“Finally, one book wins The Rooster, the Champion Book of the Year, and we award/threaten its author with the presentation of a live rooster, the official Tournament of Books mascot, named after our favorite character in contemporary literature, David Sedaris’s brother.”

This year’s smart money is on The Art of Fielding. Having read exactly two books on the list thus far, I’m rooting for The Sisters Brothers although up against The Art of Fielding and Jeffrey Eugenides, I doubt it stands a chance. Here’s the list, and of course, a printable pdf of the bracket:

• Nathacha Appanah, The Last Brother
• Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending
• Teju Cole, Open City
• Helen DeWitt, Lightning Rods
• Patrick deWitt, The Sisters Brothers
• Jeffrey Eugenides, The Marriage Plot
• Chad Harbach, The Art of Fielding
• Alan Hollinghurst, Stranger’s Child
• Jesmyn Ward, Salvage the Bones
• Haruki Murakami, 1Q84
• Téa Obreht, The Tiger’s Wife
• Michael Ondaatje, The Cat’s Table
• Ann Patchett, State of Wonder
• Donald Ray Pollock, Devil All the Time
• Karen Russell, Swamplandia
• Kate Zambreno, Green Girl

©2012 WordInk. All Rights Reserved.

It’s day five of the Occupy North Pole movement and tensions have increased with disturbing reports of excessive force by the Polar Bear Police Department. The most shocking report to emerge thus far pertains to a group of elf apprentices who had peacefully assembled on Candy Cane Lane. Disturbing images from the scene show the Polar Bear Police department casually and deliberately using peppermint spray on these unarmed protestors.

Despite growing outrage over the conduct of the Polar Bear Police Department, Santa has yet to release an official statement and refuses to meet with us. Those with inside knowledge of Santa’s workshop say Santa is keeping an active list of protestors he has deemed “naughty” and may soon call for the removal of all makeshift igloos and gingerbread houses from his property.

©2012 WordInk. All Rights Reserved.

As Occupy North Pole works to regroup and rebuild our encampment following Santa’s midnight raid, protesters from the frontlines of ONP are reporting troubling news. Penguins posing as agent provocateurs are infiltrating the ONP movement in order to incite violence and turn public opinion against ONP. Here are a few easy tips to help you identify agent penguins in your midst:

How to Spot a Penguin:

Penguins are native to the southern hemisphere and are not found in the North Pole. Ask your suspected penguin where he/she grew up. Mention you have a sister who lives there. If the penguin looks startled, press for more details.

Ask your suspected penguin to demonstrate its ability to fly. A real penguin will quickly change the subject or cite an “old protesting injury.”

Casually mention to your suspected penguin that you don’t think Morgan Freeman is a particularly talented narrator. All penguins revere Morgan Freeman and a true penguin will most likely “come at you, bro.

 

 

Engage your penguin in a discussion of current operating systems. Penguins will insist that Linux is the world’s most popular OS despite evidence to the contrary.

Penguins typically insist on formal attire. Occasionally a penguin will attempt to conceal its identity by donning a brightly colored sweater. Do not be fooled.

When penguins hit the bottle, they hit it hard.

 

©2012 WordInk. All Rights Reserved.

Occupy North Pole is proud to announce, that the Reindeer Union is officially joining the ONP movement in solidarity with the elves. Led by Rudolph Reindeer, the RU called a press conference this morning to declare their support for ONP. Reports from Santa’s ice mansion say that members of the RU have already joined protesters and temporary barns are beginning to dot the landscape. Watch Sam the Snowman interview Rudolph about the announcement below.

©2012 WordInk. All Rights Reserved.

Too big to crumble!

Move Your Cookies Day

For too long Santa has held a monopoly on the North Pole’s cookie stash. Not only does Santa’s cookie stash account for 87.7% of the total North Pole cookie supply, but many of us also willingly choose to store the few cookies we have in Santa’s pantry. We’re beholden not only to his schedule and storage preferences, but to sugar and flour fees that serve no other purpose than to further bolster Santa’s cookie supplies.

 

Too Big To Crumble

When Santa’s pantry was beset by high humidity levels, who was it that suffered? Elves who had spent their lifetimes diligently saving their cookies thinking they’d be there when they were hungry found nothing but a soggy, inedible mess. Santa’s cookie stash was deemed “too big to crumble” and so it was Ma and Pa elf who bore the brunt of the loss—not Santa.

 

Join Your Local Cookie Storehouse

Occupy North Pole is calling for a regional Move Your Cookie Day to take back our cookies and take back our power! Move your cookies from Santa’s pantry into your neighborhood cookie storehouse. This brings our cookies out of Santa’s ice mansion and puts them back where they belong—our community. Contact your local cookie storehouse today to learn more about their no-fee storage options and elf-friendly policies.

©2012 WordInk. All Rights Reserved.

Occupy North Pole Makes Headlines

The Occupy North Pole movement is beginning to gain traction with the local media! Sam the Snowman from the North Pole News Network was down at ONP today reporting on the movement. Watch the full report below.

©2012 WordInk. All Rights Reserved.

We are Occupy North Pole

Welcome to Occupy North Pole’s home on the World Wide Web. We are a leaderless movement bound by the common goal of reducing the inequality of cookie distribution between dedicated, hard-working elves and fat-cat cookie hoarder, Santa Claus.

