The Mighty Wingman Contest

updated Saturday, 2/17/07, oh-dark-thirty am - Rant is completed, and sits directly below this post.

updated Friday, 2/16/07, 5:18 pm - I've got some ire to raise, but I'd best not be rash about it, so I will be crafting, crafting... This may hold up the contest results for a couple of days but I was considering that anyway. Monday is a holiday and it gives me a good opportunity to put up a much better post than otherwise. It also gives all y'all a better chance to send in your votes! Stuff that box, kids! In the meantime, tune in just below for a fresh Saturday morning rant about the NCAA and the thought police.

updated Wednesday, 2/14/07, 11:44 pm - So far, so good. With mail entries and people I know who have chimed in, we have a good 15 or so ballots. Interesting stuff. Also, you will notice that there are tags on this thing now. Blogger has been shoving all of us old-school holdouts into the "new Blogger style" and the Hive's turn just came up. My fingers are crossed (or they would be if I weren't currently typing); if they just add a way to ask for a little help directly, I'll consider it a rousing success.

originally posted Monday, 2/12/07, 9:38 pm

In honor of one of the funnier beer commercials of the past ten years and the recent Fifty Fab Robots list thing, I've decided to run a little contest here. I will peg this post so that it stays up top all week; you, the reader, are cordially invited to name the best wingmen in movies and literature (or songs, or what-have-you). Here are the guidelines:

• We are talking about the best of the wingmen - the guys without whom the leading man would be well and truly hosed. Try not to tab any comic relief or co-equals or love interests (unless you can make a case for one of the co-equals). For example, in the Mummy movies, Rachel Weisz' character, Evie, is NOT a wingman (co-equal), neither is John Hannah (comic relief). The wingman there would be Oded Fehr (hubba-hubba, ladies).
• Your first place nominee will get 20 points.
• Your second place nominee will get 15 points. (There's a bonus for being the top dog, the big cheese, numero duo honcho...)
• Third place is worth 12, and so on down to one point for fourteenth.
• If you name more than fourteen, anyone after that will get one point (think of it as a really big tie); if you name fewer, I'll stop where you left off.

You can vote in the comments, or drop me an email (nightflymail AT aol DOT com) if you like that whole secret ballot thing. I will tally me second bananas and come up with the winner on Saturday in the afternoon. Then I'll post the results, with a detailed look into my own list and why I chose as I did. (And yes, I do have a list.) I may also hit some of the highlights of the voting given enough time.

Have fun!