Man, I picked the wrong weekend to be unable to chop. This was a fun contest. Echoing Josephus and others' thoughts, I was also interested in the ways people interpreted the rules/solutions, etc. For the most part, I tried to do picks this week that were "roadside repair kit" related, but I threw a few extras in that I just liked for one reason or another.

I'm doing the "no particular order" thing this week as well, except that twallis gets a first place nod for the Rube Goldberg Machine. If that weren't in the works, I'd probably still give you a first for the Hunter S. Thompson entry. Those are both top notch.

Too many other good entries for me to try to place them, so here are the ones I hope to see make the Judges picks.

Josephus - R0m30 & Ju133t
Stereo3D - Excalibur
tgentry - Donner BBQ Party
guiseppi - Head Carver
filteauf - Hitchhiker's Guide
schwanjoe - Dark Side of Oz

I'm giving the monkey to edk4971 for the Extra Flintstone Feet entry. The first time I saw it I figured it was Barney in the bag for some reason. I had a good chuckle when I realized the joke a bit later.

My favorites this week - In no particular order:
tgentry - Donner Party
dsb411 - Marie Antoinette
Josephus - Isaac Newton
Unicornlover - Houdini
Killingtime - Bob Ross
Twallis - Rube Goldberg
Festivegod - Groucho

Many thanks to tgentry, jcoltrane & Shan for the nod. I was surprised that all 3 of you picked different chops.
I'm wishing I had had more time to chop this weekend. I enjoyed this theme!
Good luck to all this week!

killingtime wrote:Yeah, banks, bars, farm silos and churches, actually.
Do you have the commuter rail up there?

NH's not big on public transportation, though there's a state law that preserved all of the old railroad beds for someday when they might be used again. There's been talk of a supertrain or monorail system that would go from Boston to Montreal, but I'm not holding my breath.

Xexus wrote:

NH's not big on public transportation, though there's a state law that preserved all of the old railroad beds for someday when they might be used again. There's been talk of a supertrain or monorail system that would go from Boston to Montreal, but I'm not holding my breath.

Michigan has converted many of the old railroad beds to mulit-use trails (Rails to Trails project). It is an awesome thing!

Xexus wrote:

NH's not big on public transportation, though there's a state law that preserved all of the old railroad beds for someday when they might be used again. There's been talk of a supertrain or monorail system that would go from Boston to Montreal, but I'm not holding my breath.

Oh...people would be ticked off here...they already had a cow about the Greenbush line because of declining property values...afterall, who wants a train in the backyard of an $800,000 home?

My favs this week:

twallis - 3 stellar entries: Goldberg, Freud, and Thompson
tgentry - Donner party
filteauf - Adams' towel
wantabewooter - Lady G

Monkey prize should go to anyone who used a living person or cartoon character.

guiseppi wrote:My favs this week:

Monkey prize should go to anyone who used a ...cartoon character.

why?

Jason Toon wrote:
...Or other legendary dead people, like Julius Caesar or Joan of Arc or Fred Flintstone?

Going agianst the trend of not picking which were favorites, I am posting essentially how I voted.
I liked:
1st
twallis' Hunter Thompson a lot more than most of you all seemed to- rube goldberg could also go here too.
2nd, monkey (both)
plinth's McGuyver since he's alive= monkey AND second prize for McGuyver's point of view
3rd
shan24's kenny
others of note
schwanjoe's Adam and Eve
tgentry's Earhart- I guess cause I wanted to do her ;^)
edk4971's Fred Flintstone

Josephus wrote:why?

I guess I missed that slight detail, but to justify my arguement:

Even though Toon mentioned him by name, I don't think Fred is dead... He is still alive and kicking on my TV. Someone like Felix the Cat and his bag of tricks could be considered more dead than Fred.
The Simpsons is still on the air, with new shows being produced. Not at all historical.
South Park: ditto

guiseppi wrote:I guess I missed that slight detail, but to justify my arguement:

Even though Toon mentioned him by name, I don't think Fred is dead... He is still alive and kicking on my TV. Someone like Felix the Cat and his bag of tricks could be considered more dead than Fred.
The Simpsons is still on the air, with new shows being produced. Not at all historical.
South Park: ditto

Ned Flanders' wife (whatever her name is) died in the course of the Simpsons show...as did Kenny from South Park. Kenny died on almost every show, actually, for the first five years, which is why I picked him for this contest.

