Your pal The Hun! Photo by Vertumnus; click for full size.

Hello out there all you MOOP maniacs and line sweepers extraordinaire! It’s been a couple of weeks since Burning Man passed its BLM site inspection, and I’ll be honest: I’ve missed you! Almost as much as I miss my Playa Restoration family, now scattered to all corners of the earth to return next August.

You and I also have some loose ends to tie up. While I tried real hard to respond to every comment during MOOP Map Live 2012, I eventually ran out of time. Now I’m back to answer your questions!

First, A Note.

Going forward, let’s agree to be good to each other. The Restoration team understands that people are giving huge gifts of time, money, art and entertainment! We also understand how disappointing it can be when you don’t score as well as you’d like on the MOOP Map. Please, remember that the MOOP Map is a collaborative effort. The Restoration team’s job is to report the facts of what they find, and they do that as accurately as humanly possible.

When I post results here, do I call people names or insult what they did? Of course I don’t. Please offer me and my teammates the same respect, and extend that respect to every single one of your fellow Black Rock Citizens.

Now. These are some of the most common questions I’ve been asked this year. Don’t see your answer? Leave a comment and I’ll do my best!

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Two of our BLM site inspectors, holding what remained of the Man as of 11am this morning. Click to enlarge.

Hip-hip-HURRAH! Three cheers for YOU, Black Rock City. You did it again. You threw a humdinger of a whizbang, and left without a trace. That’s straight from the mouth of the Bureau of Land Management, who just completed their site inspection. They’re still tabulating the precise results, but at a glance they can tell us that YES, we passed, and Burning Man can happen again next year.

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Hello out there, MOOP maniacs and line sweepers extraordinaire! Well, this is it. The moment you’ve been waiting for has arrived. It’s almost time to unveil the COMPLETE 2012 MOOP MAP!

Finishing strong with one final cheer. Photo by Vertumnus; click to enlarge.

Let’s have a big hand for the Playa Restoration team, who covered more ground in 2012 than they’d ever done before. Kudos too to Mother Nature, also a major player in this game, who kept the winds low and the temperature moderate so our team could knock this one out of the park. It’s a year that will go down in legend, folks, and you were here to watch it happen.

Just some of the amazing people who make Playa Restoration the best time of the year. Photo by Vertumnus; click to enlarge.

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Tales From The Playa are dreams and memories of events that took place at Burning Man, as told by its participants.

Coyote is Black Rock City Superintendent and an original member of the Department of Public Works. Photo by Vertumnus; click to enlarge.

Here’s an urban myth — don’t care if it’s true or not.

Story goes that a construction worker had been given his last warning about drinking on the job. Being a hardcore alkie, he solved his problem by soaking his socks in vodka and wearing them inside his work boots all day, getting drunk anyway!

I say again — don’t care if it’s true or not, I just really want to believe it. I’m sayin let’s go “MythBusters” on this one. We have the technology.

For several years, DPW Playa Restoration has been stockpiling a cellar of rotgut vodka that not even we will drink. (Have you ever tasted “Vodka of the Gods?!) All we need now is a Sunday off, some volunteers from the audience (would DPW have some takers?), and socks.

(If it works, this could be a start of a new DPW tradition … “Vodka Sock Sunday?”).

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Hello out there, all you MOOP maniacs and line sweepers extraordinaire! After a nail-biting interlude, we are BACK with the results of the next round of MOOP Map Live 2012. Our brave Playa Restoration moopers are nearly done combing Black Rock City, and let me tell you, this year they’re going above and beyond to cover more of the city than has ever been mooped!

Some of you diehard fans out there have noticed that there’s a significant delay between when each round wraps up, and when we post the score here. That’s because mooping is an art and a science! Read on to find out more.

Each morning, D.A. and the Playa Restoration team review the current map and lay out a plan for the day. Photo by Vertumnus; click for full size.

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One of the sexiest things about Burning Man — which you don’t always hear in the media — is that we’re the largest practicing Leave No Trace event in the world. BOOM! We build it, we burn it, we blow it up, and we make it all disappear so it looks like nothing ever happened.

The Man explodes on September 1, 2012. Photo by Neil Girling. Click for original.

With 50,000+ attendees in 2012, Burning Man is the largest gathering on U.S. Public Lands. The Bureau of Land Management permits us to celebrate our culture in the Black Rock Desert, but we must make sure the playa is returned to its pristine condition, Leaving No Trace behind. After all, it is public land and it’s meant to be shared by everyone.

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Moopers at the starting line. Photo by Vertumnus. Click to enlarge!

Hello, hello, HELLO to all you MOOP maniacs and line sweepers extraordinaire! Welcome to our LIVE coverage of the event of the year, the thrilling final quarter of Burning Man 2012, the nail-biting conclusion to a rollercoaster season. That’s right: We’re about to start creating this year’s MOOP Map.

If you’re tuning in for the first time, here’s what you need to know: Burning Man may technically be over, but for the 115 members of the Playa Restoration team, it’s just getting going. These all-star, highly attuned and maniacally dedicated moopers are about to comb the width and breadth of Black Rock City, picking up every last piece of MOOP they can before time runs out. What will they find? Will they finish in time? We’re about to find out.

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Tales From The Playa are dreams and memories of events that took place at Burning Man, as told by its participants.

Hello out there — if anyone is out there.

The Hun here, reporting from Reno where the ghosts and ghouls and glamorously undead have taken over the town. So far I’m safe here, barricaded in my house with eleven guns and a month’s supply of candy. But OMG! How I regret not warning you all weeks ago, when maybe we could’ve stopped this from happening. I should said something. But I kept it a secret, and now we’re all paying the price.

It may be too late for the truth to help things, but here we go. It started way back in August, when Stinger rolled into Gerlach with an angry-looking lump on her jaw.

She said it was a bee sting, and we all believed her. Maybe it really was a bee sting — but from what kind of bee? Even with medication, the lump didn’t heal. It just grew bigger, and blacker.

After a while, Stinger disappeared. We all figured she’d gone to the hospital to get that gigantic infected wound taken care of.

But then, a few days before the end of Playa Restoration, it happened. When the MOOP line showed up for work, Stinger was there. I don’t know how she got out to the desert; maybe she walked there. The lump was gangrenous and putrid, and it had eaten half her face. She didn’t seem to notice. She seemed… well, she seemed an awful lot like a zombie.

And then the worst happened: She attacked.

taking Deadpan unawares.

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