Desert Bus for Hope 5

Desert Bus for Hope 5 Official Poster (by Mike Lunsford)

Desert Bus for Hope 5 (AKA Desert Bus 5, DB5, De5ert Bus) began November 18, 2011 at 6:00PM PST. The event lasted 6 1/4 days ending finally on November, 25th at 12:00AM PST. That equated to 150 hours bussed after $376,167 raised for Child's Play Charity. An additional $6,958.10 came in after the bussing ended for a grand total of $383,125.10 raised for the year's event, just over one-tenth the amount all of Child's Play raised that year. Date: November 18, 2011 I

Events

• An auction for a hand-crafted Doctor Who-esque scarf resulted in a themed bidding war between users dave_random and DuctTape. Bids took the form of important Doctor Who dates, and a meme or two. DuctTape eventually won with a bid of $3339, after Space Bidding (bidding over one's own bid) twice. [Video of the latter half of the auction]

• Dostrow won the Ken "Value Added" Steacy live auction of a custom sketch with a high bid of $5,700.

• IRC chat mod Ian 'Dix' Dixon, during his call in, challenged Kroze and Ashton to read/act out a slashfic written by chat users Fayili and Cho_J. Originally the DB Survivors Group Challenge donation was to be for $400 but thanks to the Group Challenge tag being left open during the following few hours, over $17,000 was raised for the challenge. To date this stands as a Desert Bus record for 'Most Expensive Crowdsourced Challenge issued'. (the figure of $17,000 is nearly 75% of the total raised during the ENTIRE first year)

• Minecraft creator Markus 'Notch' Persson spacebid himself from $6,500 to $10,000 during the live auction for an uncut sheet of Magic:The Gathering Innistrad Rares/Mythics Foil cards. This stood as the largest amount paid for any Desert Bus auction until Desert Bus 8. [Video of the auction, including the chat!]

Drivers

Official Drivers

• James - 30 Hours (24 Hour Shift Plus 6 Hours)
• Jer - 24 Hours
• Bill - 2 12-Hour Shifts
• Kathleen - 24 Hours
• Morgan - 24 Hours
• Ian Horner - 12 Hours
• Paul - 12 Hours

Guest Drivers

• Alex
• Cam
• Cori
• Graham Stark
• Kate Stark
• Kara
• King Kool
• Robert Khoo from Penny-Arcade
• Steve Dengler
• Tally
• Harry the Giant Creepy Doll

Milestones

• $500,000 lifetime donations

• $750,000 lifetime donations

• Matched the previous year's total nearly 48 hours faster

Parody Songs

• If I had a Million Dollars by Barenaked Ladies [Google Doc DBFH5 Performance]
• I Mod Alone
• Defying Sanity [DBFH5 Performance]
• Safety Dance [DBFH5 Performance]
• My Little Krozy [DBFH5 Performance]
• Bad Bromance [Google Doc]
• Want You Gone parody

Skits/Challenges videos

• THE OPENING

• Council of Desert Bus [YouTube Video of the performance]
• Ashton and Kroze Slashfic by Fayili and Cho_J YouTube Video of the performance
• Big Giant Circle's LRR Theme Remix Dance Party
• Wrath of Creepy Doll
• Going to the Store
• Nappa plays Who is the Kitty?
• TeamPaulSexual round 2
• QWOP breaks Graham
• Matt Wubstepping
• Kathleen dances FOREVER!
• 10 challenges in 5 minutes
• Magic: The Gathering Backseat Drivers (and QWOP fanfic 2)
• $5 Fact Challenge
• The Final Busdown 5
• The Slapsgiving conclusion you missed if you left right away after the Final Busdown...

The Kroze Ponies Trilogy

• Kroze Denounces My Little Ponies
• Kroze's Letter to Princess Celestia
• DB4 Total beaten and PONY GLUE!

The Derp Line

• Derp Line 1
• Derp Line 2
• Derp Line 3 Pt.1, Pt.2, Pt.3
• Derp Line 4

Fugiman in Dresses

• The first one
• Fashion Show

Quotables

Chat user bloodraven setup parsing of his logs for some unofficial Stats from the Chat.

See also the Desert Bus Lexicon for popular, oft-repeated phrases.

