Sorry, I totally forgot that I had two prizes to give away for the final contest. The first prize was one DVD and one t-shirt to each of ten finalists sent directly by New Line. Those DVDs have recently started arriving, hooray. The second prize, which I never awarded, was as follows:

• One Snakes on a Plane fan prize pack, which includes one original shirt, one additional shirt of your choice, one snakes in the rain umbrella, one snakes in a can, one snakes on a wristband, one different snakes on a wristband and three snakes on a thing tickers (courtesy of the awesome Damnation Inc).

So, I’ve selected the top finalist for this prize. Congratulations Josh:

Having been demoted from first class, I was forced to “grit my teeth”, as the expression goes, and fly in coach. It was a step down, to say the least. In order to distract myself from the morbidly obese man sitting next to me (who was currently sleeping with his mouth open and his fingers encrusted with the remains of the pork rinds that he had been eating earlier), I took out my research papers and began to examine them. As the leading theological scholar specializing in the beginning chapters of Genesis, I was currently looking at the passages that were the foundations of original sin. Perhaps if I discovered that original sin did not exist, or some inconsistencies in the text proved that the story had been tampered with by other writers in the period between its creation and its modern incarnation, I would receive a nominal raise. Cheered by this thought, I set to work.

However, I was disturbed by a shout from my neighbor. I looked to my right and was immediately horrified. It seemed as if he had grown so large that his belly was about to explode, and that his hand, now a bloody stump, had already done so. A bloody circle formed at the bottom of his belly, and grew larger until eventually what was inside him burst out of his stomach and T-shirt: a snake. Perhaps it was the stench of the pork rinds that attracted the snake, or the shiny bag that enclosed them, but the snake had apparently chewed off the man’s hand, crawled through his arm and come out through his stomach. Needless to say, I was horrified, but it was nowhere near the terror I experienced when the snake turned to look at me with its two very shiny eyes. And then, along with what seemed like hundreds of other snakes, it attacked.

You know, I could remark at this point about this strange cosmic karma currently taking place: the unfortunate species punished from the Adam and Eve story, in the end, punishes its preeminent scholar. I could probably spout a philosophical world-view that could be surmised from this tale and bring some sort of resolution to this account of the last minutes of my life. But no, dear reader, I will not. I will, however, say this: after the darkness closed in on me, after the snakes breached the seat cover I had used as a defense for my face and got into my eyes, scratching my corneas, filling up my mouth, their bodies and fangs, venom getting into my nose, contaminating my insides as I clawed at the upright tray table in front of me, hoping to, somehow, get out of having my headstone read “killed due to sheer volume of snakes”, I felt no regrets. A life is a life, and whether you spend it on Biblical study or at the mercy of snakes on a plane, it is what it is.

Thanks to Damnation Inc. for providing such snazzy prizes.

I foolishly announced a contest to give away DVDs in which authors were allowed to submit mini-essays of up to 500 words each. I, in my short sightedness, hadn’t really anticipated that 500 words is considerably more than a short paragraph. I’ve spent the last few days mulling over the submissions. I first narrowed the list by removing any submissions that were over 500 words, and then picked my ten winners. Some were selected because they were unique, some because they showed impressive writing skills, some because they included Indiana Jones, and some for no discernible reason whatsoever… Ok?

I had a hard time narrowing the 40 submissions to 10 winners, but I finally came up with a good cross section.

The winners are below the jump:

Read the rest of this entry »

I mentioned a few times that I was going to be having one final contest for the true Snakes on a Plane fans out there. Those of you who have kept reading this site even though the movie came out four months ago deserve a little reward. So, here we go, the last contest:

Prizes:

1. Ten Snakes on a Plane DVDs (courtesy of New Line’s marketing people),
2. One Snakes on a Plane fan prize pack, which includes one original shirt, one additional shirt of your choice, one snakes in the rain umbrella, one snakes in a can, one snakes on a wristband, one different snakes on a wristband and three snakes on a thing tickers (courtesy of the awesome Damnation Inc).

How to win:

Imagine yourself a passenger on Pacific Air Flight 121,
calmly enjoying your flight across the Pacific. Suddenly,
and without warning, there are snakes all around you.
In less than 500 words, describe what happens to you.
You can live, you can die… you can nap through
the whole thing — it’s up to you.

