You have the unseasonable warmth in New York to thank for the availability of today's Swag Tester prize. We all thought that the Scribblenauts "rooster cap" would make for cozy winter headwear, but since the cold is taking its sweet time arriving here, we decided we ought to pass it along to someone in chillier climes. Plus, the last time I wore it out of the office, I was laughed at and pelted with eggs and sweetbreads. In any case, time to part with this thing.

Honest to goodness, I just realized while typing this that it's also sort of a chicken-related item, which is great because I'm sure you haven't had enough of the chicken stuff on this site. I'm sure that a bucket of KFC grilled chicken isn't the last thing you see when your close your eyes to go to sleep for the night, when you finally think you can have some relief, but then you have dreams about chickens, and they're eating you with coleslaw and a homestyle biscuit, and you say, "You can't get grilled John Teti on a value menu," and they all say "Yeah, you can!" YEAH YOU CAN, they shriek, YEAH YOU CAN!!!!!

But in truth, the hat has nothing to do with roosters. Whew. It's just the hat that Maxwell wore in the game Scribblenauts, you know, the game where you can write the names of things and then those things appear. Wotta concept! Evan Moore and I tested the hat out to see if it matched the brilliance of this incredibly groundbreaking game, which everybody is still playing and never ever got tired of, right?

If you want the cap—one of two caps, actually—leave a comment below telling us why it is absolutely essential for you to have a goofy red hat with a chinstrap. Be creative! Check the last Swag Tester post for all the rules and whatnot, and look for the winners to be posted next Monday.

The results are in: Confessor is the randomly selected winner of the PopCap booty featured in last week's Swag Tester.

Commenter girlgamer21 receives the honorable mention—a random bit of swag and, of course, the usual Crispy Gamer T-shirt—because she used the phrase "bad telly tubby" in her comment:

I saw a guy on the news dressed as the purple telly tubby with a suitcase turns out he was stealing things from people's homes on halloween night. This is no joke this really happened. Bad telly tubby.

There was also a good tale from togmkn, who took heed of my advice to make something up (or did he?):

I saw a little kid dressed up as Batman. It was a decent Batman costume, as far as little kid ones go.

Thing was, I just bought Arkham Asylum and have been having a hard time beating Bane. I just snapped! I was like, "I WILL FOLD YOU LIKE PAPER!!" and charged towards him. But the little tyke threw a batarang and jumped out of the way! I ran into the garage door, stumbled back, and the snot bubble jumped up and kicked me in the nose.

I gave him a Snickers. It was the worst Halloween ever.

Look for a new Swag Tester next week.

Swag Tester is like backwards American Idol. We do the results first, and then we ask the contestants to perform. Yet it works. So first things first: Here are the results from the last Swag Tester. Randomly selected Killstring walks away with a Dark Void travel bag. And This_is_suicide gets a runner-up swag gift, grabbed haphazardly off my desk, because s/he came right out and begged for some swag. Note: That trick will only work once. (Also, This_is_suicide, see the note at the bottom of this post.)

Here's the thing about the good folks at PopCap. They make excellent games—generally well-loved in the Crispy offices, even if Jones turns his nose up at Peggle—but the above-and-beyond part is that their swag is pretty good, too. It seems they put as much creative energy into coming up with swag as they put into the actual software.

I've gathered up all my PopCap treasures, mostly PvZ stuff with a little Bejeweled thrown in. One of you will be gifted with the whole shebang, seen here as photographed in our conference room, also known as The Hall of Inconsistent Lighting.

Clockwise from left:
- PvZ "Ask Me About Moustache Mode" T-shirt
- Bejeweled Twist kaleidoscope
- Real-life Bejeweled jewel
- PvZ Brain Ooze energy drink
- PvZ zombie and sunflower masks
- PvZ "no zombies" sticker
- PC/Mac boxed copy of PvZ
- Plants vs. Zombie Bedtime mini-comic

Here are close-ups of a couple especially choice items:

Moustache T-shirt.

Bejeweled jewel, shaped like a huge cut diamond. Much cooler in person.

I chose the zombie mask for experimentation in the Swag Tester labs. Here are the results:

If you want this hulking pile of swag, leave a comment in the thread below answering this question: What was the best game-related Halloween costume you made/wore/saw this year? And if you didn't see any game-related Halloween costumes, just make something up. This ain't The McNeil-Lehrer News Hour here.

