[attrition] Contest: Name Our Mascot

[security curmudgeon]

(Really, click the URL so you can see the mascot before sending in
  suggestions!)


http://attrition.org/news/content/09-10-26.001.html

Contest: Name Our Mascot
Mon Oct 26 17:22:47 EDT 2009
Attrition Staff

In another part of the Internets, there lives a nice squirrel named Buck. 
Buck is a happy squirrel, full of life and wonder. With a carefree 
attitude and great friends like Eli, Buck lives a squirrel's dream; 
frolicking with a healthy dose of nuts.

What Buck didn't realize is that he had an evil distant cousin. A squirrel 
filled with seething rage, bitter contempt, perverse humor and a raw sense 
of justice. Buck knew he had to keep his distance from this squirrel, and 
attrition.org, where the new squirrel had begun to nest.



For over ten years, we have done our best to provide unbiased information 
about the information security industry. Along the way, we've mirrored 
defacements, held the security industry accountable, tracked corporate 
neglect of consumer information and written movie and music reviews. We've 
even managed to provide a smile or two along the way. Not that we really 
give a fuck about smiles or your happiness, but if you're one of those 
"shiny happy people" that we generally despise, great. Enjoy. Really. We 
(almost) mean that.

Other people think we're a bit nutty. Maybe we are, but we won't pay a 
shrink to confirm it. Instead, we will embrace our spirit animal and keep 
doing what we always do.

Over the past few weeks, we decided that we needed a mascot; a simple 
visual image to help promote attrition.org's ideals, and something fun for 
us that can be easily understood, if not hated. For those of you who 
already know us, it shouldn't come as a surprise that we chose a squirrel 
to be our mascot. Squirrels are cute and fuzzy (like d2d), confusing and 
perplexing (like Lyger), survivalists (like Cancer Omega), mischievous 
(like Jericho) and like to stuff their faces full of nuts (like Mal Vu). 
With that said, we now have a friend of attrition, a squirrel, and he will 
boldly represent us.

Your task: name him. Even though there is no visible penis attached to his 
groin, it's a "he". We haven't chosen a name yet, so the best name that we 
(meaning attrition staff) decide upon will win our contest. The winner 
will receive a public flogging in a future news update, and probably an 
official attrition.org t-shirt with the mascot printed somewhere upon it 
once we profit from our 419 mails and get the shirts made.

Send in your ideas fast. The contest will close on November 10, 2009, or 
sooner if we figure out a name we like. We'll notify the winner(s) shortly 
after, and then let the named fuzzy little bastard run amok over 
attrition.org, just the way Mom would want it.

Meaning your Mom, not ours.
The Rules

No purchase necessary, enter as often as you'd like Lazlo. Submit entries 
via Twitter (DM to @attritionorg) or e-mail namehim[at]attrition.org. 
Winner chosen at attrition.org staff discretion. In the case of the same 
name submitted by multiple people, we will award the winner to whoever 
sent it first, or whoever is cuter (or scares us less).
The Rejects

Names we are rejecting up front: Anything with 'nut' in it (probably), any 
variation of 'squirrel'. Any name or handle already affiliated with 
Attrition. "Attrition".
The Reward

Infamy. Your name will be on attrition.org somewhere, and not the Going 
Postal section! When we get around to making them, you will receive one 
t-shirt with the new mascot, probably some stickers, and whatever else we 
can put in the box with it.
The Props

Our new mascot is a comissioned original piece by Joanna Goldman. Contact 
her for all your logo, custom character and illustration needs.