Desert Bus for Hope, the fund drive dedicated to playing the world's most boring game, ever, logged more than five days behind the wheel and raised a staggering $132,568.94, more than 88 percent over last year's total.
The marathon, a project of the comedy troupe LoadingReadyRun benefiting the Child's Play charity, kicked off on Nov. 20; the final numbers were announced Friday after much rejoicing. And sleep.
DBfH started off its third annual fund raiser with 88 hours of driving booked by pre-event donations. Subsequent donations added another two full days, no small feat considering each successive hour had to be "bought" by donors committing 6 percent more than was raised in the previous hour.
The team collected more than 10 "points" although the actual final score wasn't reported. One hundred thirty-six hours computes to 17 points overall but the bus crashed at least once. The game tows a crashed bus back to its point of origin in real-time, but the DBfH guys just restart the game rather than wait it out, because the point is for them to actually be driving all of that time.
Last year's drive netted about eight points, I think. Remember, the big joke of Desert Bus was that one completed eight-hour trip ticked up your score counter (a five-digit odometer) by just one.
Congratulations to LoadingReadyRun, its many sponsors, and all who gave to the cause.
Desert Bus for Hope [site]