The Style Invitational Week 883 Compare and contrast

By The Empress

Saturday, August 21, 2010; C02

 

Chicken lo mein

The New York Yankees

Water balloons

A dental appointment

Illinois

Montezuma's Revenge

Arlington National Cemetery

An Elizabethan sonnet

Gulf Coast beaches

Venn diagrams

A Real Housewife of D.C.

School lunches

The Nobel Prize

Your friend's nose

 

Here's a perennial Invitational contest that treads some of the same ground as this week's results, without all the circles and stuff: Choose any two items from the list above and explain why they are alike or are different from each other. Some of the categories were used in non-inking entries for the Venn diagram contest; maybe they'll feel more at home here.

 

Winner gets the Inker, the official Style Invitational trophy. Second place receives the fine reference book "Five People Who Died During Sex, and 100 Other Terribly Tasteless Lists."

 

Other runners-up win their choice of a coveted Style Invitational Loser T-shirt -- current or classic model -- or yearned-for Loser Mug. Honorable Mentions get one of the lusted-after Style Invitational Loser Magnets. First Offenders get a smelly, tree-shaped air "freshener" (Fir Stink for their First Ink). One prize per entrant per week. Send your entries by e-mail to losers@washpost.com or by fax to 202-334-4312. Deadline is Monday, Aug. 30. Put "Week 883" in the subject line of your e-mail, or it risks being ignored as spam. Include your name, postal address and phone number with your entry. Contests are judged on the basis of humor and originality. All entries become the property of The Washington Post. Entries may be edited for taste or content. Results to be published Sept. 18. No purchase required for entry. Employees of The Washington Post, and their immediate relatives, are not eligible for prizes. Pseudonymous entries will be disqualified. The revised title for next week's results is by Chris Doyle; this week's honorable-mentions subhead is by Kevin Dopart. The diagrams were produced by Bob Staake and Valerie Holt; Craig Dykstra did his own.

 

Report from Week 879, in which we asked you to express some observation about similarities and dissimilarities as a Venn diagram (or, in some cases, a Euler diagram, which doesn't show every possible intersection): The Inker-winner, the three runners-up and the honorable mentions -- "Below-grade intersections," as they're labeled in the print edition of this column -- appear in the slide show on the top right of this page. Except for one offbeat HM that didn't fit the frame's dimensions. That one, thought up by Barry Koch and drawn by Bob Staake, is here.

 

Winner: Russell Beland, Fairfax, Va.

RU 1: Craig Dykstra, Centreville

RU 2: Ring Alexander, New York

RU 3: Joshua Kaplowitz, Arlington

 

Below-grade intersections: Honorable mentions

 

Beverley Sharp, Washington

Russell Beland, Fairfax

Dion Black, Washington

Eric Murphy, Washington

Jeff Contompasis, Ashburn, Va.

Russell Beland, Fairfax

Bird Waring, Larchmont, N.Y.

Bruce Alter, Fairfax Station, Va.

Russell Beland, Fairfax, Va.

Beverley Sharp, Washington

Russell Beland, Fairfax, Va.

Jeff Contompasis, Ashburn, Va.

Kevin Dopart, Washington

Sheri Tardio, Prince Frederick, Md.

Kevin Dopart, Washington

Kevin Dopart, Washington

Kevin Dopart, Washington

Barry Koch

 

Next week: Our greatest hit, or Lex-change operations