In the spirit of 'emily postnews':

Dear Emily Bodgeheap,

What should I do before posting a challenge suggestion? Should I do any research or preparation?

-- repetitious@redundant

Dear repetitious,

Of course not!

Under no circumstances should you ever read the message archives before posting your suggestion. A brilliant individual like you would NEVER come up with an idea even REMOTELY similar to anyone else's. Besides, even in the mind-bogglingly unlikely event that should happen, I'm sure everyone needs to be reminded over and over how wonderful the idea is.

Don't bother checking previously aired episodes, either. Heavens forbid you should suggest a challenge that they've already broadcast -- now THAT would be embarassing!

Be sure to suggest battling robots as a challenge. And be sure to suggest it often. There isn't anything that the currently airing 'Battlebots' and 'Robot Wars' television programs are doing that Junkyard Wars and Scrapheap Challenge can't do exactly the same. After all, why stop with two television series of exactly the same concept when you can have *four*?

(To reply in email replace blort dot invalid with anime dot net)

-- Dan Hollis (goemon@blort.invalid), January 30, 2001

Answers

Don't forget to propose something with a single solution. And if at all possible it should try to kill the contestants (or freeze or boil them). And the less education, and more destruction, the better.

-- Jeff - The NERDS (tm) (dp@the-nerds.org), January 30, 2001.

Dear Emily,

Is it also okay to suggest something that would be utterly imposible to build without a research team and an army of scientists?

-- www.geocities.com/kablamotheclown (kablamotheclown@yahoo.com), January 30, 2001.

i dont want to read all the other posts i might accidentally be exposed to punctuation marks then i might accidentally string together a complete sentence THAT WOULD REALLY SUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!the internet is for typing out the first thing that comes intor your head dont think about it dont try to make it understandable anybody who disagrees with me is really stupid ignorant butthead!!!!!!

how about an amphibious car?????BEST IDEA EVER!!!!!

-- Eric (earsjohnson@usa.net), January 30, 2001.

Dear Emily,

I want to suggest a challenge that would take a team of 400 scientists, engineers, and technicians a year to build and would violate the second law of thermodynamics. I'm just as good as anyone else, and this is a Democracy, so why shouldn't I?

-- Insink Rul3z!!

Dear Insink,

You can suggest anything, and this sounds like a fine project for the Department of Defense or the Ministry of Defence (depending on your Country of Origin), but it lacks something important. If you don't copy another television show, or someone else's idea, or threaten the lives of the contestants, why bother? Now, if your team of bodgers and boffins was creating a helicopter from scratch...

-- Em.

-- Rick Tyler (rick@raf.com), January 30, 2001.

Dear Emily,

How old should I be?

---12 yeers old and think its really really cool

Dear Cool,

The younger the better but absolutely no one over 18. Infants are particularly suited to builds such as threshing machines but for really dangerous challenges such as atomis weaponry you must be at least 7.

-- ChanzReed (uncleniblz@aol.com), January 31, 2001.