Goodbye, Boy; Hello, Bed Head: Mr. LDBC’s Victory LDBC-Elfie
And there you have it, friends—another Challenge in the books. I’ll keep this uncharacteristically brief except to say that I realized I’m always asking others to bravely post in-the-moment LDBC-elfies when I haven’t done it myself in a while. (Last year was just my hand.) So here’s my characteristically grim countenance, which looks the same in winning and in defeat. Plus a bit of “I’ll just smash my hair down” grooming for good measure. (You’d think I’d look happier, considering I also woke up to a nifty write-up on Boing Boing. But my face has just one setting, expression-wise: Easter Island moai.)
You know the drill, all. Share your victory LDBC-elfies as comments to a post on the Facebook page, tweet it out and tag @LDBChallenge, or post it to Instagram and tag @ldbchallenge.
Don’t forget to fill out the form (bit.ly/LDBCform) so that I’m working with comprehensive stats when I crunch all the numbers and post the wrap-up (halfway through January, at the rate I’ve been going).
And if you can, please send a little something to Americares, which is our chosen charity. A donation is not something anyone has to do, but if you’re so inclined, the money goes to a great organization, and you can donate here.
Oh, and some of you have asked where you might find my books, which I appreciate. You can read about the series here.
Thanks, as always, for helping to keep me sane during the season, people. Happy Holidays to you and yours, and I’ll see you when I post the wrap-up.
A little help, if you can: once again, we’re battling the darkness that is The Boy by trying to shed some light on the situation. So if you’re willing and able to help this year, Americares is who we’re giving to this year.
As I say every year, there’s no obligation. Everybody’s welcome in this Thing of Ours, whether you contribute or not. But if you can, Americares is a great organization.
Land of the Lost: Aileen Stickley, Mike Melton, Rhedde Bachs
“All the world will be your enemy, Prince with a Thousand Enemies, and whenever they catch you, they will kill you. But first they must catch you…”
— Richard Adams
There’s a moment in one of my favorite books, Watership Down, that reminds me of the point in the game we’re at now. (And if you’ve never read the novel or seen the 1978 animated movie, I highly recommend both. Just don’t assume that cartoon bunnies are suitable fare for younger kids, however, because the film’s pretty dark, bloody, and violent.)
Bigwig, the toughest fighter among the hero rabbits of the tale, has acquitted himself in battle far better than his opponent, the much larger General Woundwort, expected. And though bloodied and badly wounded, Bigwig uses a break in the fighting to reposition himself for a final face-off. When Woundwort returns to kill him, the general realizes that’s going to be much harder than he’d bargained for and offers to let Bigwig live if he’ll switch sides.
“My Chief Rabbit has told me to defend this run,” Bigwig replies, “and until he says otherwise I shall stay here.”
And oh, does he.
That’s about where we are in this Thing of Ours, friends. We passed the milestone of 500 fallen four days ago, and we’re steadily marching toward 600 today. We’re hurting, we’re tired, and we’re not sure who’s going to make it when so many haven’t.
But we’re here. And that stinkin’ kid better watch his ass, lest we knock him on it to get to the daylight behind him.
(And my apologies for the inability to create a new post on the page; I’ve checked every setting, and though you should be able to, you can’t. I blame Zuck.)
We’re almost there, folks.
LDBC-Elfies: A Chronicle of Faces Fallen
Marine M.
Karl L.
Lynn Sebrell
Muffy Marracco
Larry Hall
Zilpha Frank
Stacey Tappan
David A. Goldfarb
Rick Damigella
Mike Melton
Elizabeth Fox
Linda Renzulli
Joanne Carey Blanchard
Rhedde Bachs
Tracy Rhodes
Amanda Samuel
Kristin Fletcher
Robyn R. Huizinga
Lindsay Willett
Lynn Isaacson
Kim W.
Cathy Hancharik Wright
Casey Riley
Reid Hamilton
Mallory Mueller
Betsy O’Phelan
Donald Peter Dulchinos
Molly Anderson
Emily Harris
Tony Vant Leven
Jeanette Jamison
Heather Mayhugh
Aileen Stickley
Chad Burger
Holly Duthie
A little help, if you can: once again, we’re battling the darkness that is The Boy by trying to shed some light on the situation. So if you’re willing and able to help this year, Americares is who we’re giving to this year.
As I say every year, there’s no obligation. Everybody’s welcome in this Thing of Ours, whether you contribute or not. But if you can, Americares is a great organization.
With You by My Side, I Can Do Anything: Shana Tognazzini and Daughter
Shana Tognazzini had a problem. With a capital P, and that rhymes with B, and that stands for Boy.
