It's time once again for the exceptionally strange Missed Connections left in the wake of the Burning Man festival…

[Editor's Note: Each week, Gnartoons creator James the Stanton will be illustrating some of our favorite Missed Connections found on Craigslist.  To kick the whole thing off, he's polishing up a few gems that were left in the aftermath of Burning Man 2011, because a week of unchecked drug abuse mixed with a dash of internet results in some truly bizarre shit.]

Captain Steve Grabowski and Lieutenant Sarah Jones are up for promotion after leading a valiant police effort that has eliminated drug use at the event known as Burning Man.

Officers Grabowski and Jones receiving accolades for winning the War on Drugs at Burning Man.

Over 50,000 artists, musicians and others wishing to experiment with “radical self-expression” gather at Burning Man each year. The event is a haven for the strange and bizarre and is notorious for the use of drugs such as LSD-25, MDMA, and Cannabis.

“Our mission here is not to stop young people from having a good time but to protect them from getting hurt.” Captain Grabowski places handcuffs on a young woman. She was found in possession of a drug testing kit, a tool used to determine what kind of drug a user has bought. “We are in the business of harm reduction,” says Grabowski.

Richard Thomas, an event attendee known as ‘The Postman’, regrets spending his summer building his sculpture ‘El Pulpo Mechanico’, a two story mechanical octopus that spouts fire from its arms.

Richard Thompson's 'El Pulpo Mechanico' which will not pay the pickle man.

“It’s not like I can pay bills with a mechanical beast,” says Thomas. “I’m not going to send my three year old daughter to a state school just so I could blow some people’s minds. That’s just irresponsible.” Thomas has plans to open a chain of furniture stores.

Gabriella Martinez, Director of Admissions for UCSF, has seen the impact first hand. “We have had a 153% increase in enrollment for our MBA program while the Art department is struggling to fill enrollment for next year,” says Martinez. “We can’t thank the Nevada Highway Patrol enough.”

The next Burning Man will begin on October 1st, 2012. There are preliminary plans to change the venue to the Las Vegas Convention Center.

This year's Santacon marked the first year I ventured to Oakland for the 10am pre-party.  If you've ever wanted to know what Santacon's early risers look like, Candy Raver Santa pretty much sums it up.  Rather than the typical parade of frat boys, Oakland was full of something much more loathed by civil society: Burners.  Half of the people there had dots of glitter glued to their heads.  Most were in costumes far more creative than the ordinary Santa suit.  Some had Burning Man tattoos.  Most smelled like they had been getting sauced since sunrise.

One woman in the crowd had a red Radio Flyer wagon that was full of boxes of sugar cookies, liquor, speakers bumping techno, and a stuffed animal snowman with a long plastic tube sticking out of its head.  The tube struck me as suspicious, but only cops ask questions, so went to procure something that would make me forget that I was in Oakland.  As I emerged from the bar, a woman was screwing a nitrous canister into the back of the snowman's head.  I attempted to dump an Irish Coffee down my esophagus out of desperation, but the landscape was dominated by a crowd of people knocking back whip-its.

Say what you will about Burners, but they had already won at Santacon before most of you even got out of bed.