One eligible commenter will be chosen at random to get the PopCap stuff, and another commenter who makes me laugh might get a different crazy prize from the Great Stack of Swag on my desk. I'll toss in some Crispy hats, too, because we have thousands of them in the back room. And we don't even have a back room! You see the problem, then.

Important boring note that I have to put here mostly because of the crazy Facebook Connect stuff that I don't understand: If you don't have a valid email address in your Crispy profile (a group that apparently includes everyone who registered on Crispy through Facebook), we can't contact you if you win! Please email prizes at crispygamer.com if there's any doubt. And This_is_suicide, I don't know if you're a Facebook guy or not, but in any case, we couldn't reach you, so email us. That way, we can send you free stuff.

Final boring note: We can only ship prizes within North America.

Inspiring call to action, so that we don't end on tedious logistical stuff: Let the repartee commence, readers!

Enough of this transpacific travel and caption-contest folderol. We must return now to the serious business of Swag Tester, which in our last episode, granted commenter Confessor the coveted prize of a Modern Warfare 2 pen set and a Crispy cap.

But hey, posting the funny comments on the caption contest was fun, right? So, if you want to be humorous in the Swag Tester comments, let's do that. The winner will still be picked at random, but in the meantime we'll have some laffs.

The prize this time is a "Tesla Air" travel set to promote the game Dark Void. It's coming out in January from Capcom, and I wasn't aware of it until I got this package, so it was pretty effective swag, I guess.

This is also the most useful piece of swag I've ever received. We all were marveling in the Crispy office about the attention to detail on display. It really is quite a good little pack for the plane. Here's a picture:

Clockwise from left: Shoulder bag, blanket, TSA-approved liquid containers, inflatable neck pillow, "hanging toiletry tote bag" (according to the label).

I gave the neck pillow an honest-to-goodness test during my Japan trip, because my old inflatable pillow sprung a leak, and it worked like a champ. But honest-to-goodness tests are not the way we do things here at Swag Tester, so I conducted the REAL test by seeing if my brother's cat Zissou would find the bag an acceptable cat bed.

Yes, I'm becoming a cat person. Blame Jones. Anyway, your Tesla Air pack will be a fresh one, no neck sweat or cat hair on any of the items. And you can acquire it by answering the following question in the comments: "Is there a Dark Void in your gaming life? What is it, and how could it be filled?" Please restrict yourself to responses that do not run astray of any local or federal statutes.

A winner will be chosen at random from commenters who answer the question. (Note: We can only ship prizes within North America, alas.) Will there be a secret bonus surprise gift if I find a response especially clever? I don't know, maybe!

(By the way, if you registered through Facebook, that is super, but it also means we don't have an email address on file for you in case you win. So drop a line to prizes [at] crispygamer.com if there's any doubt that we have your email address. We won't use this address for anything except contacting you if you get a prize.)

Nothing big to say -- except the fanboy in me went 'Holy Crap!' when I opened the box from Nintendo.

It included a Bowser stuffed animal, a Mario beanbag doll, a white DSi, a backpack and the Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Insider Story game. Me, I'd have been happy with just the game. The other stuff is really cool, though.

Game critics are always happy to see what kind of PR-related kitsch comes in the mail. It's like the holiday for those who appreciate gifts that are $5 and under. 

So when I got the pliable little guy below, which is meant to promote Little King's Story, I thought it was pretty cool. He's a cute, but slightly evil looking enemy in an admirable, charming RPG game with RTS elements from the folks who brought you Harvest Moon. It's getting high scores all around.

Anyway, the Onni below is a UMA (Unidentified Mysterious Enemy), a baddie who moves quickly when startled and throws things at you with power and speed. 

But, blow me down. The physical representation of Onni stinks to high heaven. Like, gag me and give me allergies at the same time. Maybe that's because he looks like a skunk, and I don't mean Sarah Palin.

As I sit here, the little dude is exuding his smelly, moldy stink from five feet away, from high on a shelf. Yet I can't dump him due to the cuteness factor. "Open the window and hold your nose" if you got one of these rubber Onnis.