Thanks for the nod, Joe!

In honor of the eventual first place entry ...

http://autorepair.about.com/cs/funstuff/l/bl_honda.htm

LKK wrote:
Michigan has converted many of the old railroad beds to mulit-use trails (Rails to Trails project). It is an awesome thing!

And in Detroit, the commuter rail tracks were converted to multi-use freeways. But that's another story.

Granos wrote:

And in Detroit, the commuter rail tracks were converted to multi-use freeways. But that's another story.

So true! But you must know that the rest of the state does not consider Detroit part of Michigan. And to anyone north of US10, all the "flatlanders" are seen as residents of Ohio
To quote Joe: "I'm just sayin'..."

thanks for pointing my pics out, shan, briannyc, and LKK.

and good luck to everyone.

Josephus wrote:
2nd, monkey (both)
plinth's McGuyver since he's alive= monkey AND second prize for McGuyver's point of view

I just want to be clear, because I've seen this twice now - MacGyver is fictional and has therefore never been alive. I hate to burst your bubble, but you really should know someday, and better to hear it from me than someone who's trying to hurt your feelings. Oh, about the Easter Bunny, he's al....nevermind. I don't think you're ready yet.

Thanks for the nods, shan and LKK. Lots of great entries again this week; good luck all!

Josephus wrote:
I liked:
1st
twallis' Hunter Thompson a lot more than most of you all seemed to-

Only reason I didn't pick this one was... It wasn't posted by midnight!
This one and wantabewooter's Custer entry both were altered or appeared after I posted my picks last night at 12:09 am.

Shenanigans! I'm calling Shenanigans!

jcoltrane wrote:Only reason I didn't pick this one was... It wasn't posted by midnight!
This one and wantabewooter's Custer entry both were altered or appeared after I posted my picks last night at 12:09 am.

Shenanigans! I'm calling Shenanigans!

Twallis' Hunter S. Thompson one was posted at 11:56 pm central time, which is before the deadline of 11:59 pm central...at least that's what my computer shows.

jcoltrane wrote:

Only reason I didn't pick this one was... It wasn't posted by midnight!
This one and wantabewooter's Custer entry both were altered or appeared after I posted my picks last night at 12:09 am.

Shenanigans! I'm calling Shenanigans!

are you saying that you are centexman? Because I see a post by centexman at 1:09 and one by you at 1:33 AM. It seems to me that I saw Hunter Thompson at around 1:00, I could be wrong (medication?)
At any rate, by 2:00 AM they were both there, and woot rarely cares about sticking to the 1:00 'deadline', unless they can write a funny line poking fun at someone for missing it.

As LKK might quote, I'm just sayin'

Duneland wrote:

Sorry Wanta, I knew I should have put this up last night.

No problem! Really nice job. I love this depiction of her.

Josephus wrote:
are you saying that you are centexman? Because I see a post by centexman at 1:09 and one by you at 1:33 AM.

My bad on calling my post time.

The Hunter S. Thompson post clearly was in time, but the picture... was the pic the same in the post originally? (Just because a post has a time on it doesn't mean the photo was completed then. This is the achilles heel of the post time stamps on here. You can edit an entry whenever you want, and as long as you don't change the file name where it's saved, you don't even need to change a post here for it to show the newest version)

I am pretty sure it was not, because I actually really like the entry, and I certainly would have listed it as one of my favorites had I seen the post. So I am fairly convinced that it went up late, but I am also willing to concede that it is possible that it could have been up and I just skipped over it.

As for wantabewooter's Custer entry, at 1:30, the pic in it was just the oil painting. I remember examining it and wondering what the hell was so "emergency kit-ish" about it. Only this morning did it show any of the kit features. (Shenanigans!!)

That said, this is all tongue-in-cheek and beside the point. Should Hunter Thompson win, I hold it no ill will, as it really is an exceedingly creative, inventive and well executed entry and one of my personal favorites.

/just sayin'

jcoltrane wrote:

My bad on calling my post time.

The Hunter S. Thompson post clearly was in time, but the picture... was the pic the same in the post originally? (Just because a post has a time on it doesn't mean the photo was completed then. This is the achilles heel of the post time stamps on here. You can edit an entry whenever you want, and as long as you don't change the file name where it's saved, you don't even need to change a post here for it to show the newest version)

I am pretty sure it was not, because I actually really like the entry, and I certainly would have listed it as one of my favorites had I seen the post. So I am fairly convinced that it went up late.

