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September 2010 issue

In case you missed it in the update to the last newsletter:
Stuck at Prom Update: Voting is over and the first place winners are... (tape roll please)

AVON, Ohio (July 28, 2010) – The results are in and after a five-week online voting period generating more than 44,000 votes, Ray Banna, 18, Chandler, Ariz., and Yancy Esquivel, 17, Gilbert, Ariz., have stuck it out to win the 10th-annual Duck® brand duct tape Stuck at Prom® Scholarship Contest, including the top $3,000 scholarship prize.

Banna and Esquivel beat out more 240 couples from 43 states and six Canadian provinces to be crowned this year’s Stuck at Prom winning couple. Banna and Esquivel each received a $3,000 scholarship and Mesquite High School, Gilbert, Ariz., was also awarded $3,000 for hosting the prom.

Designed using 30 rolls of white, black, electric blue, chrome and green Duck® tape, the winning outfits are showstoppers, featuring an intricate, original duct tape swirl pattern. Banna’s white tuxedo and electric blue vest are both accented with the signature black swirl, while Esquivel’s dress is the perfect complement with a white halter corset top and pick-up bottom that’s adorned in the duct tape design and handmade beads. Completing the ensembles are one-of-a-kind accessories, including an electric blue bow tie, boutonniere and shoes for Banna, and Esquivel’s matching purse, corsage, jewelry and hair extensions, all created out of duct tape, of course.

Banna and Esquivel weren’t the only duct tape duo to be rewarded for their creative fashions. Second place winners Brittany Moran and Rowan Ketchum, Williamson, N.Y., each received $2,000 and $2,000 for their high school, Williamson High School. Carina Epp and Susie Redekop, Leamington, Ontario, placed third, each winning a $1,000 scholarship and $1,000 for United Mennonite Educational Institute, Leamington, Ontario.

In honor of the 10-year anniversary of the Stuck at Prom Contest, the remaining seven couples among the Top 10 finalists each received a $500 scholarship and a $500 reward was given to each school that hosted the proms.

A panel of judges narrowed all contestants down to 10 finalist couples. Entries were judged on a number of criteria, including workmanship, originality, use of colors, accessories and quantity of duct tape used. The public then voted for their favorite outfits in a new five-week voting format, implemented to commemorate the contest’s 10-year milestone. Two couples with the lowest number of online votes were voted off weekly between June 18-July 26, 2010, to determine the winners.

To view all of the entries in the 2010 Stuck at Prom Scholarship Contest, visit stuckatprom.com.


Top Ten Back to School Uses for Duct Tape
10. Backpack reinforcement - help that old backpack make it through one more year of school - reinforce the bottom and seams with duct tape.

9. Contruct your own backpack! Cover a grocery bag entirely in Duct Tape, then duct tape the bag onto your kid's back (over clothing to avoid back skin and neck hair loss).

8. Book covers: Cover your books in paper, then cover the paper with duct tape. Don't tape right onto the book (school administrators are not real duct tape friendly, and will probably fine you for duct tape stickem all over your returned books).

7. Lunch money clip: Duct tape your kid's lunch money to the back of their leg so they don't loose it or have it stolen by the school bully.

6. Note from home security: Tape those notes from home onto your kid's forehead so they don't forget to give them to the teacher.

5. Reusable lunch bag: Don't waste your money purchasing a nylon reusable lunch bag... simply duct tape over a paper lunch bag - your kid will be the envy of the classroom, and this bag will last them right through to college!

4. Sandwich safety belt. Avoid the stain and embarrassment of sandwich spills. Duct tape around the sandwich holds the fillings in place. You just eat down to the duct tape - then squeeze the contents out.

3. Book straps: Some schools are forbidding backpacks because of security issues. The Duct Tape Guys suggest making a book strap out of duct tape (like grandpa and grandma used as kids). To avoid books from spilling out of the strap, duct tape the spines of the books to the strap.