Shana, like all of us, was devoting nearly all of her waking hours to keeping The Boy at bay, letting the rest of her life lie fallow just to survive. But her four-year-old daughter had a date with the Dread Drummer to practice for her holiday pageant. So what was Shana to do?
Look at that face. What would you do? Are you really gonna tell that face: “Sorry, kid, but you’re on your own and are doomed to humiliate yourself in front of everyone, so please consider it a character-building exercise?”
No.
Hell, no.
She’s a mom. She’s a fighter.
So she took one for the tyke. (Which, yes, technically means the girl’s out, too, but the child doesn’t appear to be too broken up about it.)
For that’s what we do in this Thing of Ours. We stick together. We help our kid get ready for her thing. We don’t say anything as the song’s playing in the store because our pal may not have noticed it. So we wait until we’re safe in the parking lot to ask if they did, and if they give an honest “no,” we fill out the reporting form for ourselves and root them on.
I mean, is there anything more noble than understanding the wound is mortal and waving the survivors on with an empassioned, “Go without me”?
If running this Thing of Ours has taught me anything, friends—and 13 years in, wouldn’t you think I’ve learned something?—it’s that we’re all in it together. (OK, not all of us, but that’s why we have the “Hoist with His Own Petard” rule.)
It’s not a new lesson, of course; I’ve talked about it before.
But these days it’s pretty much the classic Moe Tucker–Lou Reed duet. You held up a stagecoach in the rain. And I’m doin’ the same.
For I may technically be able to win without you, and you without me, but it’s not nearly as much fun. So stay together. Watch each other’s backs. And do it for Peter.
Again, if you do take a tumble, please fill out the reporting form (https://bit.ly/LDBCform), and post an LDBC-elfie like one of those in the latest batch, below, by commenting on the Facebook page or by tweeting and tagging @LDBChallenge.
Ever vigilant!
LDBC-Elfies: Defeated but Not Forgotten
Holly Melton
Kendra Hughes
Katherine Eppich
Jim Ingram
Bill Merk
Kristen Mirenda
Jennifer Sarah Blakeslee
Nancy Mello
Dorian Selbo
Audrey Arby
Pete Isaacson
SD Wangmo
Jane Erwin
Vanessa Dawn Jenks
Kristi Cavanaugh
Kim Drogan Prentice
Andrew Solovay
Anne Jarek
Mecca Palfrey
Brittany Jacobs
Dillon Hawkins
Rosie Hauck
Zach Bowyer
Shana Tognazzini
Chris Frazier Robinson
Laura Larsen
Shannon Hall
Karen Leimback
Joey Tracy
Sarah Bannister
Laura Michelle Butterfield
Molly Lenore Fischer
Juniper J Jehoshephat
Nikki Hedrick
Justin Lane
Lori Gibson Lee
A little help, if you can: once again, we’re battling the darkness that is The Boy by trying to shed some light on the situation. So if you’re willing and able to help this year, Americares is who we’re giving to this year.
As I say every year, there’s no obligation. Everybody’s welcome in this Thing of Ours, whether you contribute or not. But if you can, Americares is a great organization.
I need to get something off my chest that’s bothered me for nearly four decades, people. Band Aid‘s “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” grew out of good intentions, but what’s with the part where Bono sings, “Well, tonight thank God it’s them instead of you”? I mean, can’t we help those less fortunate than ourselves without an injection of, “Better you than me”?
Rest assured, there’s no such pettiness in this Thing of Ours. Some of us may inwardly celebrate the downfall of friends and loved ones and laugh at their expense, to be sure, but at least nobody’s singing about it.
On the contrary, many of us do our best to shield ourselves and others (OK, maybe it’s mostly ourselves) from The Boy’s reptilian kiss, employing various strategies involving when to visit stores, wearing earbuds, and calling ahead to see if restaurants are playing holiday music. Those people are called preppers, while those who throw caution to the wind and trust their fate to luck are pantsers (as in: flying by the seat of their pants). And no, I can’t take credit for that since I borrowed those terms from the author side of my life after LDBCer Lori Slyasked if we called those groups anything.
Thus, it’s the preppers you can thank for a slew of safe, LDB-free playlists created for your anxiety-free enjoyment this holiday season. Now, I do want to stress that I haven’t checked these over to make sure there isn’t any stray Boy venom hidden inside of any of them. So do your due diligence and check them yourself to make sure someone hasn’t inadvertently left some LDB in there or isn’t actively trying to Nickroll you. (I love that term, invented by Elayne Wylie, for those who apply the principles of Rickrolling to our annual tradition. And no, it wouldn’t count thanks to our “Hoist with His Own Petard” rule, but you have no way of knowing whether the creator did it on purpose or not. So check.)
