And The Winner Is...

Drumroll please! The winner of my first blog giveaway is....

We interrupt our regularly scheduled programming to bring you this very important message.
(You didn't really think I was just gonna blurt it out, did you? Silly goose.)

I wanted to clue you all in a little on why I did the giveaway and how I selected a winner. I know you probably don't care, but I'm telling you anyway.

The first and most obvious reason is that I'd hoped to get more followers for my blog. Shameless, right? But it actually did work. I went from having one follower to having six. And I didn't even make following my blog a requirement for entry into the giveaway, as so many other bloggers do. Ok, sure, I may lose five of you after I make the announcement of who won the Starbucks Gift Card, but I appreciate you stopping in, nonetheless.

The second reason I did it was... well, there really wasn't a second reason. Driving traffic to the site was about it. Pitiful? Yes. Effective? Somewhat.

Now, as to how I selected a winner, there was only one way to be fair, since many of the entrants were friends of mine.

A huge shout out to all of you, by the way, for putting up with my constant tweets and status updates about the giveaway; so glad none of you unfriended me, though I sure would understand if you'd blocked me from your news feed for a few days. It's okay to turn my news feed back on now. Really. I promise. Please?

Back to how I picked a winner (and how all winners of future giveaways will be selected!)

Each comment was assigned a number in sequential order as it was posted and provided it was within the timeframe specified. Once I had all the entries, I headed over to RANDOM.ORG and used their awesome Random Number Generator. You just put in your starting and ending numbers and it will pick a random number for you.

In this case, it selected number 13. Yes, lucky number 13.

And now, back to our regularly scheduled programming

Making the winner of the $25 Starbucks Gift Card...

The envelope please....

AztecConsulting! Congratulations!
I will be contacting you shortly for information on how to collect your winnings.

To the rest of you who didn't win this time, be not discouraged, there will be more giveaways.

Thank you so much for participating, and for sharing your awesome Starbucks drinks with me; I will definitely be ordering some, ok, most, of these at some point in my future.

Here's to a caffeinated weekend!

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Live Blogging the Oscars

Yesterday was the Fashion Superbowl, known officially as the Academy Awards Ceremony. It is the biggest night for Hollywood, a night of full on glamour and glitz.

Instead of expounding on the fanfare in this post, I really want to talk about what I did during the Oscars: live micro-blogging by way of Twitter and Facebook. Think speed-dating for blogging, in 140 characters or less.

The assignment, to micro-blog your thoughts, opinions, take on what you're watching. In this case, the pre-Oscar Red Carpet Events and the awards ceremony.

This was my first live micro-blogging attempt, and here are my first impressions:

1. I need more adjectives! For events like this one, a thesaurus should be kept nearby.
2. Let people know what you're doing; unexpected guests dropping by will result in a serious interruption of micro-blogging posts, making your friends wonder if your fingers have fallen off.
3. Turn off email and text notifications! Unless you like watching your phone jitter spastically across the coffee table while simultaneously draining your battery and running up your text message count, it is best to disable these features so that when your friends comment on your posts, your phone isn't spammed to the point of near death.
4. Exercise your fingers! Live micro-blogging is serious business and trying to type up a comment or opinion as you are watching a live event, while managing responses from friends, is a true exercise in speed typing, and if your fingers aren't appropriately warmed up, you might sprain something.
5. Be prepared to make some frenemies. Those of your friends that aren't watching the event being micro-blogged may unfriend you for cluttering their wall with your, let's face it, unsolicited, and likely stupid, opinion. An apology upfront (see #2) may help prevent unfriending, as said friends can hide your posts for the duration.

That being said, I had a blast! Live micro-blogging is challenging but hilariously fun, especially if a group of your friends are doing it with you. It's like having a party, but without having them come over and make a mess which they'll leave you to clean up on your own!

Here's to the next live micro-blogging event!



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