Now THAT'S a scepter.

Attention Beard Brethren! I have received a rare and unexpected gift yesterday, my "trophy" for my Beards 4 Boobs victory last November.

It is amazing.

It is glorious.

It will be framed and placed on my mantle above my peace prize, Iron man award and dangerous animal busts.

Kudos to you Bob and Double Kudos to the amazing work of A. Steigleder and N. Metger.

Thanks very much!

-Your Benevolent King

Dog approved!!

All trimmed and ready for the weekend.

It may be past midnight on the east coast but it's only 9:37 here in Alaska.

It was great to do this again with my brother Kris and the rest of you gentlemen.

Hey there!

And that's it. As of this writing (which, admittedly, is a bit past midnight), we're at $3,977.76. Quite respectable. Our winner again this year is Pete DiLillo, who not only rallied nearly $1,000 in sponsorship himself, but took us on a trippy, photoshoppy ride all month long. Thanks and well done to Pete. I'll have to see if he wants another winner's shirt for 2012, or perhaps we'll work something else out.

Thanks also to all of our sponsors and to each of our contributors, who once again made November more entertaining and more cancer-killing than it might otherwise have been.

Me, I'm glad to have this forum and this beard, if only for a few more hours. It's good to see old faces and new, growing hair for the sake of our lady folks' health.

The End

"Hey! You with the beard! What's going on?"

"Well, I'm afraid, Daniel, that you've died. Welcome to the Pearly Gates."

"What? How? I was just driving home from work, then poof."

"That's how it happens sometimes. Of course, if you hadn't been texting, you might have seen the large truck crossing the divider."

"Would that have helped?"

St. Peter turned to a massive book on his podium and licked a thumb. He turned a few pages and then scanned down with his forefinger. "Ah," he said at last, tapping the book, "Nope. Not one bit."

"Oh. Well, it's probably just as well, then. So, uh, you're really here, huh?"

"What do you mean?"

"You. Heaven. Hell. The whole thing. I was pretty sure until a few moments ago you were the figment of someone's imagination."

"Not a believer, eh?" said St. Peter as he turned back to his book. After a few moments, he turned back. "Crossed signals. We get them from time to time. Hmm. Yes, you were bound for eternal nothingness. I can transfer you if you'd like."

"What?"

"To the afterlife of your choosing. This is a bit embarrassing. Most people don't get the choice, you know. When they cross over, their souls get directed to the proper place and the system runs smoothly enough. But every now and then, as with you, we have a glitch."

"So I can just choose?"

"Yes, well the Jig, as they say, is Up. If I sent you to eternal nothingness now that you know there are other possibilities, that wouldn't be very sporting, would it? Although, I hear it's quite nice. Peaceful in weird sort of way. So what'll it be? Heaven, Hell, Valhalla, Samsara, Elysium? Haven't had an Elysium in a while. Couple of Hades last month, but no Elysium."

"Samsara, that's like reincarnation, right? I think I'd like that."

"Careful, now. Messy business, reincarnation. Don't know what you're going to get when you get back down there. Could be Bill Gates, could be a deformed cockroach. But I repeat myself."

Daniel didn't laugh.

St. Peter did, though. He tried to suppress his mirth, but a chuckle spilled out nonetheless. He continued a moment later, "A little reincarnation humor. Anyway, the point is it's a crap shoot. Plus, you can't have anything you learned this go around go back with you. Has a lot in common with eternal nothingness, now that I think about it. This you just kinda goes poof and a new you pops up on Earth."

"Hmm. Yeah, I guess I'd kind of like to keep my consciousness. What options let me do that?"

"Well, most of the pit or paradise options you people have dreamed up over the millennia work that way. Trouble is, the paradises are full of righteous busybodies, and the pits are, well the pits."

"Alright, fine. How about Elysium?"

"How's your Greek?"

Talkin' 'bout crazy, crazy, man beards.

It's here. The final day. Per usual I've enjoyed reading all of my fellow bearder's posts and talkin' it up throughout the month. And as a collective we were highly successful in my book. The night is not quite over and we have over $3600 toward the BCRF. Not too shabby gents.

Yesterday's answer:

... Nd3+

e2xNd3(f) Qxg3+

Ke2(f) Nd4#

5 points to Wes

4 points to Jim and Dennis (via PM). (Bg4 can be thwarted with HxBg4 or NxBg4)

Still, a good showing gents. This pic has inspired me for next year. I think I will pit my beard against all other B4B beards in chess. Each pic will be my move for the day. Let's hope I remember that theme in 11 months and actually follow through with it.

