While dicking around on Twitter this morning (@
RobeastRollie, if you're wondering) I stumbled on "
Doodle 4 Google." Being a big fan of MS Paint and other Lo-Fi scribblers, I dig coloring contests that don't require any serious amount of artistic talent. Just in case you refused to click the link, here's a quick synopsis of what Doodle 4 Google is:
Welcome to Doodle 4 Google, a competition where we invite K-12 students to play around with our homepage logo and see what new designs they come up with. This year we're inviting U.S. kids to join in the doodling fun, around the intriguing theme "What I Wish for the World."
Right now they are having a
public online vote to narrow down each of the 4 age groups to one winner, then an overall winner will be chosen next week. The winner gets a scholarship and a computer and their doodle on a t-shirt and the Google homepage on May 21st , so I donated 5 minutes of my life to voting on the current round of finalists. Here are the entries I voted for:
I voted for this one because the singing e's head is on fire and that's fucking punk rock, man. If this kid wins the laptop, I want to write to him and get him to draw
Plowing Mud Forever's next album cover.
Name: Courtney Bodine
Age: 11
School: MOORESTOWN UPPER ELEMENTARY
City, State: Moorestown, NJ
This one's cool because I dig animals and the tiger looks really badass just chilling up in the tree. I think he's just waiting for everyone to stop talking about peace so he can eat the bird.
Name: Abigail Kois
Age: 12
School: GANADA MIDDLE SCHOOL
City, State: Walworth, NY
In middle school, I had my bedroom decorated with paper clips. It was the dorkiest thing in the world, but I had thousands of paper clips of various colors and sizes linked up and draped from the ceiling circling the room. Personally, I think this should have incorporated a little variety within each letter, but this design looks really clean and simple and most importantly, appeals to my dork side.
Name: Jeff Warner
Age: 16
School: BRADFORD AREA HIGH SCHOOL
City, State: Bradford, PA
This one is also pretty clean and simple, but at the same time, is completely action packed. And it works in FOUR DIMENSIONS! I like that the kid anticipates the destruction of the 2.0-zone layer in the future. Instead of whitespace, he opts instead for hazy blackspace. Now that's a future Robocop can defend. Pastel Robocop at least.
And now I'm donating an extra few minutes to overanalyze my votes. The four age groups (Kindergarten - Grade 3, Grade 4 - Grade 6, Grade 7 - Grade 9, Grade 10 - Grade 12) are further split into ten US Regional categories. I looked at all of the entries equally, and made my selections, and my favorites all ended up coming from Region 1 or 2, made up of Northeastern states.
- Region 1:
- Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont
- Region 2:
- New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania
This was completely unintentional of me, but does it truly prove my Nor'Eastern snobbery? Maybe the kids up here have somehow mastered implanting subconscious triggers in their artwork to set off a positive aesthetic reactions in other Northeasterners brains? Or maybe Northeastern kids simply are better doodlers than the rest of the country? We could place some of the blame on Google for injecting a little bias into the contest by calling the Northeastern regions 1 and 2 and displaying them first on the voting pages. The winner also gets a free trip to Google's New York office, so maybe Google is pushing for a winner that will cost the least to transport. OMG IT'S A CONSPIRACY! VOTE FOR THE KID ON THE GRASSY KNOLL ACROSS THE STREET!
All jokes aside (there is no grassy knoll across the street from the Google New York office), I'm asking y'all* to go vote. Yes, I know that even if you don't vote there will still be a prize awarded, but a lot of traffic and attention is probably what will keep this program and other programs like it going year after year. Plus if we keep kids in school drawing all the time, it will stop them from sexting so damn much. Go!
*See, I can appeal to other regions of the US.
Inside, they had brochures and Exit 63 stickers and actual sand, paid for by the New Jersey Division of Travel and Tourism. I'm not sure if this was an effort to remind New Yorkers to include the Shore in their Summer plans, or some sort of Benny Internment Program (BIP, for short). I didn't go past the doors because I was afraid they would mistake me for a genuine NYer, tackle me, and tag me with a tracking device, so I just took a photo from the sidewalk. The RoBeastress (an actual Benny), was nearly captured.