As for wantabewooter's Custer entry, at 1:30, the pic in it was just the oil painting. I remember examining it and wondering what the hell was so "emergency kit-ish" about it. Only this morning did it show any of the kit features. (Shenanigans!!)

That said, this is all toungue-in-cheek and beside the point. Should Hunter Thompson win, I hold it no ill will, as it really is an inventive and well executed entry and one of my personal favorites. Custer on the other hand...

/just sayin'

Busted! Just worked too long on it not to post. Doesn't stand a chance in this great competition anyway. (That's why I didn't bother with my sources)
Too many good ones to list.

wantabewooter wrote:
Busted! Just worked too long on it not to post.

I know the feeling...
Just remember, there is always someone on here with less of a life than you have keeping an eye on things. ;)

Ok, enough toungue-in-cheek policing and bad vibes...
Let's get down to some bad judging!

Many thanks to tgentry, briannyc128 and josephus for their nods. A lot of really great entries this week--both creativity and "chop execution" wise. The more historical contests (like this one, and the Preidents of the USB) seem to really evoke a lot of creative thought from the choppers, and I like that.

Looking forward to seeing everyone in #116 and Dodgeball!

Seems people forget about early posts on page 1 and 2. Can your minds not hold more than 5 pages of entries? Early adopters (choppers) always get screwed.

tgentry wrote:

I went through all the pages before I picked mine. In fact I picked LKK's for third, and that was on the first page.

Agreed. Many of the favorites, or at least most talked about (MacGuyver, Donner, Flinstone) can all be found on the first two pages.

dsb411 wrote:Seems people forget about early posts on page 1 and 2. Can your minds not hold more than 5 pages of entries? Early adopters (choppers) always get screwed.

? 3 of my six picks were on page 1.

edit: heh. I guess we showed you!

In all seriousness, though, historically there's been a real slant in the judging for the first couple of pages and the very last page. My guess is that the most original ideas were in the past on the first couple of pages, and the last page had some of the most carefully done images. I don't think that's so true now, and I think the judging reflects that.

guiseppi wrote:My favs this week:

twallis - 3 stellar entries: Goldberg, Freud, and Thompson
tgentry - Donner party
filteauf - Adams' towel
wantabewooter - Lady G

Monkey prize should go to anyone who used a living person or cartoon character.

Thanks

dsb411 wrote:Seems people forget about early posts on page 1 and 2. Can your minds not hold more than 5 pages of entries? Early adopters (choppers) always get screwed.

I always go thru all the pages again when I'm doing my picks. One reason being that I usually see something new posted early on by someone using a placeholder. But that's another matter, don't get me started!

tgentry wrote:Well, I won't have time to post them after the contest, so here's my picks for this week now (sorry if you come up with a gem between now and then):

1st - twallis - Rube Goldberg and Sigmund Freud
2nd - Stereo3D - Paul Revere
3rd - LKK - Colonel Sanders

unicornlover69 - Harry Houdini
filteauf - Douglas Adams
schwanjoe - Adam and Eve

Monkey Prize -
How to choose? I'll go with thetaperman's 3D headscratcher.

Thanks for even noticing! All done in 3dsmax in about 30-45 min. King Solomon supposedly had 1000 wives, & I imagined chocolate & Midol may have helped ensure his survival!

I thought Lincoln decked in Kevlar would surely get a nod... oh well

I pick twallis. Brilliant.

tgentry wrote:

Where have you been?!? At least we know your judgement is still in intact with that pick. But still, I say you get no vote until you come back and start chopping again.

Pouring my creative energy/free time into another online contest. I will post the fruits of my labor soon. Contest ends March 3oth.

The Funeral:

I guess that I really shouldn't post this here, but I'm not sure where else to put it.
I just got this email a few days ago, and all weekend I've been thinking how appropriate that it would be for this contest...except that I dont think this is a legendary figure. [Maybe I could pass him off as James Brown] Anyway, he is sure prepared for any emergencies, and a nice long rest. LOL

wonderstew wrote:I pick twallis. Brilliant.

Actually, as the top money winner, you can vote. But I suspect that you are a bit late to get your picks in to Jason. I agree - Twallis came up with the winner this week.
And - please do let us know what you have been up to when you can. Our curiosity is piqued.

twallis wrote:
Hunter S. Thompson

Is this influenced by Pink Floyd? Looks good.