Please don’t feel like you need to fill up the entire 500 words, short and sweet is a perfectly valid option here. I will chose the 10 most original, interesting, gorey, funny or otherwise entertaining submissions and each will receive a Snakes on a Plane DVD courtesy of New Line Cinema. The BEST submission will also receive a prize pack from Damnation Inc.

Rules

1. Post your submissions in the comments below.
2. Please begin submissions with the word ‘SUBMISSION’.
3. One submission per person, please (but feel free to lobby for yours all you want).
4. Include your correct email address so I can get in touch with you.
5. If you live outside the United States I’ll need to check with New Line to see if they can ship you the DVD before I can award you a prize, so please let me know if that’s the case.
6. On Friday, December 22nd at noon EST I will stop accepting submissions.
7. I’ll post the winners by Christmas at the latest.
8. DVDs will ship from New Line’s people after the street date of January 2nd (so sadly you won’t get them the day they’re released, but you will get them for free, so that’s better).

Any questions? Good.

Get writing.

UPDATE 12/22/06 at 12:30pm: the submission period is officially closed.  I regret giving you guys 500 words, I’ve got a million pages of submissions to read through.  I’ll announce the winners as soon as is plausible, hopefully by Monday.   Anyone wishing to offer suggestions as to whose is the best is welcome to do so.

Good job.

Playboy presents Snakes on a Playmate.  Ok, well, in reality, it’s just an ad for regular Playboy.  However, I did notice that Playboy does movie reviews (who knew?) and they gave Snakes on a Plane 3 out 4 bunny logos.   Here’s a taste:

This big-budget movie with the B-movie title strikes comedy gold and spits out quite a few scares. Not everyone gets out of the plane alive, but no audience member will walk away not entertained.

I have to admit, I’m disappointed that Playboy doesn’t have some personalized movie review system based on their specific interests.  I don’t know, something like reviewing the movie based only on its nude scenes or something.  String them all together, see what sort of movie you get.  Kind of like a reverse Cap Alert (who, sadly, has not yet reviewed Snakes on a Plane).

Snakes on Stuff is giving away “Snake kits.”  Go enter his contest.

Ok people, this one is simple. New Line has offered to give one lucky fan the graphiffi wall from Comic-Con. It’s a strange, unique, strange prize:

Unlike the last contests, you don’t have to do anything to win it. Well, not much. This requires no talent, no abilities, just love. Just post your name in the comments below. That’s it. It doesn’t even have to be your real name. After a few days I’ll throw the names into a hat and pick one at random to be the winner.

The walls are approximately 8′ by 8′ and made of “foam core panels with a vinyl graphic overlay of the block wall artwork.” Neat, eh?

Make sure you include your correct email address. New Line is going to take care of getting these things to you, so you don’t need to worry about shipping. They didn’t specifically mention international shipping, but I’m going to assume they only want to ship these within the continental U.S. Plan accordingly.

Also, feel free to post in the comments more than once, but please don’t post under different names. You’re going to hurt Samuel L. Jackson’s fragile soul if you try to cheat.

Ok, the game is on. Say hello, win a prize.

UPDATE: I’ve closed commenting, and I will be picking a winner in the next two days.

UPDATE 2: I’ve picked a winner, just waiting on some technical details.  I’ll post an announcement with the winner soon.

The official Snakes on a Plane website has been running an official contest to determine the biggest fan. Now, the contest has been going on for a while, so there’s already a number of front-runners, but for those of you interested in winning, post your name and links to your username in the comments below and explain why we should vote for you. The winner gets a free screening of the film, but runners-up also get free posters, shirts, hats and soundtracks.

I decided to stay out of this one, I hopefully won’t need a contest-provided screening.

After a week of furious voting, we have our winner. It was a close contest, but in the end the best Snakes on a Plane related photo was:

This picture, elegantly titled slantythouse2.jpg, was your favorite, closely eeking out the monkey. As promised, the winner of this contest will receive a copy of the teaser poster, a shirt of the winner’s choice from either ShelfLife’s CafePress store or Damnation’s store, and a limited edition bracelet from Goods For Giving with Snakesonaplaniac imprinted. The winner of this contest is:

Max Pacheco

Congratulations Max. You are, however, expected to send in a picture of yourself wearing your chosen shirt and bracelet while standing in front of your poster. Come on, IQpierce did it.

