in the tradition of the very successful joint and swap(tM) irc activities, comes a third, ultimate idea. yes, if you can read (?!) you've guessed by now

THE BLENDER!!!!!!!!!

quickly! before time runs out, this how a blender(tM) event will be run:
  1. everyone will gather in #blender (on EFnet).
    If #blender is not cooperating, try #mist.
    In a pinch, interact on social media via that comp's hashtag, come find us on the underground artscene Discords or via e-mail to info@mistigris.org ... we will strive to be available over various branches of social media.
  2. at precisely 7:30 pm EST, cthulu, the host of this event will explain how the blender works.
  3. each person will come up with ONE idea. it can be in one of three categories: a subject (i.e. "a horse"), an activity (i.e. "fishing"), and a location (i.e. "at the White House").
  4. everyone will submit their idea to the organizer, who will make a list. this organizer currently is cthulu. /msg your words to him.

    writing down of the words might take up to 5 minutes, so please be patient.

  5. the organizer will pick THREE of the ideas (one subject, one activity, and one location). these three ideas will be announced, and put in the channel topic. (note: selection is not random at all; historically, ideas had to be rigorously curated to yield useful results.)
  6. your mission is to create a masterpiece about the three picked ideas.

    your masterpiece may be pretty much anything. ansi/ascii/music/lit/vga/etc. everything is allowed.

    (NOTE: we will try to perform due diligence on all submissions received, but the more exotic submission type we get... the higher the likelihood we will be unable to figure out how to experience it the way it was intended to be experienced. If in doubt, archiving your submission along with instructions regarding how to best appreciate its contents is recommended.)

  7. to accommodate Europeans in far-flung timezones, the funpo ends after 24 hrs.

    8. NEW BUSINESS FOR 2019

    We're going to try something new. A few years ago, when reviving the Blender, I was informed that adhering firmly to our traditional duration and time of day intractably stuck the compo in the middle of the night for Europe, where a not insignificant portion of the underground computer artscene is based. Simply pushing the times to accommodate Europeans would saddle North Americans with a similar problem. So to help facilitate participation on both sides of the pond, and in deference to the reduced amount of free time we have overall now relative to 25 years ago, I said "let's just run the compo for a 24-hour window all weekend, and everyone can take as much time as they want."

    This resolved some issues for some and opened new problems for others. Notably, some parties were (understandably!) rather wary of entering a quickie 2-hr entry into a compo in which their competition could potentially have poured in 24 hours of polished work.

    So: the 2019 compromise? Instantly doubling the number of Blenders happening annually, this Blender will be two compos! Two sets of words, one to be fulfilled 2.5 hours following the start time, and another to be sent in within 24 hours of the announcement. And for bonus points... participate in both! Warm up in the lightning round and then hit your stride in the long form compo!

    We now continue your usual Blender rules in progress...



    The 2019 new business worked well in 2019 and in April 2020 (indeed, the audience demanded a third compo), so if there is still interest among the participants we reserve the right to continue multiplexing the compos in this fashion.

  8. cthulu usually collects all of it, unless his dcc fucks up (which happens almost as much as it happened to warpus :)
    you *may* submit early if you wish. check the topic line to see who is collecting, just to be sure.
  9. a winner is picked, but that is usually not announced that night.
    the group that the winner is representing receives points, (3 points for 1st place, 2 for 2nd and 1 for 3rd) and the winner(s) is/are placed on the "artist(s) of the week year" list.
  10. the pack is then released so that it can be downloaded by hordes of eager blendeners, blender supporters, fans, fanatics, dentists, and communists.

hopefully you get an idea of the fun involved here. but along with that, blender(tM) has numerous advantages over the other irc events:
  • INFINITE PLAYERS - yes, this means never having to turn eager blendeners away.
  • PREFAB INSPIRATION - for those of you that can't think of anything to draw, here other people will do most of the work for you!
  • ORIGINALITY - finally something to draw other than The Maxx =) just imagine a pack with 20 different interpretations of a horse fishing!!
  • NO QUALITY CONTROL - it doesn't matter how well you do, how silly or serious you are, because you won't be messing up anyone's work except your own =)
  • EASY TO RUN - no messy file exchanges + no hard-to-enforce rules = a smooth-running operation with no annoying delays.
  • COOL ORGANIZERS - yes, finally a compo that is ran by really cool people. :)

For the benefit of those lacking in imagination or with weak memories, for examples of meritorious submissions across different genres, styles and formats, please see below:
  • ANSI - Hennifer's submission to Blender #21, "Fear / Escape Attempt / Alcatraz", which you can see here.
  • ASCII - Aeternam's submission to Blender 2000 #2, "Pac-Man / Sacrifice / Mount Olympus", which you can see here.
  • HIREZ - God Among Lice's submission to Blender #59, "Monsters / Sun Tanning / In Florida", which you can see here.
  • RIPSCRIP - Pike's submission to Blender 2000 #2, "Pac-Man / Sacrifice / Mount Olympus", which you can see here.
  • MUSIC - Haquisaq's submission to Blender #23, "Spies / Fighting / Underwater", which you can download for local play here.
  • LIT - Skrubly's submission to Blender #32, "Picasso / Alien Encounter / Desert", which you can see here.
  • CODE - The Mistigris team contribution to Blender #20, "Monks / Playing Water Polo / In Venice"

    (If you prefer, here's some BASIC code from Blender #38 - "Sherlock Holmes / Dancing / at the YMCA".)

people seem to be confused as to who does what during these blenders. well...
    cthulu - runs blender, does all the stuff that warpus used to do 8)
    warpus - ran blender, wrote nfo files, released packs, judged.
    hennifer - invented the blender.
    velkro - hosted the ftp and web sites.
    poison - main coder.

    we also had couriers spreading the packs all over the planet.

Now you just get them from here. The most recent releases:

now that you know what the blender is, and how it works, i'll let you in on a little secret:

if there ever is another blender, it will most likely be held:
(tag-team blender!)

saturday, october 21st, 2023 2:00pm - sunday, october 22nd, 2023 2:00pm (est)
#blender (on EFNet)

please join us.

- hennifer
& warpus
& cthulu

BLENDER COUNTDOWN