2. Duct tape fashion: Save HUGE bucks... instead of purchasing expensive brand name clothing, cover your last year's outfits entirely in duct tape. Go with silver for the heavy metal look, black for a mysterious/artsy look, or try one of Duck® brand duct tape’s NEW Xtreme Tape® - it's duct tape in dayglo colors: hot pink, lime green, citron yellow, and blaze orange. The same colors that are so trendy with the Xtreme Sports participants.

1. Make a knowledge magnet. Duct tape around your head sticky-side-out, and every word that your teachers say will stick to the tape and soak into your brain. (This has not been fully tested, it's just a theory at this point).


Extra! Extra! This just in! Duck® Brand announces two new patterned tapes!
Check out the two cool new patterned tapes in the Duck brand duct tape line-up: Zig Zag Zebra and Spotted Leopard.
Perfect for making back to school book covers, backpacks, belts, purses, wallets, etc. Click here for more info: DuckProducts.com


Jack-O-Lantern Contest
Set Aside the Carving Tools and Break Out the Duct Tape!

Duck® brand duct tape to award $1,000 for best-decorated pumpkin in the Stick or Treat™ Jack-O-Lantern Contest-

The art of pumpkin decorating seems to become more intricate
every year – from funny faces and scary demons to black cats and witch silhouettes, pumpkin carvers are taking this Halloween tradition to the next level. And, this year, the most creative design could earn $1,000 from the Duck® brand…if it’s made with duct tape.

Duck® brand duct tape is challenging pumpkin carvers to set aside the knives and break out the duct tape in the Stick or Treat™ Jack-O-Lantern Contest. In years past, trick-ortreaters fashioned amazing and unique costumes out of colored Duck® tape, but this year, the Duck® brand is putting creativity to the test to see how well Halloween fanatics’ pumpkin decorating skills can fare. All they need to do is find a pumpkin (real or artificial), think of a creative pattern, design or unique face, and use duct tape to deck out their pumpkin.

Starting on September 6, 2010, Duck® tape users will be able to enter the Stick or TreatJack-O-Lantern Contest by submitting a photograph of their duct tape jack-o-lantern via the Stick-or-Treat promotion page on www.duckbrand.com. The contest ends on November 1, 2010, and all eligible entries will be judged by a panel of judges based on originality, workmanship, use of color and quantity of duct tape used. The winners of the contest will be announced on or around November 17, 2010.

The first place winner in the Stick or Treat Jack-O-Lantern Contest will win a $1,000 cash prize. The second place winner will receive $500 and the third place winner will receive $250.

So, Halloween and jack-o-lantern fanatics, step out of your comfort zones, set aside the carving tools and pick up a few rolls of colored duct tape to create your masterpiece. brand has more than 20 colors and patterns of colored duct tape including the new Totally Tie-Dye™ and Cosmic Tie-Dye™ patterns to decorate your pumpkin with this year. You’ll be the envy of the entire neighborhood and you could become $1,000 richer in the process.


Girlie Show
Don't worry, it's not what you think it is... this is, after all, a family-friendly site, and Tim does pretty much exclusively "G-rated" art. So, don't let the name of this little video of Tim's paintings fool you.

Just sit back for a few moments and check out what occupies Tim's time other than evangelizing the gospel of duct tape. This video features Tim's paintings of women... mostly imagined - a few based on real people. Perhaps you will see someone you know.

Oh, and when the two paintings flip by that might fall into what might be a PG-rated area, just avert your eyes. Click here to watch.

When you are on that YouTube page, you will also find other videos of Tim's paintings - abstracts, faces, painting to live jazz... all FUN ART!


The Duct Tape Store has moved...
We moved our Duct Tape Pro Shop to Octane Street. In an effort to update our stores and get them to a place where more people can find them, we moved them to Octane Street. Here you can still purchase our books (in the bookstore) and Duct Tape apparel (in the Humor Apparel Store). There's also a storefront for the Duct Tape Guys. Check it out and click around Octane Street - you just might discover some other humorous creations from Tim and company while you are there.