In commemoration of this occasion, Damnation was kind enough to produce a special edition shirt with a limited printing of only one. This shirt will be completely unique and only available to Max:

And, since I’m sure you’re curious, here were all the submissions. I admit, this contest was not as wildly popular as I had hoped.

Any suggestions for the next contest? Perhaps suggestions that will engender a little bit more participation? I’m willing to admit I’m not brilliant in this area.

I had to run out of town for a few days so I get myself behind on this webpage.  All updates you’ve seen recently were set up ahead of time and done automatically.

Anyway, I’d like to extend the photography contest deadline by another week since (A #1) I obviously didn’t put up the voting and (B #2) I’d like to get more submissions. So, here are the new deadlines:

• I will accept suggestions until Tuesday, June 13th at Midnight EST.
• The vote will last from Wednesday, June 6th through Monday, June 19th at noon.

Also, I know I initially said I was looking for t-shirt pictures, but since I’ve gotten only a few, I’m happy to extend the contest to include pictures of you with anything Snakes on a Plane related (hand drawn signs, hats, whatever) in funny, interesting, or unusual locations/situations. Be creative.

IQpierce was kind enough to send in pictures of himself enjoying his prizes from the first contest… showing that he is proud to be the Original Snakesonaplaniac. Check him out:

Thanks again to ShelfLife for putting together the shirt.

I enjoyed the first contest so much, I think it’s high time for a second. This one is going to be a photography contest. What I’m looking for is:

Pictures of you, wearing a Snakes on Plane shirt (or other piece of merchandise), in a funny or unusual situation.

I’m thinking of pictures of people bungie jumping, giving a presentation to a board-room full of men in suits, at the Grand Canyon, receiving oral surgery, teaching a classroom full of children… all while wearing a Snakes on a Plane shirt/hat/whatever. Be creative, I’m looking for ideas that leave me laughing, intrigued or confused. Quality of the picture matters, but not as much as content.

Email copies of your pictures to me at SnakesOnABLogContest@Gmail.Com (please don’t post submissions in the comments below). I’ll put the best submissions up for a vote and the winner will get:

The Prize:

• The winner will receive one official teaser poster.
• The winner will receive one item of their choice from either the ShelfLife CafePress store or Damnation.com (examples of both below).
• The winner will receive one bracelet featuring the phrase “Snakesonaplaniac” from Goods for Giving.

Rules:

• No more than five submissions per person (I will stop looking at them after five).
• If possible, email me the actual photos, not links to the photos. Additionally, if possible please shrink photos to no larger than 800×600. If your email is going to be larger than 8mb, please break it into several emails.
• With limited exceptions, no photoshopping. (You are permitted to crop, rotate, and do general color / tint / contrast adjustment. No changing the actual content of the photo.)
• I will accept suggestions until Monday, June 5th at Midnight EST.
• I will select the best suggestions and put them up for a vote.
• The vote will last from Tuesday, June 6th through Saturday, June 10th at noon.
• If you live outside the United States or Canada and you win, you may have to help me with the shipping costs. We’ll come up with arrangements at the conclusion of the contest.

I’m giving you a long time to submit photos so you can pick up a shirt, or other artifact, if you haven’t already done so. Here are all the shirts that I’ve posted on my site, here are all the shirts at CafePress, and here are our contest sponsors (Damnation-Inc., Goods for Giving, and ShelfLife), from whom you can pick up shirts and things:

Making your own shirt is fine, by the way.

So… is anybody actually going to send me a picture? I wonder.

UPDATE: My mother has asked me to ask you not to do anything illegal or dangerous in order to obtain these picture.  If you hurt yourself or somebody else, you’re on your own.

After nearly 1,400 votes, we have our winner. It was a close contest, but in the end we will be calling an online fan of Snakes on a Plane a:

I have to admit, I voted for SoaP Scum, which I still think was a great option, but the masses have spoken. As promised, the winner of this contest will receive a copy of the teaser poster, a shirt of the winner’s choice from either ShelfLife’s CafePress store or Damnation’s store, and a limited edition bracelet from Goods For Giving with Snakesonaplaniac imprinted. The winner of this contest is:

IQpierce

Congratulations IQpierce. You are, however, expected to send in a picture of yourself wearing your chosen shirt.