Notable Memes

See also the Desert Bus Lexicon

• The Desert Bus for Hope Drinking Game returned this year with a vengeance.
• Chess - Chess is used as a reference to Sex. This makes for many amusing double entendres.
• "Well Dong" instead of "Well Done", named after a confusing font on the Titus the Fox game Jer was challenged to play simultaneously with Desert Bus. Mutated into Whale Dong by the end of DB5.
• "Myth Busted" In regards to an auction of Myth Busters SWAG, Graham challenged the chat to bust the myth that the auction couldn't go over $1,000. Henceforth the chat decreed that all auctions hitting $1000 must be greeted with hearty cheers of "Myth Busted!"
• QWOP - The chat discovered how to break Graham the way WHARRGARBL broke Kathleen in DBFH4; a game called QWOP.
• Star Trek Erotic Fanfiction - One of the first call-in guests was asked for their opinion on Star Trek Erotic Fanfiction, this lead to the same question being asked during every call-in thereafter.
• I'm Notchicus - Thanks to many attempts being made by a 'fake' Notch trying to log into the IRC, Dix started saying I'm Notchicus which has been repeated many many times over various occasions.
• AFRICAAAAAAAAA!!! - During a song challenge to sing Toto's Africa, Ashley mumbled the verse but yelled "AFRICAAAAAA!" every time the word was said in the song. This somehow caught on and would be shouted at almost any moment of intensity. Considered one of the more annoying memes of DB5 that the crew have assumed won't have much life outside past Desert Bus 5.
• #TeamBidBot - the lord and master of the bidding was done by a bot initially coded by Tyranic-Moron (in Python), then recoded multiple times by Ashton and Fugiman (in PHP). In the end it made auctions incredibly easy to run for the crew in the Moonbase, bids were much easier to spot amongst the craziness of the IRC live chat, and it virtually eliminated the problem of fake bidding from previous years.
  • Building on the "Madness" meme from DBFH4, BidBot was designed to identify the approximate madness level of the current bid. After Hendecouple Madness, he ran out of English words; the Mythic Rare sheet was designated "33x Madness".
• Rule 34.5 - "The Dubstep Corollary": if a song exists on the internet, there is a terrible terrible dubstep remix of said song.
• [insert name/item/show/etc here] Standing By: During a few drivers cam outages, the chat responded with playing off a joke from the first Family Guy Star Wars episode while waiting for the feed to come back. After a while the chat ran out of stuff that was Red ______ so random things started being used in its place.
• Mumblecore - Chat's description of song challenges where the majority of the moonbase crew didn't know the lyrics to songs and had trouble keeping up with sing-along lyrics on the youtube videos they used for the lyrics and music.
• Mutt Wubbins - Dubstep DJ extraordinaire
• WHARR-GAR-BAL!- in a continuation of DB4's Wharrgarbl that made Kathleen break, someone in the chat on day One asked the moonbase crew to create a yell for their character in Skyrim. WHARR-GAR-BAL chants were done throughout the rest of DB5.
• Steve Dengler's enormous pile of gamer swag and eager Steacy-eque value-addition earned him the nickname "But Wait, There's More".
• Harry the Giant Creepy Doll was a favorite with the chat, and in response was made to dance along with challenges and generally be creepy in the background. When the crew attempted to summon Cthulhu as part of a challenge, Harry was depicted arising and defeating the Great Old One in the driver cam overlay. The event is immortalized in the poster.
• Aristotle, the kitty Kate adopted during the previous Desert Bus returned to visit Desert Bus as a full-grown kitty.

Achievements

This year featured new and varied Achievements (or cheevos) much like those earned while playing XBox 360 games. Below is a list grouped by type and explanation of all the Achievements of DB5.

Auction/Donation related cheevos

• Vegeta's Legacy - $9001 in donations
• Bid for Power - Auction an item for more than $3000. Decuple Madness!!!
• Triple Madness! - An auction's opening bid is $900 or greater
• Can You STEP?! - Two bidders trash-talk during an auction
• We <3 Handmade - Awarded when a Craft-Along item auctions for over $1,000
• Kickin' it up a Notch - We hit our first 5 digit donation
• Value Added - Ken Steacy randomly adds an item to an existing item lot

Bothan Spy cheevos

• 1 Bothan Spy - $2,500 earned
• Many Bothan Spies - $187,500 earned
• Bothans Are Extinct - $250,000 earned

Bus driving related cheevos

• On The Road Again - Reach 1 point
• Road Trip - Reach 5 points
• The Long Haul - Reach 10 points
• Don't Stop Me Now! - We crash the bus
• Fancy Hat - James wears pants on his head
• Kid Gloves - James drives the bus with socks on his hands
• Against All Odds - BILL DIDN'T CRASH!!!
• Houston, We Have A Problem - The Feed goes down
• Insecticide - First bug splat of Desert Bus 5

Challenge related cheevos

• You're a Superstar - Matt dances to Gay Bar
• 40pts of Acid Damage - D&D is played live on the feed
• Toffee Shuffle - Kathleen dances Carmelldansen... 5 times
• Two Heads Are Better Than One - Jer and Tally sing a song
• Saturday Morning - Graham leads a sing along of a cartoon theme song
• Pepto Bismol - An Iron Stomach challenge is completed
• Mr. Dress Up - YMCA is sung, with appropriate costumes
• A Series of Tubes - Someone sings 'The Internet is for Porn'
• Choral Reef - More than 10 people singing on camera simultaneously
• Haber-Dashing - More than 10 people wearing silly hats on camera
• Ghost Ride the Whip - A driver dances beside the chair, while driving
• Barbershop - Someone removes or alters their hair for a donation challenge
• Feel the Magic - A game of MTG is played somewhere in view of the camera
• Excellent Posture - Paul balances something on his head
• Aww, Muffin - The first 'torture Matt' Challenge (ie: watch Twilight, or whatever the new version of that challenge is) is completed
• Wubstep - Matt wubs it up with hats