We're on Facebook

We're just as much into the "social networking" thing as the next guy - and would rather you get on our email list where you get notices of special sales, duct tape product news, our newsletter, etc. But, if you are totally into facebook, we'll meet you there, too. Just click on the link on the left and we'll "friend" the heck outta ya!


Dale's Discoveries
(A feature that will be showcasing weird stuff that our friend Dale comes up with.) Visit Dale's TallToysTroupe site

So I heard a statistic that, if the entire population of China were to walk by you 8 abreast, the line would never end due to the rate of reproduction. This caused me to wonder - Would the Chinese actually be reproducing while they were waiting in line to walk past me?

My lovely wife has been running a mile every morning and every night. Before she left this evening for her run, I asked her to put on my shoes instead of hers. She didn't. Does that mean that she cannot legally criticize me now?

I have come to the conclusion that, by the time you factor in the energy expended by picking all the stuff out of your teeth afterwards, eating corn on the cob may actually result in a caloric loss.

It is amazing how much you can learn about a person just by going thru all their personal, private stuff.

I think that perhaps my sons have been playing too many video games of late. They were playing an actual game of chess with an actual board and pieces. The 7 year old left to go to the bathroom and told his brother to "pause the game, I'll be right back."

I saw a sign for a company in Fort Collins called the "Colorado Boring Company". I think I know people who would be perfect employees for that place.

I don't remember having my mid-life crisis yet but I did notice that I am starting to have a favorite chair.

If you love something, set it free. Well, unless you love a poisonous snake and happen to have it with you on the subway or something.

I noticed that there was a McDonald's inside of a Wal Mart. What? Like going to McDonald's isn't bad enough by itself?!

Brittany C. noticed a sign at the entrance to the "Bizzaro" ride at Six Flags New England that said, "Riders must have AT LEAST two legs..." (emphasis added). Hmmm. I wonder if that means that this guy would really enjoy that particular ride.

Why do people who are going hiking always try to get parking spaces as close as possible to the trailhead?

People are always wondering why Dorothy wanted to go back to Kansas rather than stay in Oz. I always wondered what Jackie Paper found to do that was so much more interesting than playing with a dragon.

I don't really think of myself as a bad cook but my kids have actually developed a dance that they do to the sound of the smoke detector alarm.

If Jesus were alive today, would he have a bumper sticker that said, "Honk if you love me"?

Dale's Website Discoveries

One of the things that I loved doing when I was in high school was listening to Jean Shepherd on WOR radio 710 in New York on a transistor radio that I kept next to my pillow. He was, in my opinion, one of the true humorists of our age. His timeless monologues are just as brilliant and timely now as when he first broadcast them. Here is a website that will give you radio programs and live appearances dating back to the 1950s and up until the 70s. I would highly, and by that I mean highly, recommend this site to anyone who wants to hear brilliant insight into life as we experienced it during the 20th century.

This is a blog written by a friend of mine whose mission, among many, is to awaken the creative spirit present within each of us. Grab a cup of tea, sit back and enjoy it.


Jim and Tim's Cool Website Finds

We found the best history of duct tape ever written (by someone other than the Duct Tape Guys) - including the first ever duct tape book - alternative uses of cloth medical tape. Click here.


Meet us at The Duct Tape Diner. We’ve had some great stories over the counter at the Duct Tape Diner recently. If you haven’t yet read the Diner contributions, stop by! This is where we invite our visitors to share their own duct tape stories. Just like these people did:

Tire Repair Four friends and I went on a hunting trip. Before daylight, I ran over someone's hunting stand in the road and blew out my tire. We put on the spare and went hunting. That evening, we moved to a new spot and heard some air leaking. There was a stick in spare tire we had just put on. We were fifty miles from town and no new tires. We looked in our tool boxes to see what we could fix the leak with. I found a roll of duct tape. My friends laughed and said, "You can't fix a tire with duct tape!" Then I started thinking... I rolled up a little plug out of a strip of duct tape about ten inches long (sticky-side out). I jammed the plug into the hole with a screwdriver and melted the tape with a lighter and used the screwdriver to spread the molten tape around the outside of the hole. Using a 12 volt air compressor, we aired up the tire and it held all night and fifty miles back to town. The guys at the repair shop were totally impressed with our duct tape repair job! --- Jacob C.