Grand totals:

Wesley 13

Jim 9

Dennis 5

Bob 4

Kris 1

bh 1

Wes will receive a B4B t-shirt for his diligence and intelligence, on my dime. We'll discuss details in person. Congrats!

See you all next year!

Made it!

Hey, look! All caught up!

We're in the waning minutes of HoNoToGroABeMo for 2012, and Mr. DiLillo has taken the lead. We shall see what the next 30 minutes brings.

To inspire the last round of donations, I give you our final competitor for the month - hailing from his spring residence in Palm Beach, FL, his summer residence in Hyannis Port, MA, his autumn residence in Bel Air, CA, and his winter residence in Netherlands Antilles, I give you... The Million Dollar Man, Ted DiBiase!

Be inspired by his rich, glorious beard and donate monies for boobs!

Because money isn't everything... it's the ONLY thing:

Be generous with your donations, and let the best beard win!

One...

Today's timeshifted competitor hails from the Isle of Tonga... I give you Haku!

Although the beard was tame by islander standards, Tonga 'Uli'uli Fifita, also known as Haku and Meng, is our final wildman wrestler of the month. Do you need any credentials beyond his terrifying visage above? And the legend that Fifita is held by his fellow wrestlers to be the legitimately toughest of them ever? You do? Fine.

Behold, one of the greatest finishing moves of all time: The Tongan Death Grip!

Here Haku, crowned as king after winning The King Of The Ring competition, defeats a beardless Harley Race. Not only because he is awesome, but because Race has no beard (A bearded Race will show up in an Honorable Mentions post tomorrow):

This is what 30 days will getcha!

Well, here it is, my first ever 30 days of beard growth in Alaska. So I had to include something Alaskan. The sun set around 3:30 this afternoon and it almost got up to 20on degrees!

Two...

Today's timeshifted competitors hail from Vancouver, BC... I give you, The Natural Disasters!

John "Earthquake" Tenta. Fred "Typhoon" Ottman. Two large men. Two impressive beards. Two silly names and funny sets of wrestling tights. In some sense, for better or for worse, this is what wrestling is all about.

Today's bearded combat involved the man known as Earthquake against yesterday's man known as Hacksaw:

Three...

Today's timeshifted competitor hails from Glens Falls, NY... I give you "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan!

Duggan has been wrestling since the '80's with a strange amalgam of "attractive American" qualities: college football player, carries around a 2x4 wooden beam, sports a manly beard, and leads the crowd in chants of "USA!" This odd combination has given him enduring popularity with wrestling audiences, and his cooky personality has led to interesting interviews outside of the ring:

I think my beard looks fuller from a distance...so I'm a bit further away for this final picture. Enjoy!

So I made my word count for NaNoWriMo last night, but I'm still a chapter or two (maybe a chapter and an epilogue) away from finishing the story.

But I'm getting up at 5AM tomorrow to take my son on a scout trip to a battleship. So I've decided I don't need to stay up past 11PM to hit word count and thus...I won't.

Will I give you a follow-up post tomorrow with the end of the story? Maybe. Or maybe this was my clever (read: "accidental") marketing scheme. Give you an unedited first draft from an unknown inexperienced writer all the way up to the end and then...BAM, leave you hanging.

How does it end? You say.

Will Ranson and Geon survive the final battle? Why did Krissa attack her allies? Will Jeff find a way to create the longest run on sentence in the history of language? And what about the beard? Is Ranson finally going to get to shave and start his life anew?

Well I could answer all those, or I could leave you in suspense and make you come back to the site a bit later. Which you'll want to do anyway, because in a day or two (not week or more like some times in the past, right?) Cmaaaarrrrrrr! will be posting this year's HoNoToGroABeMo awards.

Mwha ha ha ha ha...it would all be very cruel, indeed, if anyone had read the story to this point so far.

On a side note, I'm fairly pleased with the story I've crafted. I think it went well. I'm considering a few options with what to do with it. I'm thinking to self-publish (probably focused on e-book options more than PoD) and sell cheap and perhaps podcast it as well. Any thoughts/suggestions? I'm more considering it as an experiment than as a career move. I'm not particularly interested in becoming a career writer, I just like telling stories.

Four...

Today's timeshifted competitor hails from Reno, NV... I give you, Damien Sandow!