One other thing to watch out for, as BE Eliza so presciently warned, is to make sure you have the auto-suggest feature (as it’s called on Spotify, though it may be termed something else on other services) turned off so that it doesn’t start playing random holiday tunes without warning once the playlist is done. Two people that I know of have gotten stung that way thus far.
With all of that said, here are the lists, organized in no particular order by contributor name, and we thank all those who put these together:
Prepper, pantser. The Boy is happy to harvest you whatever your approach. And as proof of that, we present the gallery below, which is a visual roundup of those who’ve been taken from us too soon. (And it’s but a sample; more than 100 have reported in as slain only four days in.)
And that’s it for this gray Monday. Continue to be ever-vigilant, and be kind to one another. But should you take a fall, please fill out the reporting form (https://bit.ly/LDBCform) so that you’re duly memorialized at the end of the game, and feel free to contribute your own LDBC-elfie by adding it to a comment on the Facebook page or by tweeting and tagging @LDBChallenge.
Puh-rum-pum-pum-pum, people.
For Peter! (Or, as Anne Sussman suggested, for Pete’s sake!)
LDBC-Elfies: Defeated but Not Forgotten
Erin Hatfield
Chris C.
Karen Austin
Anne Sussman
Lynne Rossi Horiuchi
Mike Trapp
Susan S. Smith
Iris Gray
Laura Taylor
Samantha Diamond
Simon Dibley
Carolyn Loeffler
Dorothy Alger
Caitlin Phaiah
Rebecca Renfro
Andrew P. Donnelly
Ellen Bloom
Noel Tang
Justin Kelly
Keely Sanderson
A little help, if you can: once again, we’re battling the darkness that is The Boy by trying to shed some light on the situation. So if you’re willing and able to help this year, Americares is who we’re giving to this year.
As I say every year, there’s no obligation. Everybody’s welcome in this Thing of Ours, whether you contribute or not. But if you can, Americares is a great organization.
Puh-rum-pum-pum-pum, people. The Boy is back, and there’s gonna be trouble.
And like Sweeney Todd, he’s hugging the drum, waiting the years, hearing the music that nobody hears.
Perhaps today, you’ll buy a toy from the Drummer Boy—the demon drummer of Beat Street.
We have a new record this year, sadly. New Zealander Peter Ragland is our First Fallen, taken down on the south side of the globe before the game had even started here in Chicago. Even worse, he did it to himself by singing it out loud. (Yes, that’s possible.)
Thus, our rallying cry for 2022: for Peter!
And there you have it. A fungus is among us. (The Boy, not Peter.) Check the rules if you’re feeling rusty (bit.ly/LDBCrules), and should you fall, please fill out the official form (bit.ly/LDBCform) so that you’re duly memorialized at the end of the game.
While you’re at it, don’t forget to submit an LDBC-elfie of yourself at the moment of your loss on the Facebook page or via Twitter (be sure to tag @LDBChallenge). Need inspiration? See the gallery just below the charts and graphs in last year’s roundup. (I know it’s a lot of scrolling. Sorry.)
Also, check our list of deadly TV shows and movies (bit.ly/LDBCtoxic), but be aware that it is not comprehensive. There are way too many for me to keep up with, so be forewarned and do your due diligence before watching.
May the odds be ever in your favor, friends. Ever-vigilant.
Well, people, it’s a bit after 6 am on Howland Island, and the birds and crabs there are celebrating the dawn of a new day. The game is over everywhere on the planet, and it’s time to celebrate our victories and give our losses their due.
What’s that mean? First off, it means winning LDBC-elfies. Post your smiling, victorious faces as comments, please. I want to mix those in with the losses and leaven the sadness of defeat. To get you started, here’s mine. (I haven’t bothered to shower today and won’t subject you all to my Vonnegut-like pandemic hair, which really does need to have a machete taken to it.) I decided to highlight our light-up snowflake, which provides a glimmer of cheer against the gray backdrop of the day.
Mrs. LDBC and I rode to victory this year, and I know many of you did, too. We are joyous in our win but mindful of those who fell before The Boy was booted back to wherever the hell he hangs out the rest of the year. (Don’t worry, I’m sure I’ll make something up.)
So let’s see those smiles and victory dances. And don’t forget to fill out the form (bit.ly/LDBCform) with your win so that we can gather some fairly complete stats. For there will be stats once I get my act together to crunch all the numbers and do the wrap-up post (which seems to be getting later and later, 12 years in to this Thing of Ours).
