This is only tangentially related, I know, but it struck me as completely hilarious. Convenience chain 7-Eleven is hosting a “virtual battle of the bands” promotion for their Slurpee Nation loyalty program. (Quick aside: What?)

The deal is, bands would submit videos of original songs, which would then be narrowed down to 28 competitors who would compete online for fan love.

From the press release:

Almost 70 bands [Wow! --Ed.] submitted music videos of original songs. Of those submitted, 28 bands were selected to participate in the online competition that has visitors to the Slurpee Nation website voting for their favorite throughout September. These 28 will receive $500 7-Eleven gift cards. … The final four each receive a $1,000 prize and a custom-made electric guitar designed like a giant Slurpee cup.

And the top prize: $10,000. That’s pretty sweet for any of the bands that learned about this contest in time to submit a video — a one in 70 chance of winning 10k? I’ll take those odds. (Though it looks like they’ve already narrowed the choices down to four.)

But here’s why I bring this up here: Apparently part of this promotion is crazy new guitar-shaped Slurpee cups and straws. But the real kicker is the new 54-ounce (Quick aside: WHAT?) Big Gulp, pictured above:

The Big Gulp guitar cup comes in both blue and red and has its own custom guitar strap and straw. It is replicated after the guitar controllers in today’s wildly popular rock music video games.

There’s just so much odd about this contest that it almost seems mean to pick on any particular element, but how exactly does this monstrosity relate to music games? I mean, yes, it looks like a guitar controller, but that’s only because it looks like a guitar.

[Read, via instoremarketer.org]