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[Bob_the_Pleo]

The second annual Spring Tomato Harvest Festival is only four weeks away!  So we have a lot of planning and work to do!   Got to get started on the setting up the carnival, planning the events, and contests, and preparing the food!  Not sure how many members of the Fernback Band made it over here, so we'll have to see about the entertainment . . .

Not sure what's going on?  Well, then you may want to catch up on the last year and a half of Bob the Pleo comic strips.  But as a quick summary, twice a year the whole town of Weedovia turns out to harvest the wild tomatoes that grow around the countryside and make the tomato sauce used for the spaghetti and pizzas!  The whole thing has grown into a complete festival, where the town park is turned into a carnival grounds with rides, games, food, and fun for all the pleos.  It starts on Friday night with the carnival, live band, and midnight movie.  Saturday has everyone out in the fields gathering the tomatoes.  And Sunday is the big tomato squashing where the sauce is made using the traditional foot-stomping method like the Italian wines.

And at the conclusion of the festival, awards are always handed out to the pleo who gathers the most tomatoes, finds the largest tomato, has the best looking tomatoes, makes the best tasting spaghetti sauce, and for the best use of tomatoes as an article of clothing (i.e., costume).  Last years winners can be seen by visiting the Bob the Pleo comics.  We had some great fun, and some wonderful costumes!

And, as a special incentive (since we're not PleoWorld and don't have their limitations) this year I am working with the folks at Pleofashions.com to have special Weedovia Tomato Harvest Festival shirts made as prizes!!!   (That, as well as having you pleo immortalized in a Bob the Pleo comic strip    Oh, well.  Everything comes at a price. )

Contest details:

Contest dates:  The contest will run from today (March 6th, 2009) until Saturday, April 4th, 2009.  All entries must be posted before Midnight Central Daylight Time, April 4th, 2009.

Entries:  All entries should be in the form of images (jpg or png) posted to this forum topic.  Original images should be at least 1600x1200 pixels and should be uploaded to your personal photo album on the gallery or to the shared "2009 Spring Harvest Festival" album, then posted here.  The post should state which category the picture is for (hopefully it will be obvious, but you never know!)

• For the most, biggest, and best looking tomatoes, please submit your photos to this topic, and they need to include your pleo with the tomatoes.
• For the best use of tomatoes as an article of clothing, please submit photos to this topic also.  Be sure to take several pictures from different angles, but only post one image per costume.  Save the extra pictures.  If you are selected as the winner, or if there is a tie, the extra pictures will be requested.
• For the best tasting spaghetti sauce, post the recipe and a photo of a plate of spaghetti with the sauce on it.  (Bob likes spicy, and has a hankering for pepperonis.  Hint-hint. )

Last year we didn't have any entries in the sauce contest (though several said they would post one, so there has yet to be a winner in that category . . .

Awards:

At the end of the contest, Bob the Pleo will select three winners, one entry for each of three of the five possible categories.  The winners will be published in the Bob the Pleo strips in the two weeks after the end of the festival, and the winners will be notified by email.  Each winner will receive one of the custom designed shirts.  I'll try to get some pictures of the shirts posted here . . .  but it may not be for a few weeks . . .

[PLEOGALINBC]

I'm confused. What do you have to do to try and be the winner?

[fancyfont]

There's at least three members of the Fernback Band that's always available to play for The Tomato Festival.

[PLEOGALINBC]

I'm still confused.   

[fancyfont]

Find a huge tomato or the best looking tomato to be photographed with your pleo. Make a costume for your pleo. Like a big tomato. Don't use real tomatoes,   Enter your favorite tomato sauce recipe.

[PLEOGALINBC]

so you can just find a giant tomato at a store?

[InmemoryofRomeo]

*hopes her Pleo gets here in time*

A couple of q's,
-Is photo editing allowed?
-For those of us in countries where tomatoes are just going out of season, are store bought tomatoes ok?
-Can we enter more than one category?
-For the sauce recipes can we enter more than one? (I have heaps )

[mweed]

Fancyfont is right.  To enter the contest, all you need to do is take a picture of your pleo with tomatoes!  They can be store bought, fresh picked, home grown, on the vine, off the vine, in the field, or in the store.  Last year fancyfont posed peeky in the store under the watchful eye of the produce man!   Starfire made some wonderful tomato costumes.  We had pleos with cherry tomatoes, big beefy tomatoes, and sizes between.