In commemoration of this occasion, ShelfLife was kind enough to produce the snazzy graphic above which is now available on a wide variety of shirts for everyone, not just IQpierce. In addition, there were three other people who submitted Snakesonaplaniacs after IQpierce, they will be receiving the same prize package except without the t-shirt (sorry): Christopher, Scott and reddragon. I will be in touch with all the winners in the next 24 hours to make arrangements for your prizes. Feel free to taunt everyone else in the comments. Also, for those of you interested, here’s a complete list of all submissions.

I really enjoyed this contest, so here’s what the next one is going to be: prizes will be awarded to individuals wearing snakes on a plane apparel in funny/unusual locations/situations. So, if you don’t already have a shirt, make sure to pick one up in preperation.

I collected 115 different suggestions from 89 different emails -15 were submitted more than once. I culled the list and pulled out the five most frequent submissions and five suggested by only one person. (Full Disclosure: One of them was submitted by my mom, but I won’t tell you which one.)

As previously stated, the voting will be open until Tuesday, May 16th at Midnight EST. At the conclusion of the vote, the first submitter of the top vote-getter will win one teaser poster and one shirt of their choice from either the ShelfLife or Damnation shirt store. I’ve also added a prize: the folks at Goods for Giving will print up a series of wristbands with the winning name, one of which will go to the winner.

Since I didn’t anticipate multiple submissions of the same name (which was foolish of me), I didn’t plan for multiple winners. However, I will send each submitter of the top-vote-getting name one teaser poster and one wristband (the only thing you’ll be short-changed on here is the t-shirt… please forgive me).

I’ll email everyone tonight who submitted one of the names in the poll to let them know if they were the first submitter or not. Thank you to all the people who submitted names, even if you didn’t make the top ten, you’ve still contributed. I’ll be posting the full list of submissions when the voting concludes.

Please do not claim ownership of any of the 10 names in the poll prior to the conclusion of voting. But, without claiming ownership, feel free to lobby in the comments.

There are now 12 hours remaining until midnight (EST), at which point I will stop taking suggestions for the contest.  I’ll put the voting up either tonight or tomorrow afternoon.

Due to the number of people who have made the same suggestions, I’m going to limit the prize to only the first two people have suggested a particular name.

I’m sorry about this, and if anyone is furious at me, I’ll understand.  I haven’t tallied the votes yet, but I didn’t anticipate the number of people making similar suggestions.  When multiple people have made the same suggestion, I’ll attempt to email them to let them know if they were or were not one of the first two to suggest it.

I’ll post the voting with no names attached.  When the voting is done I’ll announce the winners and also post the full list of suggestions along with how many people suggested each name (again, without names).

Any serious objections from the peanut gallery?

I’m going to cull the list down to the best few, any advice on how many options I should present for the vote?  I was thinking ten, but that might be too many.  How do you feel about it?

The other day I received a nice stack of posters and now I’m looking for ways to give them away. Today I’m holding my first contest. It’s an easy contest that anybody can participate in. When CNN ran a story about Snakes on a Plane they called us online fans:

Snake-a-holics

Now, that’s not necessarily a bad name, but I think we can do better.

What should we, the online fans of Snakes on a Plane, be calling ourselves?

Use my contact form (please don’t post submissions in the comments below) and email me your suggestions. I’ll put the best suggestions up for a vote and the winner will get:
The Prize:

• The winner will receive one official poster.
• The winner will receive one shirt of their choice from either the ShelfLife CafePress store or Damnation.com.

Rules:

• Please no more than two suggestions per person (so think before you throw out the first two ideas that come into your head).
• I will accept suggestions until Thursday, May 11th at Midnight EST.
• I will then select the best suggestions and put them up for a vote.
• The vote will last from Friday, May 12th through Tuesday, May 16th.
• If you live outside the United States or Canada and you win, you will have to help me with the shipping costs. I have no idea how much this will cost, but we can work something out once the contest is over.

Does that sound good to everybody?  Any suggestions about how to run contests should be posted in the comments below.