I know some of you wanted to 'shop up that dick sculpture Ashcraft posted about on Friday, but that would be like giving a match to a child who lives in a tinderbox. F1 racer Heikki Kovalainen's Angry Birds helmet provides a safer alternative with explotable potential.
Kovalainen's sponsor is Rovio, the game's publisher. Since nobody can identify any other game Rovio publishes, that means his helmet gets the red bird treatment. This may require some thinking and outside material, but for those looking to do a quick-and-dirty, here's the source image of the helmet itself.
Source Image: Heikki Kovalainen's Angry Birds themed racing helmet.
You know the rules: The 20 best will get rounded up and published at the end of next Saturday. Meantime, I and the rest of the starred commentariat will approve and promote as many as we can so folks can see them and pass judgment.
This is your no-frills step-by-step procedure to participation in the Kotaku 'Shop Contest.
1. Create your 'Shop.
2. Upload it to a free image hosting service. I suggest imgur. It's stupid simple. No account is necessary.
3. This is very important: You must use the URL of the image itself. In imgur, this is the second URL it gives you after you upload the image. It's under "Direct Link (email & IM)"
4. At the beginning of the comments roll, click "Start a New Thread"
5. To the right of your name, select "Image."
6. Paste the imgur URL in the image URL field. It's the field that says "Image URL."
7. You can add editorial commentary if you want, but then just hit submit and your image will load. If it doesn't, paste the image URL as a comment.
8. This is important: Keep your image size under 1 MB. It will not upload to comments if it is over that size. What's more, we're getting reports that if your 'Shop is more than 1000px tall (vertical), it won't upload. If you're getting the broken-image icon, try resizing to a smaller dimension.
Now, Gentlemen, start your 'shopping!