Blogathon 2006 Prize Winners
Category: Blogathon...
Posted Monday, July 31, 2006 at 03:23 PM [GMT-6]

As an indication of what my Monday has been like, I began this post at 6:30 a.m.

Here's the moment you've all been waiting for: the announcement of the winners of the Fire Ant Gazette's Blogathon Grand Prize and Photo Caption contests.

Both contests were hotly, um, contested, and while the Grand Prize winner was easily determined via an objective set of guidelines, the Photo Caption entrants were more problematic, due to my ill-advised decision to make myself the judge. With great power comes great responsibility; heavy lays the head that wears the crown; people who live in glass houses have ridiculously high homeowner insurance rates. Anyway, that contest got the most response of any, and generated about 30 comments.

Without further ado, behold the winners:

• The Grand Prize, for being the first to email a correct list of all header photos posted hourly throughout the Blogathon, goes to Mark.
  
  Mark is a Midlander, a former co-worker, and an IT professional who enjoys warm puppies, long walks in the evening mist, and quixotic little boutique Chardonnays, and hates mean people. For his efforts, Mark wins his choice of a $25 iTunes gift certificate or any item from the Gazette's CafePress Online Store (personalized, no less). If this sounds like an intelligence test, well, what can I say?


• As a surprise, the Gazette's celebrity-laden awards panel has elected to name a Grand Prize Runner-Up, in recognition of the recipient's special efforts and in an attempt to unload some dusty inventory. The Runner-Up and recipient of the "Second Place May Be Like Kissing Your Sister, But If You Still Get A Prize, It's Like Having Jessica Alba As Your Sister" Award goes to Sound Guy (aka Jon). Like Mark, Jon is an IT guy living in Midland, and he's also a former co-worker. Jon enjoys fuzzy kittens, lazy summer afternoons, and impudent-but-surprising syrahs from Côte Rotie.
  
  If Sound Guy's profile sounds similar to Mark's, it's because they tag-teamed this contest, filling in the gaps of each other's list. This was not a violation of the rules and I'm sorry if you either didn't think of it or didn't have any friends who would help you. OTOH, I also understand the power of mindless rage and I'll be happy to send the winners' addresses to each person who makes an additional $1,000 donation to Midland Fair Havens, in case you'd like to offer them tangible "congratulations" for being so resourceful.
  
  Jon's prize will be whatever's left in the inventory box after all the other awards are, um, awarded.


• After much internal debate amongst my Inner Voices ("You're an idiot!" "No, you are!" "Oh yeah, well what are you?"), I've decided to award the Photo Caption Prize to Jen P for suggesting James Brown's funky "Get Up Offa That Thing." This song got big props not only because it has a good beat and is easy to dance to, but also because many people tell me that I and James Brown have similar psychic auras, so I have that going for me.
  
  Jen is also a Midlander and she enjoys base jumping, competitive dogsledding, and body modification. She wins a coveted Fire Ant coffee mug for her creativity.
  
  I have to also make mention of a special entry in this contest, submitted by my mom, of all people. She suggested "A Long Day's Night" and then emailed me to make sure I knew that this was, indeed, a real song, by Blue Oyster Cult. I have no idea how she knows about this song, but I'm thinking there's a period in her life that I have no idea about.


• Last, but by no means least, I want to recognize Brian, the BeanQuester himself, and present him with the "George Washington 'I Cannot Tell A Lie, I Hacked Your Contest' Script Kiddie Special Achievement Award for Outstanding Accomplishment of Incredibly Trivial Ends" for his work in creating a PERL script to automatically retrieve each hour's header image so that he wouldn't have to stay up all night to win the contest. Only he then recused himself from the contest and emailed me to tell me what he was doing (although if I got his email I lost it somewhere in the middle of the hundreds of others that came across during the 'thon). Interestingly, there was no rule against doing what he did, nor would I have cared, but I commend Brian for his honesty, as well as his programmming skills. Of course, Brian won the first Gazette blogathon contest of the day -- "Name This Tool" -- so it's not like he really needed any additional affirmation. Update: Dang. I forgot to include a link to Brian's post where he explains just exactly how he pulled this off.

Well, there you have it. All the winners need to understand that they are responsible for the federal income tax implications associated with their awards, which, for write-off purposes I'm valuing at a couple million dollars each (I can do that, can't I, Gwynne?).