A winning haiku

Was about both beer and wine
Well. Obviously.

Congratulations Jenny!! You are officially the author of the following award winning haiku:

I'm out of beer now

this would not be so sad but

I'm out of wine too

Check your inbox, Jenny!

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Hey, Girl. Help me pick a winner.

There are two things happening on the blog today.

Thing the first! I am linking up with Sunday's Ryan Gosling meme, which she does every Friday and apparently I can only remember about once a month. Here's our boy!!!

Thing the second! And this one was much more difficult: picking the winner of my haiku giveaway thingy. I had 38 haikus to pick from and I could NOT make a decision. So, I copied and pasted them all into a word doc, without any identifiable information, and I asked for help! I emailed it out to a bunch of people and asked them to pick their 5 or 6 favorites. Then I combined everybody's favorites (and my own) into one document, to end up with 11. THEN I gave the list of 11 to hubs, who hadn't seen any of them before and has no idea who any of you even are, and asked him to narrow it down to 6.

Then I took his 6 and made a poll, which you can see over on the left sidebar, at the top. Now YOU guys need to pick. Seriously. Please pick a winner, because I can't. I'll leave the poll up for as long as necessary until you guys are able to take the pressure off me.

Here are the finalists, in no order whatsoever:

I'm out of beer now 

this would not be so sad but 

I'm out of wine too 

My kid is screaming 

I had to wash his blanket 

My ears are bleeding 

I used to do art 

Canvases were fun but then 

I stapled myself 

I live right near you 

So no need for postage, yeah. 

Give me that fucker. 

I need a vaca

With hot tan cabana boys

I really like booze

I like to win shit

But I never get a prize

So fucking pick me 

Please help me with this. Please?

EDIT: Please don't leave your choice in the comments, but cast a vote up at the top left, instead. If my blog is being a bitch to you and won't let you, let me know.

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Now, a giveaway

I have this thing I don't want.
Who wants to have it?

Remember how I went to that PTA auction and came home not having a clue what I had bought? Well it turned out that one of my drunken purchases had been a Flip Camera, which is now the property of Child 2. We have many videos of cats we can share with you, if anybody would like to see some. Also included in that prize was the gift certificate you see pictured above, a $100 gift certificate to www.canvasworld.com, whateverthehell that is.

Let's give this fucker away!!!! Anybody want it?

Here's how you enter: Some of you may have noticed that the combination of my post title and the first two lines make up a haiku, so, if you would like this awesome $100 giftie thingy, leave me a comment in the form of a haiku.

As a refresher, a haiku is a 3 line poem where the first line is 5 syllables, the second is 7 and the third is 5. It does not have to rhyme. In this case, it also doesn't have to be about the gift certificate AND it doesn't even have to make sense. It does, however, have to be proper haiku form. For example, I will accept the following submission:

I want that gift thing
I take pictures real good like
Gimme the gift thing

I will also accept this:

The kitten is cute
The tail is very fuzzy
I also like dogs

I will not, however, accept this:

I like to take pictures so please give me the gift thing.

See? Not proper form. Unacceptable!

Feel free to leave a comment not in the form of a haiku if you want, when I tabulate the results, which I will do on Friday, I will disregard anything non-haiku-like.

As you can see, I have altered the image so as to not include the information that would let you redeem it, because... how stupid would that be? The winner will receive the actual undoctored photo, via email, so make sure I know how to contact you. You can just add your email address to the end of the comment, you don't have to turn it into a haiku.

Although.....

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A giveaway: with SNARK!

So, my bloggy, twitter pal Jeni, who you can find at Closet Space Musings, is the author of TWO books: I Wish I Were Engulfed in Flames and Waiting for Karl Rove. And last week or so she said that her publisher wanted to know if she knew of any bloggers who were interested in doing a giveaway of her new book, ... and she asked me! Um. I don't know why, either.

Anyway, here's the deal: You leave a comment and tell me that you want this book. Then I will somehow randomly pick one person to be a winner. Said winner will give me their address, which I will send to Jeni's publisher who will send out the actual book. Good? Good. In exchange for this service I have received one copy of her Flames book and two copies of her Karl Rove book. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to mention that or not, since I've never done this before, but I thought it was important in the interest of transparency. And snark. Since I have two copies of the Karl Rove book, let me know if you're interested in that one and I might just send it to you.... if you're extra nice to me..... YOU know what I mean.....

So, is this how real giveaways are supposed to work? I feel like I should have installed something. I hope I haven't failed Mommy Blogging 101...... Actually, whatever. Maybe I DID fail Mommy Blogging 101, what do you think about THAT, huh? Oh, sorry... This post isn't supposed to be about me... OH MY GOD DO YOU WANT THE FUCKING BOOK OR NOT??????????

Please note: I've never actually done a giveaway for a book that I wasn't in and I won't be making it a habit, so if you want to send me an email right now asking me to review something, or for a "sponsored placement," or some such shit, the answer is no. I'm not here to whore for a brand or a website that I don't read, but I am more than willing to whore for my bloggy sister friends. So.... if I know you? Feel free to email me! And I don't even need to know you that well, really. But if you're just some random chick looking to ply your wares on my blog? Please go away. And I mean that in the nicest way. As far as you know.

EDIT: I forgot to make promises on Jeni's behalf, which I totally intended to do, so if you leave your twitter handle or your facebook page, Jeni will TOTALLY follow and/or "like" you. AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!

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And we have four winners!!

Thanks to everybody who entered the giveaway, and a HUGE thanks and apologies to Marsupial Mama, who fell for my fake rules. Heh heh. Sorry about that.... (giggle). She wasn't one of my winners, but I feel bad that she went to so much trouble (seriously, there were, like, 6 tweets from her with the hashtag #WhoringForAutism) so, to make it up to her, please go to her blog right now and you'll see a big "Please vote for Autism Rocks!" which is a link that will take you to Babble's Top 25 Autism Spectrum Blogs and please vote for her!!! She's at #13 at the time I write this; let's get her to at least #12!!!!