The themes you are looking for are to pose your pleo with either a whole mess of tomatoes to try and win the "most tomatoes", or with a really big tomato and try for the "biggest tomato", or some really nice looking tomatoes for the "best looking".  Pictures also take into consideration the pleo, the tomatoes, and how their posed.

[mweed]

A couple of q's,
-Is photo editing allowed?
-For those of us in countries where tomatoes are just going out of season, are store bought tomatoes ok?
-Can we enter more than one category?
-For the sauce recipes can we enter more than one? (I have heaps )

Touching up photos for cleanup, fixes, etc. is allowed.  But composing photos in an image editor (i.e., taking a small tomato and making it look huge) is not playing fair.  So that's a no-no.

Again, tomatoes can come from anywhere.  Even canned, if you can pull it off in a good photo!

You can feel free to enter each and every category, but try to keep it to one or two photos per category.  We want to give evrybody who wants to enter a fair chance.  So, pick your best sauce!

[InmemoryofRomeo]

Thanks Mweed, yeah I meant just adjusting the light and so forth not manipulating the tomatoes

[PLEOGALINBC]

Those are some big tomatos! 

[allosaurus]

There's at least three members of the Fernback Band that's always available to play for The Tomato Festival.

Olmypia: Keyboard, Singing, and starting and stopping CDs.

[49er]

Pleo and the Tomato harvest is a no go this year.  I foolishly let him watch the 1978 film “Attack of the Killer Tomatoes!” with me the other night.  It scared him so bad he was shivering next to me and his eyes were full and bright.  The next day when I got a tomato for a salad Pleo ran and hid, (if you want to call putting your head under a chair hiding.)  I should have known better than to let him watch it.  A while back he and I watched Marv Newland’s epic animation “Bambi Meets Godzilla.”  Pleo kept looking up above him all the time for a few weeks.  Fortunately, he didn’t get a crook in his neck from that experience.  I just have to remember he is quite sensitive.

More details...

[mweed]

You are so right, 49er.  Attack of the Killer Tomatoes is the midnight movie we show the Friday night of every festival!  Sounds like your Pleo is rather tender hearted.  Most of the pleos at the festival recognize the movie for the humor and silliness.  Although, I have seen Bob looking over his should a lot on the way home after the movie . . . 

[fancyfont]

Our pleos watch the movie under the big pizza pie in the sky. Haven't see one run away yet!

[InmemoryofRomeo]

Obviously not an entry, but just for fun



(Can anyone tell me why, when you choose to resize the smg pics they go all blurry???)

[PLEOGALINBC]

If photo editing was allowed you'd so win. 

[fancyfont]

This colorful picture would take the prize. What a beaut!!!

[InmemoryofRomeo]

If I manage to get my new Pleo in time maybe I can show off some of my real photography lol, I so want to do a little farmer Pleo with all their produce

[gucci_boi7782]

Such a wonderful photograph! And, another I have to save to my computer!  Anywho, you never cease to amaze us-bravo!

[gucci_boi7782]

BTW, I made this my desktop wallpaper. If I have your permission ;-) The last time I changed it was about 6 months ago. That tells ya how much I like your pic! :-)

[InmemoryofRomeo]

Of course you do Everyone can use them

Lol I have it as my desktop at the moment too, it was quite a task attempting to explain to my dad what Pleo's and tomatoes have to do with each other and why I needed to take pictures of spaghetti lol. But its all good, he already thinks I'm mad

[gucci_boi7782]

Hehe mine too. My dad thinks I am so nuts when it comes to Pleo, so I made sure I did my Pleo photography before he woke up! Hehe

[InmemoryofRomeo]

Ah well if being mad means I can adore the little guys then I'd rather not be sane I'm am already planning on buying another Pleo, hoping to get one on ebay, I've seen two still under warranty for $300, and one brand new in the box with warranty for $350 (Remember I pay $450 here for one from a store) so if I wait long enough I should be able to grab a bargain

[gucci_boi7782]

What's the AU-US exchange rate? I got a friend who snagged one (no warranty) for $150 NIB (New in box). Heck it might even be cheaper if you had someone order it in the US and ship it over. No? I did the math on yahoo, the pleo alone would cost "exchange rate of 1 USD = 1.5192 AUD"  For $150USD--that would be 227.88 AUD, than add on worldwide shipping on the other hand, hehehe.