inside.  I had to be up in two hours to take Mom to the airport.  Plus, Dad would flip.  The guy said he’d just sleep in his car.  Fine by me!  I went to bed.

At 4am, I was up again, still feeling buzzed on our way to the airport.  Mom asked me about the night, so I told her everything.  I was relieved that she laughed – considering her current situation (on her way to Memphis to see her ailing mother) she needed a laugh.

Back home, I returned to bed.  I woke up later with a phone full of messages, including a devastating one from Vinny:  The camera is gone.

WHAT?!

Vinny lost the camera.  I was going to kill him!  My heart palpitated a little while I wondered, “Is this how it ends?”  I instinctively readied myself for a quick reconnaissance mission.  I was going to find that damn thing.

Fortunately, Vinny beat me to it.  He went back to the party venue, where people were still chillin’ and sure enough, the camera had been found.

There was no time to spare.  I immediately switched gears, showered and got laced up for double-header kickball games.  Mud Muckers won ‘em both!  I was ecstatic.  By the end of the night I’d put 75 colorful pics from the weekend on Facebook in an album titled: ONE CRAZY ASS DAY.

They were awesome pics!  Yeah, so there were a few penises in there.  There were also lots of boobies!  No harm in that… Right?

Wrong!

When I got home from fitness conditioning today, my Facebook page was gone.  My account has been disabled.  Who knows if it’s permanent or for how long?  Oh well.  In the meantime, I’ll get lots of work done.

Stay tuned for the movie!

New York Jay Park Fans Plan Another Post-It Rally

The New York offices of JYPE have been covered in a rainbow of Post-It notes, but the sticker extravaganza was not to vandalize or to deface the building. The Post-its were left by fans of the boy band 2pm’s ex-lead-member Jay Park.  Jay resigned on September 7th of this year when he was the focus of a humiliating story in the media. 5 years ago Jay had made negative general statements towards Korean people on his personal Myspace.  During that time the singer was JYPE trainee and a teenager.  Instead of a massive outpouring of understanding a great percentage of the Korean public felt he was out of line and quickly called for him to quit the very succesful boy band.

The fans who are mostly female understood right away that it is part of life that human beings can and will get frustrated by others.  It is these very fans of the super talented star that rallied together and planned various events to protest Jays departure and to ask him to return.  The Post-It note event was planned and asked fellow fans to write messages for Jay in support and left on the building for the media to focus on.

Again these localized groups are coming together as a whole on Oct 27th, 28th and 29th to organize another event of Post-It messages for Jay and More.

For more information on This event and how you can help or be a part of it check out this Link

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=161471416811