Yes, folks, that famous strike-a-single-sentence-blow-for-purple-prose challenge has been decided once more. The 2009 results are in!

If you don't know it, the Bulwer-Lytton is a contest that has been sponsored and run by a professor at San Jose State University since 1983. The rules are simple: in one sentence, compose something in the most florid, turgid collision of low concept and high style that your wits will allow. Then drink a few Red Bulls, try again, and submit that, too.

Personally, I still don't think anyone has topped the 2005 winning entry:

As he stared at her ample bosom, he daydreamed of the dual Stromberg carburetors in his vintage Triumph Spitfire, highly functional yet pleasingly formed, perched prominently on top of the intake manifold, aching for experienced hands, the small knurled caps of the oil dampeners begging to be inspected and adjusted as described in chapter seven of the shop manual.

   -Dan McKay, Fargo, ND