RKNet Blog... Thing

Yes, once again our first-ever contest, the Design-a-Vagina Contest (Redux), has come to a close. The results are already in and those results may be expressed with the following image.

If you can’t read that, and I don’t blame you if you can’t, it says “This Page Intentionally Left Blank” - which is to say that the second iteration of the Design-a-Vagina contest has come and gone without an entry. As such, I am somewhat grateful as it means I don’t have to shell out upwards of $150 on prizes, but I am also disappointed that I could not help the woman from North One who had encouraged me to rerun the contest in the hopes of fostering discussion on modern women’s body image issues.

Which is a subject that has been touched upon before by yours truly, although never really discussed outside of that post and mentions as part of the contest. Fun, games, and fabulous un-won prizes aside, are there any issues regarding elective cosmetic surgery and women’s body issues that anyone would like to talk about? If so, we would love to hear from you. No issues can be fixed or even identified unless they are understood, and understanding requires communication.

The comments and contents of this post are considered NSFW - Not Safe For Work - and we assume no fault if you get tagged for inappropriate conduct. Though we here at RKNet do not consider these contents inappropriate, we do not make the rules or the laws regarding your day-to-day life. Thank you for your understanding.

Welcome one and all to the second run of RKNet’s very first contest, the Design-a-Vagina contest. Previously we here at RKNet had provided a mostly blank sheet, in activity book style, encouraging people to create an image of a realistic or fantastic “ideal vagina”.

Thanks to the interest of a documentary team doing a film for North One Productions, we are proud to reopen the contest, with a few changes. The documentary is going to be called The Vagina Dialogues, with the goal of discussing female sexuality and body image, particularly as it relates to the Holiest-of-holies, the vag, the cooter, the hoo-hoo parts, the vagina, the vulva, the cooch and (depending on who you talk to) the cunt. With a focus on discussing the issue, the acceptable categories for entries to the Design-a-Vagina will be as follows:

1. 150-1000 words on your personal feelings regarding the “ideal vagina” and your thoughts surgery or other modifications to attain an ideal visual appearance. You may express this in fiction if you include a brief opening statement which declares it a fictional piece, and hopefully states the goals of the piece in a short and clear fashion. Please state if you are male, female, mixed gender or transgender. Post your entry in the comments, or on your blog and link to it from the comments.
2. An original visual representation of what to you constitutes the “ideal vagina”, preferably with a brief description on your overall concept and thoughts surrounding the image. Photos, drawings, computer generated and mixed-media images appropriate. Link to your image (html image tags supported in the comments also) and share your comments. Please state if you are male, female, mixed gender or transgender. This category will rely on the honor system in part, however we will be doing background checks on every image submission.
3. Personal (i.e. of yourself) audio or video submissions between 1 and 5 minutes, discussing what you consider the “ideal vagina” and your thoughts surgery or other modifications to attain an ideal visual appearance. Please state if you are male, female, mixed gender or transgender.

Prizes will be determined in part by the number of entries in each category. If there are more than 10 in each category, then the chosen winner in each category will receive a $50 gift certificate to JT’s Stockroom (site NSFW) or Amazon.com - winners’ preference. Each category must have at least ten entries for this to apply. If there are less than 10 in each category (yes, even if it’s 10, 10, and 9), then one single winner will be chosen from all categories and be awarded a $50 gift certificate to either JT’s Stockroom or Amazon.com - winner’s preference.

Winners (in each category or in general if too few of each category are submitted) will be chosen at random. This is something I failed to specify before and many thanks to my good friend Matt for pointing out this grevious omission. The goal here is to foster communication, and as such I cannot very well propose that I have what it takes to judge the merit of people’s personal feelings.

Watch this post for updates: I will be trying to get backing to make the prizes more interesting for participants. Though I should hope that the opportunity to discuss these issues publicly would be the biggest draw of all.

There will also be bonuses and/or props available for people who demonstrate that they have promoted this contest. The person who can provide the most proof of promotion will receive a prize of their choosing, either many very public thanks and links by RKNet on your behalf or a $25 gift certificate to Amazon.com.