Chat related cheevos

• Radio Silence - No one posts in the chat for 30 seconds
• C-C-C-COMBO BREAKER - A Radio Silence attempt is ruined in the last 5 seconds before completion
• Hammertime - Someone gets IRL banhammered by Kroze
• Old MacDonald - Awarded when a new Desert Bus animal meme takes hold (like the kitties of DB 3 and pigs of DB 4)
• Dog Catcher - Someone in chat notices Spot the Dog

Random Moonbase happenings related cheevos

• Shorty In The Club - Someone gets 'clubbed'
• Magic Pocket - Bill's Mom tells a story
• A Wild Tim Has Appeared - A fan brings a chocolate cake
• Blue Warrior Needs Food Badly - A fan brings hot food for the crew
• But You Can't Stay Here - An onsite person falls asleep on camera
• WHARRGARBL - WHARRGARBL!
• Orbital Leap - Someone advises the driver to USE SPACE JUMP!
• Birds of a feather - We receive the first piece of Rosco P. Jangles IV fan/milestone art
• Ukulele Schafer - Tim Schafer plays the ukulele
• Betrothal Bus - Someone proposes during the Desert Bus run!

Social Media related cheevos

• Trend-Setter - #DesertBus trends anywhere in the Top 10 on Twitter (anywhere in the world)
• Right in the FACE - Any Desert Bus related Facebook post recieves more than 1000 likes

Call-ins

This section features a day by day call in list sorted by time with links to the blog posts where questions were able to be asked in a less crazy environment than the chat as well as a link to a youtube video of the call-in if it exists. *Youtube links still to be found

Friday November 18, 2011

• 10:00PM: Dan & James - Extra Credits [Dan & James' Q&A]

Saturday November 19, 2011

• 11:00AM: Tim Schafer - Double Fine Productions
• 1:00PM: Chris Avellone – Obsidian Entertainment
• 2:30PM: Kevin Murphy – Rifftrax
• 4:00PM: Shamus Young – Escapist Magazine [Shamus' Q&A]
• 6:30PM: John Scalzi – Author
• 8:00PM: Steve Butts – Escapist Magazine

Sunday, November 20, 2011

• 10:00AM: Stephen "Stepto" Toulouse - Xbox Live
• 11:00 AM: Ian "Dix" Dixon – Desert Bus IRC Chat Moderator
• 1:00PM: Jim Sterling – Escapist Magazine
• 4:00PM: Grant Imahara – Mythbusters [Grant's Q&A]
• 6:00PM: Veronica Belmont – Revision3
• 7:15PM: Jeff Green - PopCap Games
• 8:00PM: Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw – Escapist Magazine [Yahtzee's Q&A]

Monday, November 21, 2011

• 10:00AM: Neil Gaiman - EVERYTHING AWESOME EVER [Neil's Q&A]
• 11:00AM: Bob "MovieBob" Chipman – Escapist Magazine
• 1:00PM: Sam Logan - Sam and Fuzzy
• 2:30PM: Chris Cashman – 1 vs 100 Live
• 6:00PM: Phil Plait - Bad Astronomy

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

• 10:00AM: Monte Cook - Dungeons and Dragons 3rd Edition writer
• 11:00AM: Ernie Cline – Fanboys
• 1:00PM: Peter Sagal - Wait Wait… Don’t tell me! [Peter's Q&A]
• 4:00PM: Mikey Neumann – Gearbox Software
• 6:00PM: Paul & Storm – Musicians
• 8:00PM: Felicia Day – The Guild, Dragon Age: Redemption [Felicia's Q&A]
• 8:25PM: Steve 'But wait, there's more!' Dengler - One half of the crimefighting duo Dengler and Butts
• 9:00PM: Markus "Notch" Perrson – Mojang [Surprise Q&A with Notch]

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

• 8:00AM: John 'Seg' Seggerson - Ümloud! charity gaming event, Telltale Games
• 11:00AM: Susan Arendt – Escapist Magazine
• 1:00PM: Sean Becker – The Guild
• 2:30PM: Justin McElroy – Joystiq
• 4:00PM: Molly Lewis – Musician
• 6:00PM: Jonathan Coulton – Musician [Jonathan's Q&A Pt.1 | Pt.2]
• 8:00PM: Jeremiah Slaczka – 5th Cell Games

Thursday, November 24, 2011

• 10:00am: Wil Wheaton - Author, Cool Dude, Wil Wheaton, Supporter of Erotic Star Trek Fanfiction [Wil's Q&A]

Desert Bus for Hope

1 (2007) – 2 (2008) – 3 (2009) – 4 (2010) – 5 (2011) – 6 (2012) – 7 (2013) – 8 (2014) – 9 (2015) – 10 (2016)

(11) 2017 – (12) 2018 — (13) 2019 — (14) 2020 — (15) 2021 — (16) 2022 — (17) 2023 — (18) 2024

Desert Bus Lexicon