The Blog = Prizes!

It’s time to announce the winners of the blog’s annual Blood...Blood! awards! This year we received more than fifteen thousand submissions, requiring a full-time staff of nineteen people to watch every twenty-second video not just once, but several times so that every nuance was absorbed and digested. As you’re well aware, the goal of the contest is simple: to deliver the line “Blood...blood!” in the most memorable way possible. Last year’s winner, Doris Snowdigit, just barely eked out a victory over professional actor Arliss Howard with her memorable interpretation of the line--it started out spooky, got funny in the middle, then strangely poignant, and ended with us merely nodding in overwhelming artistic appreciation. This year’s top three scores (entrants are judged on a 1-10 scale in the categories of originality, style, diction, creepiness, and sheer human effort) were achieved by:

THIRD PLACE
Frank Sessnass of Willoughby Glen, New Mexico for his traditional 'mad scientist' reading of the line, but with a unique twist: he cackled for a good eighty-seven seconds between the first word and the second, deliciously drawing out the suspense as he gazed up into a driving rainstorm and raised what appeared to be a goat’s brain to the heavens!

SECOND PLACE
Elwood Bakerbody of Willoughby Marsh, Pennsylvania, who drew out syllable #2 and faded it slowly to nothing in a way you just knew meant he was going down hard, and go down hard he did, collapsing in a heap in the middle of Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia, one impotent hand clasping at empty air as passersby looked on in fear and confusion. The fake blood he had smeared across his Teletubbies sweater freaked the medics out quite badly and all but guaranteed second place!

GRAND PRIZE
Myron Bellblurn of Willoughby Hills, Maryland. Dude did more with “Blood...blood!” than Ben Kingsley, Jeff Bridges, and Cate Blanchett put together. Seriously, we didn’t know whether to laugh, cry, call the police, or harm ourselves in some way. His gradual escalation of the line from serene contemplation to dawning horror to forehead-reddening, gut-busting rage, especially when accompanied by his delicate cradling of a young girl’s innocent face (his niece, it turns out), did it for us every time we spun that sucker through the DVD player. Myron will be awarded with a $15 gift certificate to the Cheesecake Factory of his choice and invited to perform his version of “Blood...blood!” live in Knipton, Tennessee at the St. Abernathy Church of the Redeemer’s Spring Craft Fair and Ice Cream Social on March 21. Well done, sir!

Remember, next year we're breaking from tradition as the "Blood...blood!" contest becomes the "It was you...yes, you who defiled this ancient crypt!" contest. The entry fee will also increase by eighty percent.