proudly resents ...

 

The Week in Loserdom:

Losers swapped horse names, and speculated on the likely winners. Doyle was thought to have a good stable of entrants, but many of the regulars have done well in the past and Mary Lee Fox Roe has yet to be heard from. In other Loser news, Dave Zarrow debated the benefits of Reston and Herndon. TWW observes only that he's in better company in Herndon, but he can get undisputed Loser bragging rights to Reston. Several Losers reported getting kindly e-mails from the AuxCzar, eliminating any remaining doubts that The Czar was still, secretly, running the contest.

Results of Week LXI (The Instructions Were Blurbed)^*

Summary:

The Uber was apparently looking for blurbs that would put someone off a book or movie. The results might have been better if he had explained that, but the AuxCzar still managed to find good stuff to print. That said, most of the printed entries were not for bad blurbs as much as they were for blurbs for bad books and movies. Still, they were funny.

F2.1 (The AC's Comments):
We heard some grousing from y'all--and not just the perennial grousers--that the Week LXI contest wasn't described clearly enough four weeks ago, but we ended getting up lots of good blurbs that were supposed to discourage someone from seeing the movie or reading the book. The 31 entries that made it onto F2 today reflected a wide variety of ideas. One idea submitted by lots of people was a line saying simply: "And starring . . . Kevin Costner!" (or ... Tea Leoni!" or ... Demi Moore!" or . . . Carrot Top!")

Meanwhile, it's not too late to submit alternative titles for upcoming Invitationals: the results from Week LXIII, horse names; LXIV, signs with missing letters; and LXV, the contest announced today--from which I am predicting astonishingly clever entries. Please specify in the subject line of your e-mail that you have a contest title, and for what week. Or for this week's contest, you can just use it as the title for your entry.

Speaking of astonishingly clever, I have currently whinnied, er, winnowed the field from thousands and thousands of amusing horse names, down to my first "short list" of 225 brilliant entries, down to a mere 75 unbelievably clever submissions, only most of which will make Page F2 of the May 6 paper, just in time for Kentucky Derby weekend.

The Siberian Express:

And the steel rails still ain't heard the news of Jennifer Hart and her entry about people reading along with you on the Metro. This was one of the few entries that was really a bad blurb for what might be a good book and it should have done better, if for no other reason than it was what the UberCzar had in mind, apparently.

Score Losers:

Hart's two singles move her into a tie for first with the suddenly slumping Beland. Hoven gets his third hit from Down Under, a shirt this time, leading some of us to conclude that the night life in Camperdown might not compare well to Houston's.

TWW now takes a break from traditional score keeping to review how the Losers have done playing the ponies. What follows are the top-twelve Losers based on the six previous horse race contests.

Name (Points / Appearances)
Hart (27 / 25)
Beland (27 / 22)
Hammer (17 / 11) Includes all six contest suggestions.
MLFR (14 / 13)
Smith (9 / 9)
Kammer (8 / 7)
Marcus (8 / 6)
Litz (7 / 6)
Doyle (7 / 6)
Witte (7 / 5)
Genser (6 / 5)
Dudzik (6 / 4)

Week LXV (Refrigerator Magnet Philosophy):

The Weak Week Prediction:

Certain Losers will have fun with this one. Look for Doyle, Cottrill, and Kepner to go to town. Witte, Paul, and Zarrow might also take to this one. Many of the other regulars will, however, give it only a modest effort. Look for some really long involved entry to get high honors.

The Weak Week Word to the Wise (WWWW) :

We are nearing the end of April and the Czar is expected to return sometime soon. According to an anonymous source deep inside the Post (whom we will neither confirm nor deny is Bob Woodward) the Czar could be back in time to judge THIS CONTEST. So pay special attention to: COLON, FESTER, and SOFT when you are writing.

Russ to Judgment: On a one-seventeen scale, sixteen being best, Week LXV gets a:

This could prove to be a good contest, but it seems a little too, well, New York Magazine for the Losers

How Cool the Drool: On a one-five scale (where five is a stuffed mongoose) this week's California Raisin gets a:

The grand prize has now been reduced to space in the fine print. What's next, we have to pay to enter the contest?

Only seven days left to bite your fingernails over: The Hell of it
Only fourteen days left to bite your toenails over: Horse of a Different Nomenclature
Only twenty-one days left to bite me over: Where have all the Vowels Gone?

Read more Weak Weeks

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