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We're a fun-loving region with an amiable competitive streak. Each of the past several years, we've engaged in "word wars"--contests wtih other regions to see who can write the most words in their novels. Our challenges end with the losing region having to sing the regional song of the winning region. Did I mention that we have a really nifty regional song?
See this page for the songs involved in the battle with Maryland
See this page for the songs involved in the battle with Alberta::Calgary
In 2009, Naperville defeated both UK::Birmingham-West
Midlands and Belgium&Holland in the
UK::Birmingham-West Midlands
The WriMo's of Birmingham-West Midlands, led by their gracious MLs Duochanfan and Cieria, paid off their bet with
this good spirited delivery of Naperville's theme song: Typin'
Away Again Near Dear ol' Naperville (as sung in a coffee shop!)
Arike wrote:
Dear Tim, other MLs and participants of Naperville,
First off, a very happy new year to you! We hope you've a had some good holidays, family time and rest, and we wish you the very best for 2010.
Once upon a November, Naperville neatly beat Holland and Belgium in a word war. The stakes were to sing the other region's song, and so we did, at a late TGIO party. Several of those gathered to raise their glasses in celebration volunteered to do our best in a rendition of your song. We were well prepared: computer, mike, lyrics and example of the song were all there, so we gathered round for a few practice rounds. You can imagine how those practice rounds went in a crowded pub. We crashed and burned rather spectacularly. In reparation, we also offer you a song of St Nicholas (our Santa Claus, who comes on December 5th). We hope you like it, and we apologise to any sensitive musical ears that might be listening. We hope we entertained you a little, at least. We enjoyed the word war loads, hope that you did too, and once again happy new year from this side of the big pond!
Cheers,
Arike
The Holland and Belgium recording: Naperville_and_Stoomboot.mp3
Also catch this funny cartoon from Holland cartoonist HannahK
from our TGIO
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Here are our recorded songs from the 11/01 kick-off event:
Here are our recorded songs from the 10/27 pre-kick-off event:
5 Mb .mp3 of our 2006 shout-out (complete with initial blooper where the library announcement interrupted us). The lyrics are here. There is also a karafun karaoke file of the song. Karafun freeware.
In 2006, half-way through November, Illinois::Naperville challenged Quebec::Montreal to a total regional wordcount war, with the terms: the losing region would sing the winning region's song. Montreal, at the time of the challenge, was two places above Naperville in the world wordcount rankings. Naperville passed them by and was 3-6 places above them for the remainder of the month. Then, in the last hours of the last day, Montreal put forth great effort and apparently passed by Naperville, rising three spots in the world wordcount rankings. Fortunately for Illinois::Naperville, they didn't win, though they came within a very slim 38k words!
Here is Montreal's rendition of Typin' Away Again Near Dear Old Naperville (2.9Mb mp3)
Naperville, ever a gracious victor, went ahead and sang O Dear Brave Montreal (and other songs) (pdf file with lyrics). See the Word War results + pointers to the Quebec::Montreal and Illinois::Naperville forums.
Here are the Illinois::Naperville mp3 files:
At our TGIO party we re-recorded all four songs, just for the fun of it:
NaNoWriMo Wiki for the Chicago Western Suburbs (NaperWriMo)