Sandow, or Aaron Haddad, has been wrestling for about 10 years, and has just started his second run in the WWE. He has an impressive beard, is quite the solid worker, and his "intellectual savior of the masses" gimmick is rather entertaining. Here, he visits San Diego Comic Con with predictable results:

For the record, I'm cool with Pluto not being a planet.

30 days. 30 shirts. 30 posts. I did it!

Now to donate and get 30 dollars! Actually it's much more than that, thanks in large part to all the generous people who donated before me. Thanks!

Today's shirt says "It's okay, Pluto. I'm not a planet either" and its message should be obvious.

Five...

Day 25's competitor hails from Truth Or Consequences, NM... and The Boiler Room... and Long Island, NY.. I give you, Mick Foley!

$o long!

Well, that about wraps it up for another year. Thanks to my sponsors this year, I really appreciate it (and it may not be to late for the rest of you, just click that '$$' button and see what happens). I didn't bring it as much money as I hoped to, but I'm proud to have hung out in second place for a while there.

Thanks to all participants for keeping things interesting. Looking forward to reading everyone's' final posts.

I tried a few things out this year, and I'm not sure how well they worked, but it was fun. Looking forward to trimming my mustache so it's not stabbing me any more!

And...

Uhm...

I forget.

My last laptop wizard fell at Khazad-Dum.

So my laptop is on the fritz and possibly the video card is gone. As it's soldered to the logic board, it's not like I can replace it, either. It's on a day like this that I want to take my magic ring and just chuck it into a volcano.

Yesterday's game was Boggle, Parker Brothers's hidden word game. This was the game we played more than Scrabble. So I guess some households are Scrabble households, and others are Boggle households. And others... Unspeakable Words?

And with that, the board game quiz is over. The final scores will be posted tomorrow, but it's clear no individual will get more than 25 out of 30. However, collectively the group did, so I'll take that as sufficient to meet the terms of the contest. So congratulations to the winners: breast cancer researchers!

Scores: Bob: 18.5 Jason: 13 Wesley: 12 Jeffrey: 11.5 Kris: 10 Heather: 2

GLORIOUS!

I'd like to thank all of our participants this year, especially those troopers who posted day after day and went the extra mile to keep things interesting and add a little fun to our wacky venture. Whether it was an elaborate holographic hoax, bearded wrasslers, clever quizzes or original fiction, you guys deserve a pat on the back for not only sticking with it but (gasp!) actually putting some planning into our annual event. That's more than I can say for certain people (all of whom are me) this year.

To our sponsors: Thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you for putting your money where our scraggly, sorry excuses for beards are and helping fight a cruel disease that has taken so many wonderful people away from us far, far too soon.

"Oh ho ho, 30 days of torturous survival? You totally got me there!"

I opted for the mystery box, and guess what was inside? NOTHING, Nothing at all! Ah, just kidding, it was a note that said "turn around. I quickly flung myself around to find my pal Kuni and all his friends waiting to surprise me. They explained at everything over the past 29 days was actually an elaborate plan setup by "the internet" for the amusement of the 10 people following this blog. They went on to explain that the island itself is just a hologram created by a powerful super computer. All of the forest creatures I saw were apparently just people in rubber suits. They even said all those gummy worms I ate were ACTUALLY just real worms. I suppose I have no regrets for the last month. I raised a considerable sum of money and for a great cause, and all at the expense of my own dignity. Huzzah, HoNoToGroABeMo thanks for another great year!

(Seriously though, look at that beard, it's pretty awesome! There's still time! Donate before it's too late!)

-I have to go now, my planet needs me

Pete

Today's beard is getting its recommended daily allowance of fruits and vegetables.

I took a photo of yesterday's beard and totally got distracted by wave after wave after wave of zombies and forgot to post it. So here's a bonus(?) photo.

The end of an era. If eras only lasted 30 days.

So first off, my apologies for the radio silence for the last week and a half. As it turns out, rural Denmark DOES NOT have an abundance of free wireless internet hot spots. Who knew? I also put a hefty share of the blame on crunch week here at work. So as you can see, clearly none of it is a result of my own sloth-like behavior.

Thank you to everyone here at HNTGABM for letting me participate. It's been a fantastic rookie season and I'm looking forward to coming back next year (hopefully with even more donors) and doing it all over again. I may even be clever and get some Beard Strong gel bracelets ordered by then...

And to my donors a VERY BIG THANK YOU for your support! It means a lot to me that you would indulge me in this and take something as simple as my inability to shave for a month and turn it into something wonderful like cancer research. Magical, huh?

So until next November, stay Beard Strong!

It's still growing.

Not much on the donation front...