Bulb Removal Got a stubborn bulb? Can't fit your fingers around it in the can to twist it out? Just make a little duct tape "T" to stick on the sturface of the bulf and you can twist it out with ease! Duct Tape is also handy for removing broken bulbs from the sockets. Ever twist a bulb out and the glass comes out and not the metal base? Just wrap duct tape around your finger, sticky-sideout and stick it in the socket (with lamp turned off and unplugged, of course). Twist the broken base out with ease! - Josh, Seattle, WA

Dad's Shoes My dad loves his shoes (photo on right). "I can't wait to get them on the in the morning, they are so comfortable!" he says. When one of them started to meet its demise, he wasn't about to part with them. So, out with the duct tape. This Christmas I'm getting him a roll of brown duct tape and he can do a preventative taping on both shoes. - Tim, St. Paul, MN

More Sole Savers: I worked at a wilderness camp for several years and often found myself stepping out of a tent or canoe into cold mud or icy water. Over the years I wore out several pairs of sneakers and hiking boots, which I spent tons of money on replacing... until my money ran short once and inexpensive duct tape came to the rescue. I used it to patch my shoes and boots repeatedly, finding it waterproof and durable. And, when it did finally wear out, a new layer of tape restored the footwear immediately... and saved me from the $150+ cost of new boots. Good taping! - Dave A., North Vancouver, BC

Duct Tape Alien Queen Here is a costume from last Halloween at The University of Chicago: a full body duct-tape Alien Queen. It stands over eight feet tall, five feet wide, and the head is over six feet deep. It was made with over 200ft of pvc piping and is completely covered with over 1000ft of black duct tape (even the teeth are black duct-tape turned sticky-side out). It is a shame that I don't have good pictures of the 15ft duct-tape/pvc/chain caber we tossed around. - Sawyer G. NOTE: STOP BACK NEXT MONTH FOR OUR SPECIAL HALLOWEEN ISSUE.

For the Birds Rob of Shoreview, MN used duct tape to not only repair the birdhouse roof leak, but also to hang the house (above).

Reach Extender on a Roll A dead limb fell on top of the roof of my two story house. I do not have a ladder to get up there and would not have the desire if I did. I took my garden rake and duct tape sliced my long handle shovel which to I duct tape sliced my grass rake. Standing on the ground I was able to rack the stick off the top of my roof. - Ed


Adults say the darndest things...

"I haven't committed a crime. What I did was fail to comply with the law."
- David Dinkins, New York City Mayor, answering accusations that he failed to pay his taxes

"They gave me a book of checks. They didn't ask for any deposits."
- Congressman Joe Early (D-Mass) at a press conference to answer questions about the House Bank scandal

"He didn't say that. He was reading what was given to him in a speech."
- Richard Darman, director of OMB, explaining why President Bush wasn't following up on his campaign pledge that there would be no loss of wetlands

"It depends on your definition of asleep. They were not stretched out. They had their eyes closed. They were seated at their desks with their heads in a nodding position."
- John Hogan, Commonwealth Edison Supervisor of News Information, responding to a charge by a Nuclear Regulatory Commission inspector that two Dresden Nuclear Plant operators were sleeping on the job

click this ad to get this ridiculous deal:

"I didn't accept it. I received it."
- Richard Allen, National Security Advisor to President Reagan, explaining the $1000 in cash and two watches he was given by two Japanese journalists after he helped arrange a private interview for them with First Lady Nancy Reagan

