Saturday, December 05, 2009

Free Book What?

(cc) Douglas CooteyFree Book Friday. It seemed like such a simple idea.

After a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday (and after very successful comment system beta test. Thanks, guys!), I completely forgot to select a winner, post about it, mail off the previous winner's book, and blog. I blame the turkey. I've had far too much of it and I've had to get a wheelbarrow to haul my belly around. This makes getting out of my bedroom, down the stairs, and through the hallway into the kitchen to write very difficult. The doors & hallways are simply not wide enough. For the wheelbarrow, of course.

My big problem with the contest was that no one initially participated. I wrote:
All you have to do to get your hands on one of them is read my story sample and leave a comment no shorter than three words either here or at that entry. I'll pick one winner at random and announce the name next Tuesday. You have until one week from that day to claim your prize.

Just three words. It's easy.


Not a single person replied.

Good thing I'm not trying to build up my self-esteem over here…

I was surprised that not even ambiguous comments with double meanings were posted. Comments like:

"Totally sick, dude."
or
"Interesting word usage."

My wife didn't even reply with "Douglas, please stop."

At any rate, I opened the contest up to people who helped me test the comments system. Over two dozen people helped out, and Soozcat is the lucky winner. Congratulations! Pick from one of the above books and let me know via email which one you want. The invisible one is The Velveteen Rabbit. The fat one is something I will not likely ever read.

On a completely different matter, I had an iPhoto/Flickr sync catastrophe occur last Sunday. I upgraded iPhoto whereupon it came down with an awful annoying instance of amnesia. iPhoto completely forgot my sync settings and downloaded the photos again, creating duplicates, which I deleted, which removed the originals from Flickr, which caused me to rip my hair out and curse the Apple gods. If you find any broken graphics links, please let me know. I'm trying to fix them as I find them.

As for yesterday's contest, I've half a mind to keep my books to myself, but with only half a mind I'm not likely to know what to do with them. Therefore Free Book Friday will start a day late.

Answer the following question in one word or less:

Q: What is the sound of one hand clapping?

Answer the following question with as many words as you'd like:

Q: What do you want from me for Christmas?

I'll start:

1) Fish
2) This:
I simply must have this novelty pen nib.

Look at that nib. So stupid. I simply must have it.

I'm looking forward to your answers. Have a great weekend.
Douglas sig