Also, please don’t forget our friends at Americares, which is once again our charity of choice. People have been generous this year, and we really do appreciate it. And along with that comes my usual message. There’s no requirement to donate. Some people would rather give their own way, and others are finding it a little too tight this year. No problem. But if you’re up for it, the money goes to a great organization, and you can donate here.
Anyway. I suppose I should make myself presentable. We have to go grab food for tonight and our traditional eight-hour slow-cooker roast, which is tomorrow’s dinner. (It used to be five hours. But we switched recipes in order to be even slower.)
So with that, I’ll wish you and yours very safe and Happy Holidays and a bright New Year. A dozen years on, you make this Thing of Ours a pleasure to run, and you help warm the cold days and nights of December.
Please be kind to one another. No matter how it looks at times, we’re all in this together.
“I no longer believe in superheroes,” Mecca Brown writes while relating her tale of being betrayed and taken down by everyone’s favorite Avengers archer and his sidekick on Disney+. And while I’m not willing to go quite that far—I need to know Spider-Ham is real and battling baddies in his own dimension, for instance—it is disheartening to be stabbed in the back by a hero after we were so sympathetic about his family being turned to powder and all.
Anyway, as a friend of mine said when his car was stolen, only to be recovered with its dashboard and steering wheel completely bedazzled, it’s what’s happening. It’s what happens every year, and we do what we can to get through it. Together.
“I went back to bed. What’s the point of getting up now?” dearly departed LDBCer Robert Laughlin said when posting of his own demise. And I get it. I do. Especially on a Sunday evening, when it’s cold and rainy, and I’m staring down the barrel of a Monday that starts with a 6 am alarm and kicks off a full week of work. But so we beat on, and our hope is to beat The Boy.
Who do we do it for? Each other. And Erica Kolh, our First Fallen for 2021. And the 216 other LDBCers who’ve been taken down thus far. And should our heroes continue to let us down, then fine—we’ll be each other’s heroes. As long as I get to be the Silver Surfer.
So that’s it for a Sunday when it’s a little after 6 pm, and it’s been dark for an hour and a half. Below, you’ll find our first batch of LDBC-elfies, turned in by the victims who were unfortunate enough to zig when zagging was clearly called for. Honor them. Fight on. And we’ll be each other’s light.
Puh-rum-pum-pum-pum, people.
For Erica!
LDBC-Elfies: Tragedy Captured
Kim Drogan Prentice and David Prentice
Naomi DeVries Pomerantz
Em Emma Emily
Stephanie Ellis
Sarah Hunter and Josh Turiel
Mara Fitter
Lynn Sebrell
Lori Ploeg Wells
Liz Murdock
Krista Schnelle
Kendra Hughes
Karen Austin
Julia Hodgson
Frances Noon
Aileen Stickley
Rachel Cleveland
Laura Sanger Watkins
Kenny Hicks
Jillian Harris
Jeanette Jamison
A little help, if you can: once again, we’re battling the darkness that is The Boy by trying to shed some light on the situation. So if you’re willing and able to help this year, Americares is who we’re giving to this year.
As I say every year, there’s no obligation. Everybody’s welcome in this Thing of Ours, whether you contribute or not. But if you can, Americares is a great organization.
That’s right, LDBCers. We don’t shine The Boy’s shoes no more. Not for another year, anyway. In fact, he’s the one sent home to get his shine box.
So post the details of your win (or your loss, if you haven’t already) to the reporting form, please. Then it’ll be time for the official wrap-up.
But breathe easy, and enjoy the taste of winning (or of our yearly struggle being over, at least). We’ve earned it. I mean, given the year we’ve had? Boy, have we (pun intended).
Puh-rum-pum-pum-pum, people.
Reminder: we’re trying to balance out the evil of The Boy by doing some good, LDBCers. So if you’ve got the giving spirit and are able to help this year, Americares is once again our cause of choice.
As I’ve stressed since we started doing this, no pressure. I’m happy to have everyone play the game who wants to, whether you’ve got the desire or the means to contribute. But if you can, Americares does great work.
Curses, foiled again: Jennifer Palome Nassivera at the scene of the crime
A bit more than three weeks into this thing, people, and it’s looking like those who said it’d be easier due to sheltering-in-place may have had a point. We’re running at about 56% of the losses we had last year by this time.
But as Bruce Springsteen sang, “To the dead, it don’t matter much ’bout who’s wrong or right.” If you’re out already, it wasn’t any easier for you. Just ask poor Jennifer Palome Nassivera and her sister, pictured above. (I assume it’s your sister, Jennifer; please correct me if I’m wrong.) They just wanted the opportunity to prettify themselves. It’s a basic right. That’s what they asked for. What they got was the Evil of The Boy.
