I Never Win Anything. Except From 27bslash6.
Let me preface this by reinforcing the title: I seriously have never won anything. From a simple scratch-off lottery ticket to a mega Publisher's Clearing House-type sweepstakes, not ever a victory in the slightest. Granted this probably saved me from becoming a degenerate gambler because I know my chances in the pool of "chance" are so gravely slim and unattractive (I'll admit once on a drive from Florida to Texas I played slots for gas money in Louisiana along the way), but still it sort of sucks.
This past weekend was almost a paradigm-shifting event when I actually won a contest on Twitter. David Thorne, a satirist & writer that I really admire from South Australia has a site I frequent called 27bslash6, a vast collection of some of the funniest, wish-I-had-said-that knocks on everything from client relations to pop culture. The contest stemmed from one of David's articles, Simon's Pie Charts (which if you haven't read happens to be one of the funniest email exchanges I've ever seen). A fake Twitter account was created based on the Simon character, and in an effort to build enough followers to trump Simon's actual Twitter account David shot out a tweet that said the first 3 to follow the fake account within the next hour win a 27bslash6 promotional package. So I dutifully did my retweet and followed the account, not expecting to win of course. Low and behold, I get a reply from David that I won! I scored a copy of David's book The Internet is a Playground , a hoodie, shirt, et al. I know it's just a promo pack of sorts, but it's sort of cool that the first time I've ever won something is from someone I admire and something I would've actually bought. Winning stuff rules.
