Wednesday, January 25, 2006

big january contest

Okay. You know what's wrong with the world, I know what's wrong with the world - why don't we come out and talk about it? It's the reason why cotton candy never tastes as good as you remember. It's the reason why my country is now being run by a factory reject mannequin. It's at the heart of every wrong thing ever, the fault at the foundation of the cosmos.

We don't have enough cool contests.

Sure, we've got lotteries. We've got raffles. We've got competitions, pageants, auditions, sweepstakes, showdowns, death matches, celebrity smack-downs. We've got a healthy competitive ethos distilled in pure isopropyl hope. But cool contests? No.

At least, not until now. Behold:



Hold up now. It very likely gets better:



Holy crap! you says. Is that the obverse of the previous image? I says yes. I says that I own a postcard that proclaims "I am happy in Saskatchewan". But why should I go around owning such a postcard when you can own it? With a very personalized message from me?

Okay, I'm gilding the lily here (is it gilding the lily to use that phrase?). Contest rules are as follows:

1. In real good language driven by passion and/or greed, explain to me why you think you should get a Happy in Saskatchewan postcard with a very personalized message from me (and a Hello from Schmutzie?). Consideration will be given to people who write super eloquent and do good diction.

2. Entries must be at least one word and no more than infinity words. If you're going to write a big old essay, please send me a big old email.

3. If you don't really want the Happy postcard, please enter the contest anyway.

4. All entries in verse (because some of you display a taste for haiku) must feature lines that rhyme, but not necessarily with each other.

5. Not a rule.

6. I favour palindromes. Just so you know.

7. Entrants from Saskatchewan will not receive the prize. Instead, they'll get thirty nine cents and directions to the nearest Shoppers Drug Mart, where they can buy their own damn postcard.

8. Contest will close when I go out and buy stamps. And that may be a while.

13 comments:

palinode said...

And if you can't think of a witty way to request a postcard, just say "I want it".

Steph said...

Go hang a salami. I'm a lasagna hog.

Um, I want it. Don't unoriginal people who read your blog at ungodly hours of the morning deserve some postcard love too?

mathew said...

Yo, banana boy!

I'd love a postcard but I have no room - I've just gone to the saippuakauppias and stocked up.

I have to go to the post office myself. Those damned bastards raised the price of stamps by two cents. When will it end? Today a stamp, tomorrow a kidney.

palinode said...

The saippuakauppias? Did you go all the way to Finland to get some soap or is there a local saippuakauppias in your neighbourhood?

blackbird said...

contests give me anxiety.
don't you know I am an anxiety ridden person?


why are you looking at me like that?

Anonymous said...

I had a post card once, it was the best little post card ever. I would pet it and bring it presents and it would lay there in my hands and adore me. Just simply adulate my very being. One day, when I had come to change the sheets on it's tiny little bed, it wouldn't respond. Cardie just laid there listlessly. I admit that I panicked a little. I couldn't give it mouth-to-mouth being unsure what constituted a mouth for my little friend. I brought it a flat ginger ale and some only-slighty-stale saltines but it just ignored my entreaties. After my little post card went to live on a farm I always thought of our days together and ... Hey.... Wait a minute....

Anonymous said...

Postcard from Saskatchewan, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

I love thee to the depth of 0.007 inches and breadth of four and height of six inches

My soul can reach, when far from the front of the refrigerator

For the ends of Good Sense and skyward postal rates.

I love thee to display sideways

Most quiet need, a bookmark or coaster.

I love thee freely, as men strive for beer;

I love thee purely, as they turn towards shapely guns.

I love thee with a passion put to use

In showing off to good friends, of whom I’ve more international acquaintances;

Suckers.

I love thee while wearing an oven glove I seemed to lose

With all my lost gloves and wayward bras, --- I love thee with the breath,

Confused nods, inappropriate interjections, of all my life! --- and, if Palinode choose,

I shall but love thee better after I have a(nother) cocktail.

palinode said...

That and a No Fi CD will get you a postcard in this town.

Nora said...

Thy postcard charged with forgetfulness
Through postal-sorters in Canadian nights might pass
'Tween rock and rock (though I don't really rock, alas),
And eventually to me (five blocks west of Van Ness);
And ah! a card! A thought in readiness!
As though a thought were light in such a case
An endless wind writ on such small space
Of forced brevity and hustle-y eloquence.
No rain of tears, no cloud of dark disdain
Would great your wearied words' appearance,
(Even if wreathed in error and eke with ignorance).
The stars be hid that led me to this poem.
Drowned is reason! That should me comfort!
And I remain an aspiring postcard port.

With very sincere apologies to Sir Thomas Wyatt

Anonymous said...

Las campanas de la iglesia estan sonando con la noticia que ya llego el postal del Palinode! La postal dice "Yo estoy feliz en Sascachewan". La jente del pueblo preguntan, "Donde es Sascachewan? Quien es el Palinode?" El Palinode es un mysterio!!!!

mathew said...

es la verdad!

Anonymous said...

The February gales plague not this date,
that I read this post and saw I was too late
To enter a contest and win the prize,
regarding a nation I see through a foreigner's eyes.

Though it's colder there, the air must be clear,
far from the noxious Northern New Jersey atmosphere,
With golden fields, and herds that cowhands push
Through a land with tall trees, but nary a Bush.

Alas, the post was from January. I curse what I might have won;
I know I'd be happier in Saskatchewan.

Anonymous said...

So???? Who won???