 

A History of Cookie Inequality

Santa works just one night a year and reaps the reward of 364 days of elf labor, collecting plate after plate of delicious homemade cookies. Santa did not earn these cookies on his own; rather his cookie stash has been built from the efforts of untold numbers of North Pole elves.

Data from the Christmas Budget Office (CBO) shows that cookie inequality has skyrocketed over the years. From 1992-2007, Santa saw his cookie supply increase 392%; and today, Santa’s cookie stash accounts for a staggering 87.7% of the total North Pole cookie supply. Santa’s cookie stash has grown 10 times faster than the cookie supply of the bottom 99% of North Pole residents.

 

We are the 99%

In today’s troubled economic times, the disparity between Santa’s cookie stash and the pathetic crumbs left to us elves cannot stand! We call on our arctic brethren to Occupy the North Pole to protest rampant cookie inequality and demand change!

©2012 WordInk. All Rights Reserved.

Studiobanks Selected as Digital Agency of Record for Occupy North Pole

©2012 WordInk. All Rights Reserved.

Studiobanks tore it up at the AAF Dodgeball Ex-scare-aganza this year! And by tore it up, we mean that pizza buffet did not know what hit it. We were ruthless and quite literally very hungry. We actually didn’t place all that well when it came to the tournament, but you know, A for effort and all that.

This year we went full on Web design nerd and did a group costume with each team member dressed as one number in the hexidecimal value for Studiobanks orange. A hexidecimal value, or hex value (super appropriate for Halloween), is the color code developers use to specify colors when they’re programming Web pages. Geeked out? Yes. But also highly on trend. Orange was THE color to be seen in at the tournament.

We ended up winning our first match after a heated exchange with the ref (mostly on Banks’ part) and then lost the other two matches due to black magic and climate change. Some people might say the losses were directly attributable to the laws of physics and/or gravity. But if AP Physics taught me anything, it’s that I don’t understand physics. The real victory was that none of us got hit in the face. Success! All you other dodgeball teams better watch out next year because we are going to BRING.IT. and totally not get hit in the face again. AWWWW YEAH!

©2012 WordInk. All Rights Reserved.

I like G+ and I cannot lie! You other bloggers can’t deny. When a social network shows up with an itty-bitty user base and some circles in your face you get sprung…from Facebook.

Oh my god, Becky. The hype about G+ is so big. Everyone’s all like ‘It’s the Facebook killer! No wait, it’s the Twitter killer! It’s super cool! No wait, it’s lame and it’s going to fail.’ Wrong! G+ is the best blog aggregator you aren’t using. Let’s rewind, shall we, to early July. Once the initial euphoria of having scored a G+ invite wore off, I realized my Stream was not unlike the crowd at Spinal Tap’s Jazz Odyssey concert. After a few days of little to no new content, I did something I’d never done before: I circled a stranger.

Part of the fun of G+ is seeing what all these experts have to say about the state of tech and social networking, it’s even more interesting to see them debate among themselves as they try to figure out where social media is moving and why. There’s Tom from Myspace offering up some first-hand insight on the social media wars. There’s Robert Scoble getting into G+ beefs with Kevin Rose from Digg.com. There’s Vic Gundotra from Google keeping us up-to-date on what’s going on with our favorite Google products. There’s Gina Trapani founding editor of Lifehacker.com sharing her personal development projects.

Think it doesn’t feel like a blog? Think again, people. Days after G+ launched Kevin Rose abandoned his blog and directed it to his G+ page. And as of today, you can now crosspost from G+ to your WordPress blog. It may not be there yet, but I’m calling it now. This is where G+ is heading.

And while we’re on the subject about the future of G+, let’s talk about what happened this weekend. The Dalai Lama and the Archbishop Desmond Tutu held an On-Air Hangout. Mull that one over for a minute. Two renowned spiritual leaders, both over the age of 75, joined G+ so they could broadcast a conversation and anyone on G+ could watch (provided you were awake at 4am eastern). Just a tad more interesting than say a hangout with Will.i.am.

_{Photo credit: Tibet Today}

So why this weekend? Why G+? Here’s the story: It’s Desmond Tutu’s 80th birthday, of course his BFF the Dalai Lama is invited and of course he’s going. But South Africa is afraid if they let the Dalai Lama come over for the birthday party China is going to get mad, so there’s no visa for the Dalai Lama. G+ to the rescue! All of a sudden anyone on G+ can watch these two amazing people talk live. Kind of amazing what social networking is doing these days, eh?

G+ is still ridiculously young, so trying to figure out what it is or isn’t going to be is like asking a room full of three year olds what career they’re going to have when they’re 40 (paleontologist!). It’s fun to speculate, but not something you’d exactly put money on. In a lot of ways, even Facebook doesn’t know it’s going to be yet (remember Facebook email?) and it’s more grown up than just about any other social network. Everyone is still trying to figure out where all of the different social networking options fit into the digital space and how all of this fits into our personal and professional lives. And if “everyone” includes the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu along with the likes of Snoop Dogg and Tom from Myspace, well that’s just fine by me.

©2012 WordInk. All Rights Reserved.