A little news, a little contest. First, the news:

We got a proof of the official SpaceUp patch today, and it is dee-licious. Take a look at this:

Also today, FedEx dropped off two big boxes full of Rocket Pit Crew shirts from Tim Bailey of Sky Fire Lab. The shirts were designed by Karen Lau of Astracultura for the X Prize Cup. How cool is that? They’re for SpaceUp attendees, in addition to the official SpaceUp shirts. (Those are still being designed.)

So how do you get one of these super-snappy items? The easiest way is to come to SpaceUp. (I hear you also get to talk about space as a side benefit.)

The other way is to help us get the word out on Twitter*. We’d like to see more awesome people at SpaceUp, but you know more awesome people than we do. Here’s how it works:

1. To nominate someone, send a tweet like this:
   “I want to see @mrdoornbos at #SpaceUp because he’s a BRICK! HOUSE! http://tr.im/gopatchy”
2. For each tweep you nominate, you get one entry in the daily prize drawing. A reason (after the because) is required, because.
3. Each morning, I’ll randomly** select one tweet from the previous day’s nominations; the author gets their choice of either a SpaceUp San Diego t-shirt, a SpaceUp patch, or a Rocket Pit Crew t-shirt.
4. After one week, the nominations will be tallied** and the tweep with the most nominations will get a free registration to SpaceUp. Also: fame.
5. As a special bonus prize, the first tweep to nominate the winner will also get a free SpaceUp registration.

So there you go. Seven chances to get hot hot items, and two ways to get the whole set. Never say I didn’t get you anything.

It starts today, Wednesday, February 3rd. The first daily winner will be announced tomorrow. Ask questions in the comments, or email me.

* I’d love to do this on Facebook as well, but I have no way of figuring out who said what. If you know how, send me the suggestion.

** With mad software skills. Everybody stand back, I know regular expressions!

The fine print:
Seriously? There needs to be fine print? That’s so sad. Anyway: No purchase necessary to enter. Nominations must be posted on Twitter; to sign up for a free account, go to twitter.com. For the purposes of the random selection, each day of the contest starts and ends at midnight Pacific Time, or 0800 UTC. Daily prizes (7) have an estimated value too small to really be worth listing here. It’s mostly sentimental, you know? Weekly prizes (2) have an estimated value around $75, if you figure the nominee will actually come to SpaceUp. Which is pretty much what we’re looking for anyway, so let’s go with $75. Offer valid wherever humans live, including the International Space Station. So go ahead and nominate Astro_Tweeps. We’ll get the prize to you somehow, guys. Please don’t sue the organizers of SpaceUp or the San Diego Space Society, because we’re just trying to have a little fun. OK? OK.