And the more I think about that, the more another song comes to mind—Howlin’ Wolf‘s “I Asked for Water (She Gave Me Gasoline).” You expect something, and you’re handed something else. A visit to the dentist’s office doesn’t result in tartar-free choppers as the chief memory. Nor does firing up that wonderful holiday playlist you found. Instead, it’s a trip to the reporting form to enter the details of your demise.
We do what we can to help, though. We’ve put together a list of Deadly Movies and TV to check before you watch. (Be aware, however, that it’s by no means comprehensive. We’ve been struggling to keep it up to date, in fact.) And your fellow LDBCers try to help, too. We’ve got two safe Spotify lists contributed by Grace McIntosh and Anna Bulthuis. “Safe” doesn’t always mean what you want it to, though. Grace was recently knocked out herself (not because of her list). And mistakes can be made by the most well-meaning among us. So double-check for yourself before playing, just in case. As I always say, ever-vigilant.
Safety is what you make of it, friends. A lack of it is what’s taken down more than 400 of your fellow fighters thus far, including Rigdzin Dorje, our First Fallen this year. But we’re just days away, so look alive, and maybe you’ll stay that way.
Meanwhile, here’s the latest helping of LDBC-elfies from our dearly departed. Learn from them. Finish strong for them. Because no matter how hard the tricksters try to tell us otherwise, we’re all in this together.
Puh-rum-pum-pum-pum, people.
For Rigdzin!
LDBC-Elfies: Tragedy Captured
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Reminder: we’re trying to balance out the evil of The Boy by doing some good, LDBCers. So if you’ve got the giving spirit and are able to help this year, Americares is once again our cause of choice.
As I’ve stressed since we started doing this, no pressure. I’m happy to have everyone play the game who wants to, whether you’ve got the desire or the means to contribute. But if you can, Americares does great work.
Only six days in, and we’ve already got nearly 100 reported casualties, LDBCers. It’s grim. No question about that. But last year, there were twice as many by this time, so maybe the quarantine lifestyle is an impediment to The Boy after all.
Which doesn’t mean he’s not on the hunt, mind you. Why, just ask poor Emily S., who checked in with this summary of her downfall.
2020 has already been such a flaming dumpster fire that I had a premonition of going out early, but I’m still disappointed that I (technically) did it to myself.
Just made dinner for the bickering kids, who’ve been on the longest school vacation ever, clocking in at 8.5 months. Eeeeeeeeight and a haaaaaalf moooooonths these children have been home with me. Everyone’s heartily sick of Thanksgiving leftovers. They’d been fighting all day over whose turn it was to play Breath of the Wild. (My house is in a heretofore undocumented bend in the space-time continuum where the person currently playing has both been playing “all day” and “just started,” and digital kitchen timers do not function properly, mysteriously going off “too soon.” NASA, hook me up with some research money.)
I just wanted some peace and seasonal joy while I watched them eat four-day-old turkey and dressing and monitored for early signs of salmonella poisoning. I turned on the old kitchen TV to the cable company’s version of Christmas satellite radio: Music Choice’s Sounds of the Seasons. By the dinner table’s second chorus of, “Mine is cold, and the reprise of, “This tastes funny,” I heard the unmistakeable notes. Sharon and the Dap-Kings had kicked me while I was down.
Single parenting = hard.
Single parenting & working from home during a pandemic = really, really hard.
Single parenting & working from home during a pandemic with LDB in the background = intolerable.
Everyone has their breaking point, and this was mine. Plates were scraped into the trash, pizza delivery was called, and a kitchen dance party was held as we embraced the seasonal suck. Sharon’s version isn’t half bad, but I’ll relay my prescient 13-year-old’s comments as wisdom from the mouths of babes: “Pizza makes everything better, and I like the David Bowie one where he sings with that other guy best.”
So do I, kiddo. So do I.
With the help of dancing and pizza, we’ll get through this.
Happy holidays, LDBCers.
Indeed we will get through this, Emily. We always do.
Well, except for these folks pictured below.
For Rigdzin!
LDBC-Elfies: Tragedy Captured
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Reminder: we’re trying to balance out the evil of The Boy by doing some good, LDBCers. So if you’ve got the giving spirit and are able to help this year, Americares is once again our cause of choice.
As I’ve stressed since we started doing this, no pressure. I’m happy to have everyone play the game who wants to, whether you’ve got the desire or the means to contribute. But if you can, Americares does great work.