The deadline for the contest is 06/30/2008, 12:00 pm EST.

Entries will be chosen within a week of the deadline. An update will be made after the close of the deadline declaring the number of entries in each category.

Thank you and good luck!

All this talk of Mudkips (and having to troll around Google Labs for something work related) got me to thinking, just how popular is this whole “mudkips” thing, and what about rival Pokémon meme, Seaking?
Well, the results are in!
The winner for longest running search item? Seaking.
Current most popular? Mudkips.
Overall though, I’d say the winner is Seaking by a huge margin. Fuck yeah, Seaking!

Although I couldn’t help but notice, when adding Slowpoke (Hey guys, am I late?), I got some articles too. Talking about some hybrid Lexus. Funky. In typical Slowpoke fashion, this search lags way, way behind the others. Fitting, really.

Search result totals (as of a few minutes ago):
Seaking - 1,110,000
Slowpoke - 624,000
Mudkips - 359,000 for mudkip, 122,000 for mudkips

Clearly, even though there’s a rise in popularity of the newer gen meme fodder, Mudkips, there is a serious lack of content for this topic. Although to be fair, I think Encyclopedia Dramatica probably has the subject covered well enough for us all. If you don’t know that ED is not safe for work then you haven’t been around the block. So I’ll tell you right now, that it’s not safe for work, and if you’re really very worried about that, then you should probably not go around the block. They do however have a link in there for a PDF on scientists’ attempts to study the development and regeneration of axolotls, which as we learned earlier today, are the closest thing we get to Mudkips on this side of our Quantum Reality Tunnel. Science will find a way though, it always does. Yay science!

Anyway, all of that was really just some blatent search related infoporn, exposing me for the meme-addled child I truly am. Do they have support groups for this kind of thing?

…and so is love.

We had precisely zero submissions. I’m speechless, gentle readers, but ultimately not terribly surprised. We are a sparse, busy, and easily distracted lot here at RKNet, and we can only assume that our readership shares at least some of these qualities. Most notably the sparseness, what with the sheer lack of exposure. It will change, someday, you’ll see, you’ll ALL see! BWAHAHAHAHAHA-*cough* ’scuse me.

I would like to give honorary first place, however, to Dr. Hypercube for his amazing concept submission. While he was not confident that he could produce the appropriate visual representation of his thoughts on the matter, he was kind enough to send me his idea.

Stay tuned for a complete write up, with pictures to help shed some light on the brilliance at work, soon to come.

As stolen from Matty: ten words beginning with a predetermined letter and what they mean to me. Comment on it and you get stuck with a letter of my choice.

I got “L”

Listen - Something I try to do often, which also prevents me from speaking a lot of the time. right now, I’m listening to my new neighbor make noise thru the wall.

Litany - something experienced daily. As in ‘today I went through the litany of bullshit that’s more and more common these days.’

List - something I frequently use to convey my thoughts because it’s organized.

Lethargy - a common state of being for me these days, as charactarized by my not wanting to give much of a damn anymore.

Late - something I am rather often, and a time frame in which I am typically up. See Also: late thirty, late fifteen, and late o’clock.

Love - is a super-crazy emotion. I wish I understood what drives it a little bit better.

Loser - opposite of winner. Something I try to avoid being, and something it’s hard not to feel like anyway a lot of the time.

Longneck - a type of beer bottle. mmm… beer.

Linens - fancy word for sheets or fancy sheets themselves. Sheets go on beds, I like to be in bed because it’s warm and safe and I can sleep there. Fancy sheets are also a secret status indicator for me.

Last - “nice guys finish ___” “at ___ my love has come along.” “____ but not least” “____ in line” “____ of the mohicans” “let’s dance, the _____ dance” etc etc etc. a filler word, a catch prase word, an often dismal word at that.

Side note: Before anyone can suggest it…. I’m not emo, goddamnit, I’m scared shitless and it’s clouding my judgement. Doesn’t the latter approach say so much more about me as a person than “emo” ever could? Good. Stop using the term, it’s boring.