Saturday, November 29, 2008

The Thanksgiving Weekend Trifecta

Part I: Request For Bids

Description of Work:

I: A Masthead for this blog, The Life & Times of michael5000, created to the following specifications:
1) The Masthead must clearly show the blog's name.
2) The Masthead may, if desired, incorporate the mediaeval illustration "The Chariot of Venus," which can be found at:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:The_Chariot_of_Venus_p00039.jpg.
3) The Masthead may, if desired, incorporate one or more interobangs.
4) The Masthead should be approximately 900 pixels wide. It may be of any height. It should be in a standard .jpg format.
5) The Masthead should convey such L&TM5K blog values as whimsy, an appreciation of art and/or history, cheerfulness, eclecticism, and dorkyness.
II: A Favicon coordinated to the Masthead, exactly 16 x 16 pixels in size.

III (optional): A "Christmas Masthead" identical to the above Masthead, but ringed with Christmas lights and/or otherwise modified with whimsical holiday decor.


Bidding

A Bid for this project shall consist of two parts.

I) Content. In this section of the bid, the bidder should either
1) indicate a general plan or "vision" of their intended masthead, or:
2) mock up a rough draft or, what the heck, a final draft of the masthead, or:
3) make a vague promise to work on the masthead at some point in the future.
II) Compensation/Budget. In this section, the bidder should indicate how he or she expects to be compensated for his or her efforts. Bids may include, but are not limited to, any of the following forms of compensation:

1) lavish thanks
2) extremely flattering posts profiling the bidder
3) cookies
4) lap blankets made from 100% recycled materials
5) honorary titles
6) indulgences
7) assurances of future comments on the bidder's blog
8) labor
9) extremely modest amounts of money
Bids may be sent to M5KDecathlon[at]gmail.com. All submitted materials become the property of me, michael5000. Bring it, suckas.

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Part II: Supplemental Reader-Request Quiz

By actual reader request, more or less, it's another non-canonical L&TM5K Quiz!
Countries of Africa: Identify 'em!

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

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Part III: Michael Still Reads the Bible

Over at MRtB, I've closed up shop for the annual Winter Sabbatical after finishing up the books of Chronicles. I'll start it back up again sometime in January, with Ezra.

In two and a half years, I've finished 14 of the Bible's 66 books. That puts me only a woeful 21.2% of the way in. In chapters, though, I've finished 403 of 1189, which is a little more than a third of the way through (33.9%). My favorite measure is verses; having completed a whopping 12017 verses, I'm 38.6% of the way through the 31102-verse Bible. At this year's pace, I will wrap up in Summer 2011.

Those of you who have always wanted to go on a Bible-reading lag -- and who among us hasn't? -- I hardly need say that the next two months would be a perfect time for you to jump in and catch up with me. It shouldn't be too hard if you don't make my mistake and try to write down your thoughts about what you're reading. Just make it to Chronicles, and then from there we can read the read together, nice and slow! K? K.
Happy Thanksgiving Weekend.

10 comments:

Cartophiliac said...

1. Angola - Cuba's Vietnam
2. Chad - The only African country named after a Preppy.
3. Botswana - One of my favorite African country names.
4. Eritrea - the country that said, "Screw you, Ethiopia, you don't get to have a sea port.
5. Senegal - Translates from the native language as, "hey, who took our river?"
6. Tunisia - You can tune a piano, but you can't... never mind.
7. Mozambique - Didn't Bob Dylan write a song about them?
8. Mali - she sat behind me in the 2nd grade

Karin said...

Oh, suh-weet! Thank you, thank you!

1. Angola
2. Chad
3. Botswana
4. Eritrea
5. Senegal
6. Tunisia
7. Tanzania
8. Mali

If, I'm wrong, just shoot me now.

Karin said...

well, crap.

Rebel said...

Please don't shoot Karin!

fingerstothebone said...

You should specify deadlines -- a deadline for submission of bids, and a deadline for completing the job.

Morgan said...

1. Angola
2. Chad
3. Botswana
4. Eritrea
5. Senegal
6. West to East: Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya
7. Mozambique
8. Mali

Michael5000 said...

@Carto: Well done, 8/8.

Also: For some reason, I like the bad Bob Dylan songs better than the good ones. This is why "Mozambique" is my second favorite of his ouvre. My favorite? "Tight Connection to Your Heart."

@Karin: Nope, I'm afraid you missed Senegal.

Just kidding.

7/8

@Reb: I would never shoot Karin.

@Fingers: I decided not to have deadlines, as at least one person that I'm hoping will take up the challenge doesn't like to work under time pressure. Or so I was told when I posted a link to a timed geography quiz.

@Morgan: Oh, bravo! 8/8, plus points for the extra florish with the satelite image. Well done.

Anonymous said...

Oh, golly, gee whiz, it looks like I missed a great chance to show off my ignorance of African geography. But I'll sleep better knowing there are at least a few well-informed citizens out there guarding the maps.

Bridget said...

Ooo! Redo the masthead - very exciting stuff! If I weren't melting under a hundred other self-imposed deadlines, I'd take this on . . . of course, this might be just the thing to keep my hands busy during my late-night viewing of every x-files episode ever. In order.

Bridget said...

PS - I so would've been way more into geography if Cartophiliac had been my prof.