Oh hell yeah.
The badass Sonic donk (and its truck nutz) that graced an Illinois Walmart, and our front page, on Friday is hands-down our 'Shop Contest subject of the week. What's my advice? Res ipsa loquitor that's my advice, which is Latin for "This picture practically 'shops itself into something funnier."
Seriously, I'm not gonna coach up greatness. I will direct you to some other materials that may help inspire you. First, a definition:
donk
(noun) \ˈdäŋk, ˈdȯŋk\
Any POS late 80's or early 90's American heap (preferably an Impala) that has large enough wheels installed until it resembles (and rides and handles like) a Conestoga wagon. This is done so it sits up high enough so as to be at the same eye level as the Playas with real juice ridin in their Escalades. Adding in a bad candy paint job and Wal-Mart sub box completes the transformation. [Urban Dictionary]
Source Image: Sonic and Friends Donk [via People of Walmart]
Your job, take that car, add funny. You can cameo it in another shot, you can put someone in its driver's seat, you can give it a new paint job, you can give it bigger truck balls or other ornamentation. Have at it. 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.
As an added inducement, I want to let you know I do star commenters who send in worthy/funny submissions - whether or not they're chosen for the final 20. This may not happen immediately. I usually start rounding up a gallery by the middle of the week. This is my subjective call, but I do want to recognize as many contributors as possible, and show gratitude for making this such a popular feature on weekends.
Now, Gentlemen, start your 'shopping!
You can contact Owen Good, the author of this post, at owen@kotaku.com. You can also find him on Twitter, Facebook, and lurking around our #tips page.