So, I picked 4 winners out of the 36 people who entered. Again, I enlisted my partner in crime (aka Child 2) and we used our very scientific method, which you will see evidence of, below.

In the meantime, though, our winners are!!

1. Kristin, who did not leave any information about herself so I have nothing to link to, sorry....
2. Crissy, aka Bratmom
3. Karen, who blogs at The Not So Simple Truth
4. Annanonamus, my crazy Twitter pal, and blogger at Because You're a Moron (love that name)

I'm sorry I can't give one to everybody, but I didn't actually get enough to make that happen. You can still buy one, though!! Just go to the Amazon store. They're not very expensive, considering how awesome they are.

WINNERS! Please contact me at jillsmo@gmail.com with your names and addresses so that I can mail you your book. If I don't hear from you, I know how to contact you all. And I probably will! Or, I'll forget. Actually it's more likely that I'll forget so you should probably contact me.

*cough*

And.... our scientific winner picking process, documented, as always.....

Names were put into a Word document and printed! In case you were wondering, yes, this was right after he came home from soccer.

Then there was cutting! Those are my hands holding the scissors, which means the boy took this picture. He took about 6 of them and this was the only one not a blurry mess.

Eyes were closed and names were picked!

The results..... ahhhhhh.....

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I'm doing another giveaway!!

EDIT: I don't mind shipping overseas, so don't let that stop you from entering.

Undeniable proof of this book's current presence in my house

YES IT'S TRUE.

This time I have in my possession a number of copies of the newest collection of stories written by autie parents: Wit and Wisdom From the Parents of Special Needs Kids. I actually have quite a few (relatively) so I can give a bunch away.

As with any giveaway, naturally there are rules that you must follow. Each rule must be strictly adhered to or your entry will be disqualified!

THE RULES

1. Subscribe to this blog via Google Friend Connect
2. "Like" my new Facebook page
3. Follow me on Twitter
4. Create a reddit account and upvote everything I've ever said and submitted
5. Go through each and every post on this blog and submit them all individually to StumbleUpon
6. Go to my klout profile and give me +K in any topic that I have influence in, particularly Sarah Palin and Beyonce, because I take those the most seriously
7. Record a video of yourself dancing a jig while singing "I want the book, please!" and upload it to YouTube
8. Show up at my front door and personally ask me for a copy of the book while dancing a jig and singing "I want the book, please!" (No, you can't stay here when you're done, you have to go straight home)
9. Every time you do any of these things, you must tweet that you have done it, using the hashtag #WhoringForAutism, in order to verify yourself. Don't forget the hashtag!! Without it your entry will be disqualified.

HA HA, no... I'm just kidding, those aren't the rules. However, I did consider stopping this post right there and seeing how many of you took me seriously. No, actually, I don't have any rules. Just leave a comment here so I know you're interested; I'll probably pick some winners the same way I did last time. Because that was not only fun, but also educational and a creative learning experience for the child.

I do have one request, though, and that is that you go to Amazon and leave a (good!!) review of the book. Lynn seems to think that's important and who am I to question Lynn? Amiright??????

Update: Sat 10/15 7:15pm PST: I'm turning off comments now. I'm sorry if you were too late and missed the chance to enter, but you can always buy one!!!

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And we have a winner! Actually two winners.

The winners of my first and probably only giveaway I will ever do are K who I don't know, but she said she reads BD's blog a lot so hopefully she'll make her way over here, and Gina from Special Happens, who I do know. YAY YOU GUYS!!!

Child 2 helped me with the whole thing. I asked Child 1 to help but he said he was too busy. Seriously. He was watching train videos on YouTube and that is very time consuming as you know. Here's how we did it:

First I put everybody's name on a piece of paper.

Then we cut them into individual strips

 Then we put the strips in a bowl and Child 2 closed his eyes and picked out two of them

 And here are the results! YAY!!!

So, Gina and K, please email me at jillsmo@gmail.com with your addresses and I'll get these out to you as soon as I go to the store and buy some mailing envelopes!

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OH MY GOD I'm doing a giveaway!

EDIT: I closed comments so that I can pick a winner somehow.


I know, right? ME? The most PR unfriendly blog EVER? Well, actually, I'm sure there are other blogs that are more PR unfriendly than I am, I mean... I don't even have any porn! (mental note).

Anyway, I happen to be in the possession of a number of copies of Big Daddy's awesome new book Big Daddy's Tales From the Lighter Side of Raising a Kid With Autism. Did you even know there was a lighter side to this shit? I, for one, was not previously aware of that until this book arrived at my doorstep the other day. THANKS Big Daddy!!

Anyway, I decided to do a giveaway. Put something in the comments explaining why you're too cheap to buy your own copy when they're only $10.99 fer chrissakes! I'm not entirely sure how I will pick a winner, but I will pick one and announce the winner on Monday. Or Tuesday. Or Sunday. I don't know what day. It might be completely random, I might just close my eyes and stab my finger at the monitor... who knows? I'm capable of pretty much anything, really. Enter as many times as you want; I mean, what the hell, why not? Oh, and there are a few of you who are not allowed to enter because I'm planning on giving you one of these. For example, if I have recently asked you for your address..... don't enter. Seriously.

And just in case you think I'm lying about actually having this in my possession, you untrusting bastards, I've taken a picture of said book lying next to one of Child 1's intricate drawings of a BART station as proof. Kind of like when you take a picture of a kidnap victim holding up a newspaper with today's date on it to prove you actually have them.

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