Day 6: Bad to the Bones

2011 Earnings from Contests:  $1,625

Today’s Contest:  Solex Medical Academy Skeleton Naming

Prizes:  Entries picked for the top 10 receive a 75 minute massage gift certificate.

One grand prize winner receives an iPad.

 Background:  

The School of Massage Therapy at SOLEX Medical Academy in Wheeling, Illinois is hosting a contest to name their new skeleton.  They have a regular size one named Jersey and are looking to name their new ‘little skeleton’.   They didn’t specify if it was a male or female, so the name race was wide open.This is the pic from their website.  Clearly, even after death, people are obsessed with making Xerox copies of their butt.  Crazy Bones you are an office animal!  

My entry:

There was a lot of deliberation in my head on which thematic direction to go…like do I riff off of their pre-existing skeleton’s name “Jersey” and give this new guy a bordering state name like Delaware?  Or a city in Jersey like Morris?  Or do I go down the Jersey Shore route and name it Snooki (I can already envision the students dressing the skeleton up like that infamous AmerItaliana with a tiny buoffant wig resting on its little skull).  I can’t allow them to do that (slash...it would kind of be amazing. Snooki + Skeleton=  Snooketon, Skooki, Skelesnook)

I also thought about going a bit more classical and giving it a name after a Greek god of healing or something.  I stumbled on Calliope.  She was one of the Muses, the spirits of arts and sciences --specifically geometry….kinda related to the body.  Kinda-sorta, not really but maybe?  I like the muses from Xanadu.  I saw the musical on Broadway.  Camp-tastic!  Rollerskating in greek outfits….I mean I was Liviiiiiiiing! (full vibrato sung on that last word).

Here’s a pic from the show which incidentally also kinda looks like a Toga theme party I went to out on The Atlantis Gay Cruise.

I finally decided to take a more scientific route to naming the skeleton. 

I took a look at the chart and came up with an acronym of the bones that go from the head to the chest

Occipital

Sphenoid

Cervical Vertibrae

Axis

Ribs

So Oscar is the name that I officially submitted to the contest.

We used to do acronym stuff like this in grade school all the time, like with our names

Magical
A big brother
Tall
Tall (it was hard to come up with something else…I was a kid)
Helpful
Eats lot of candy
Wants Garbage Pail Kid cards

So I’m giving a shout out to Mrs. Kahney, my 4^th grade teacher, who taught me how to make  acronyms,  for helping me out with this contest.

On the topic of bones, here’s a gallery of other famous skeletons:

                                               Lucy, the Australopithecus

                                                          King Tut

                                                  Victoria Beckham