We promised there'd be more games and contests, so here we are again. We're planning to run at least one a week. Naturally, your ideas and suggestions are welcome.
Here's this week's challenge: Everybody and their brother are doing year-end wrap-ups this week. Strike back! Write your own!
To be more specific: Summarize 2008. If you want, you can narrow it down and summarize the year in Boing Boing, weather, science fiction, weird science, plain science, international relations, bicycles, finance, real estate, disasters other than finance or real estate, cool gadgets, presidential campaigns, sandwiches (yours), sandwiches (eaten by others), violence, oxygen, polar bears in the news, weird sex, or whatever else you find meaningful, as long as it's a summary of 2008.
Format: Plain prose is fine. Compression is good. Formalism is very good. Chronological sequence is required, though it may be implicit.
You aren't required to use plain prose. As usual, poetry is an option; but so are obfuscated code, footnotes for an imaginary text, captions for the imaginary text's imaginary illustrations, crossword puzzle clues, lists of unanswered phone messages, copyeditors' queries, or entries from your cat's Live Journal. Just keep it coherent, and make sure the format and handling illuminates your summary of 2008.
Bear in mind that if you want to use flowcharts, rebuses, lolcats, XKCD cartoons, charts, photos, or sheet music, you'll have to stash the images elsewhere and link to them, because we're not set up to handle images in comment threads. That goes double for audio files, machinima, and flash games.
The length of your entry should not exceed your readers' patience. Entries will be judged by professionally impatient readers.
The normal moderation guidelines apply.
Hanging out in the thread, discussing the entries, and applauding good performances is virtuous, can be a lot of fun, and is a great way to get to know your fellow commenters.
Prize: To be announced shortly. Something good.
