Argh... dang it! We lost. Argh.

[Sobbing noises, followed by intro]

Not only did we lose the DARPA Balloon Challenge despite being tantalizingly close to winning $40,000 to make the Project for Awesome that much more awesome, we lost because of the backstabbing subterfuge of our fellow nerds.

The fact that we engaged in thousands of episodes of backstabbing subterfuge yesterday does nothing to make me less angry!

Hank as the old saying goes, sticks and stones can break my bones, but only nerds can hurt me. So here's what happened: thanks to thousands of nerdfighters including hundreds who were dispatched to drive around their cities chasing after false leads, we were on the verge of completing the balloon challenge when MIT came out of nowhere and won.

Whereupon we found out that we actually weren't on the verge of completing the balloon challenge because the nerds at MIT called some nerdy friends of theirs in Michigan and they conspired to put up a fake balloon with a fake DARPA representative for the express purpose of tricking Nerdfighteria. Which worked.

But I still think we would have won, except that MIT was willing to pay people for information and we weren't. So we lost because we wouldn't sell our stupid integrity. Hank, I think there's a word for people who are willing to sell out their nerd values in order to get money. What is that word? Oh yeah, SELL OUTS!

Just kidding MIT team, you played a great game. And if we ever do this again, we're gonna punish you and make you cry like you haven't since you were in third grade and Jonathan Durkin called you a poopy-pants. Which by the way you weren't, you might have farted in your pants but you certainly didn't poop and being a farty-pants is completely socially acceptable!

I hope we get to do something like that again Nerdfighteria because it was a real pleasure to share yesterday with you. I want to thank the thousands of nerdfighters who gave us tens of thousands of tips. And who diligently inserted such convincingly false information that they sometimes tricked us. And I want to thank the Ningmasters over at nerdfighters.com who worked incredibly hard to sort through leads and confirm balloons.

And Hank I want to particularly thank our secret brother--whose last name comes from a different color--Dan Brown a.k.a youtube.com/pogobat because yesterday Dan Brown made about 20,000 phone calls. He called the manager of a trailer park in Bithlo, Florida. He called a Ben and Jerry's in New York State. He called a prison! He got hold of a prison guard and he was like, 'hey I want you to look outside the window, do you see a red balloon-LOOK TO YOUR LEFT'.

Lastly I want to thank everyone who called 660 69DFTBA from the really helpful calls:

[Voicemail Lady Nerdfighter] In Scottsdale, Arizona. Uh, the number of the balloon was number two.
[Lady Nerdfighter 2] I have a confirmed sighting of balloon number one. Sorry, balloon number one in Union Square in San Francisco.
[Lady Nerdfighter 3] Balloon number nine in Portland, Oregon.

[John] To the insane calls:

[Lady 4] Okay I found one. It's in your mum.

[John] To Napoleon Dynamite:

[Voice of ND] Are you guys having a killer time?

[John] Hank I think I can speak for you when I say that yesterday was the most fun we've ever had not winning $40,000. Nerdfighters every time we come together to do something it's incredibly fun and while we didn't win the $40,000, we can think of this as a way of kind of limbering up for the Project for Awesome. Coming to you as it always does on December 17th. Oh and if you don't know what the Project for Awesome is, look right beneath me. Not at my pants. Creepers.

Hank, I'll see you on Tuesday.
MIT, we're not gonna tell you the hour, or the day, but we're coming for you. One day there will be a decisive contest for internerdural domination. And we will be the Manderup Parsbjerg to your Tycho Brahe. Oh you don't know that reference MIT? Maybe you're not so nerdy after all.