Everyone's a Winner

I put all the screen-names who entered my Pay It Forward giveaway into my hat, and drew three out.

I'll admit it: part of me wanted to cut down the pool to make things easier on me. I considered taking out the guys. I considered taking out the international entries... But I didn't. I put in all the guys. I put in the internationals. I put all 23 entries into the hat (even ones I REALLY debated putting in, like the person who has already held the contest and the guy who was probably a spam poster), and these were the first three I drew:



- Alexa
- Heidi Renée
- Renee


ETA: If you really want to win, I recommend stalking those blogs... They might just post their own giveaways soon.

I know two of the winners in real life (Heidi from high school, Renee from college). And it is rather convenient that they're all female (guess who's getting Bonne Bell!) and all in the USA... but I SWEAR I played by the rules. There was no funny business. Seriously.

So ladies, please send your contact information to angelaboration(at)gmail(dot)com (or one of the other methods you have of getting a hold of me, like facebook or something).

But I had so many entries! So I'm going to reward them in two (yes, two!) ways... The first is in Link Love!!! (May all your Technorati scores rise!)

The following delightful people entered:
- The Chaotic Libra
- Cheryl
- CK1
- Eric Shonkwiler
- Frog
- Gooseberried
- Jenn
- K
- Lesha
- Livros e Revistas
- Maxie (although it appears her blog moved... Girl, where are you?)
- Melissa
- Nilsa S
- Pixelation
- Rachel
- ShadowJim
- Swanny
- theedeeter
- Tipp
- The V


Here's part two...

A lot of the entrants seemed stoked about the potential to have giveaways of their own...

So, I'm going to make an offer to everyone else.

If you start your own branch of the Pay It Forward Giveaway, then I will make you a mix CD. Yes, that's right. You, too, can have a fantastically brilliant mix CD homemade by yours truly (and I make great mixes. Just ask Brian or Jenn.)

If you decide to take me up on this, just drop me a note -- angelaboration(at)gmail(dot)com -- when you post the contest on your blog, and send me your address. :)

I hope a bunch of you start this contest yourselves. It's fun!


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Some follow-up on my last entry:


- Exercise
Oh, I suck at this. My weights just came in the mail, and it turns out that 5 pounds is too heavy to do many reps with. I'm a pathetic weakling. And I haven't done the belly dance stuff. Carmen Electra's stuff is just so easy... I know, I know. I swear I'll get on track soon.

-The Movie
Finally finished Romance & Cigarettes. It's frickin' weird, but I dug it. And it made me download an Engelbert Humperdinck song... Never thought I'd do that.

-Airline Fiasco
So you know how the airline said they'd refund my money? THEY DIDN'T! Those bastards. I called today, and they said it'd be back in my account in 7-14 BUSINESS DAYS. In the meantime, I went into overdraft. Thanks a lot, airline. Next time I need travel arrangements, I'm going to make my Dad do it, and I'll just pay him back. I'm not dealing with this again. Too frustrating.

-Statement of Purpose/Grad School Application
Figured out the mess with the university application. Wrote statement of purpose. Got all my stuff together in a manila envelope and brought it to work with me so that I could head to the post office and mail it on my lunch break... But when I got to the office, I didn't have the envelope anymore. It must've fallen out of my bag on the L without me noticing. To review, this envelope included:

1. One of my recommendation letters.
2. My headshot/résumé (i.e. my photograph, full name, address, phone number, email address, height, weight...)
3. My departmental application (including my social security number).

So, pretty much the worst possible thing to leave on an L, aside from maybe my wallet. Awful. I got all the stuff together again yesterday and sent it out overnight mail (I had to wait in line at the post office ON TAX DAY. Took my entire lunch period). Should be fine. And the person who wrote that rec. letter is mailing it again for me. So as long as no one steals my identity, everything is oh-bee-kay-bee.

- State Taxes
Figured it out and mailed them. HA! I beat you, government! Give me my money back!

- Tony 'N Tina's Wedding
Ran into two separate people I know on the way to the audition (to Renee & Deet: It was Tori & Girts... Random!). Went in, performed my Hockey Monologue, and walked out. And apparently I rocked it, because I got a callback. For those who don't know theatre, a callback means they liked what they saw, and they want to see me again. Tomorrow night I'm going to back to show off my improv skills. Except, oh wait, I don't have improv skills. So this is pretty much the end of the line for me, but it's still always nice to get a callback... It means you must be doing something right. :)



So, that's pretty much it at the moment. I'll let you know if anything else interesting happens. But to be honest, I wouldn't mind if things settled down for a couple of weeks. I could use the rest.


May you always feel like a winner.

~A~