"I was a pilot flying an airplane and it just so happened that where I was flying made what I was doing spying."
- Francis Gary Power, U-2 reconnaissance pilot held by the Soviets for spying, in an interview after he was returned to the US

"I was under medication when I made the decision not to burn the tapes."
- President Richard Nixon

"Smoking kills. If you're killed, you've lost a very important part of your life."
- Brooke Shields, during an interview to become spokesperson for a federal anti-smoking campaign

"I support efforts to limit the terms of members of Congress, especially members of the House and members of the Senate."
- Vice-President Dan Quayle

"Outside of the killings, Washington has one of the lowest crime rates in the country."
- Mayor Marion Barry, Washington, D.C.

"Sure, it's going to kill a lot of people, but they may be dying of something else anyway."
- Othal Brand, member of a Texas pesticide review board, on chlordane

"Beginning in February 1976 your assistance benefits will be discontinued. Reason: it has been reported to our office that you expired on January 1, 1976."
- Letter from the Illinois Department of Public Aid

"The streets are safe in Philadelphia. It's only the people who make them unsafe."
- Frank Rizzo, ex-police chief and mayor of Philadelphia

"I've always thought that underpopulated countries in Africa are vastly underpolluted."
- Lawrence Summers, chief economist of the World Bank, explaining why we should export toxic wastes to Third World countries

"The crime bill passed by the Senate would reinstate the Federal death penalty for certain violent crimes: assassinating the President; hijacking an airliner; and murdering a government poultry inspector."
- Knight-Ridder News Service dispatch

"After finding no qualified candidates for the position of principal, the school board is extremely pleased to announce the appointment of David Steele to the post."
- Philip Streifer, Superintendent of Schools, Barrington, Rhode Island


Nab all the cool, original Duct Tape Pro™ Duct Tape Apparel you want at the Pro Shop
The Duct Tape Pro Shop is the only place in the universe to get Genuine Duct Tape Guys Originals. There are many rip-offs available - some at major department stores, but they're illegal copyright infringements. Please don't buy them. Anything that you see on our site are our original designs and slogans.

And remember, when it comes time to buy our BOOKS - including the WD-40 Book and the entire Duct Tape genre for your dad, grandpa... friends and relatives (or yourself) there's no better place than the Pro Shop - that's because we autograph everything that we ship. And, we've got GREAT deals that you won't find anywhere else - in the world! So stop by the Duct Tape Pro Shop and see what's in store for you! Thanks for your patronage! - The Duct Tape Guys


Well, that’s it for now. Remember that you can share this FREE duct tape and humor newsletter with your friends. Just send them this address: http://www.ducttapeguys.com/list so they can SUBSCRIBE to our email notification list.

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May the Tape be with you!
- Jim and Tim - The Duct Tape Guys

Click here for archived On a Roll Newsletters: 1/02, 2/02, 3/02, 03/19/02, 4/02, 5/02, 6/02, 7/02, 08/02, 09/02. 10/02, 11/02, 12/02, 01/03, 02/03, 03/03, 4/03, 05/03. 06/03 07/03 8/03 9/03 10/03 11/03, 12/03, 1/04, 2/04, 3/04, 4/04, 5/04, 6/04, 7/04, 8/04, 9/04, 10/04, election issue, 11/04, 12/04, 01/05, 2/05, 3/05, 4/05, 5/05, 06/05, 7/05, 08/05, 09/05, 10/05, 11/05, 12/05, 01/06, 2/06, 3/06, 4/06, 5/06, 6/06, 7/06, 8/06, 9/06,10/06,11/06, 12/06, 1/07, 2/07, 3/07. 4/07, 5/07, 6/07. 7/07, 8-9/07, 10-11/07, 12/07, 01/08, 02-03/08,4-5/08, 6-7/08, 8-9/08, 10-11/08, 12/08 and 1/09, 2-3/09, 4-5/09, 6-7/09, 8/09, 10-11/09, 12/09, 2/10, 3-4/10, 5-6/10, 7-8/10,10/10,