Currently Open for Voting: WEIRD FINALS! Sep 24-26 4PM PDT https://forms.gle/CW8eSVT3UZvZHH1s9

View the full Bracket here

A couple weeks back, we asked the community for their favorite Desert Bus for Hope moments, and then PJ spent a whole lot of time watching them all. Also, he realized that "moments" is a terrible summation because some of these are self-contained long segments, or run-spanning memes. Anyways, he is a big jerk and is now making you vote on them against each other. Voting will be open for 48hours spans.

We have 64 total entries, split in to 4 similar categories to avoid having to vote on wildly disparate things:
Meta for things like shift changes, and driver intros.
Funny for things that are amusing on a relatively normal scale
WEIRD for those things that cannot be easily explained
Feels for more serious or introspective moments.

The link at the top of this post will be updated each time a new group is open for voting, here's the schedule, with each round starting at 4pm PDT:

Round of 16
Meta Group Aug 24-26
Funny Group Aug 26-28
Feels Group Aug 28-30
Weird Group Aug 30-Sep 1

Round of 8
Meta Group Sep 1-3
Funny Group Sep 3-5
Feels Group Sep 6-8
Weird Group Sep 8-10

Top 4
Meta Group Sep 10-12
Funny Group Sep 12-14
Feels Group Sep 14-16
Weird Group Sep 16-18

Group Finals
Meta Group Sep 18-20
Funny Group Sep 20-22
Feels Group Sep 22-24
>Weird Group Sep 24-26

Grand Final 4-Way Sep 28-Oct 2

That's the post.

Ok, that's not the whole story, but let's start with the shortest version: Magic Con Atlanta was announced for the same weekend we've been penciling as a start point for the last couple years now. This caused a ripple effect that had the organizing committee settle on a new date.

As you may well know, we're graciously given access to LRR's office, equipment, and performers each year. Even if DB2026 isn't at the Moonbase, the logistics of trying to set up and run an event a week before or after the Magic Con doesn't really work for a variety of reasons including, but not limited to: quarantining anyone who goes to Magic Con per LRR's guidelines, avoiding American thanksgiving for our U.S. volunteers, and working within Child's Play's availability (PAX Unplugged is the first weekend of December). So, we decided to pull forward a couple weeks, into October. James did mention that running our party on Halloween was a bonus.

We've had multiple meetings for DB2026 already (ooooh!), and once we determined the date, we wanted to share in a timely fashion. Andrew thought it'd be funny to do New Years, and a lot of us agreed. [Note: This post was drafted during the original launch announcement on January 1st across BlueSky and Mastodon.]

How does this affect things like the Craftalong?

We'll be opening applications slightly earlier this year to match the new timeline to bus. If you were considering participating, please sign up for the email list on the bottom of our Craftalong page to be notified of when those will open.

This happens during the European Time Change!

Yep. Not much we can do there, but giveaways, etc. are displayed on the site and stream with time remaining countdowns.

So you're saying we can push you to Halloween?

Good luck, and godspeed.