I Won!

Pepsi Canada is giving away 1 iPod every hour from Oct 3 until Christmas for a total of 2016 iPods. I managed to get my grubby hands on one of them. <div align="center"> <table> <tr><td></td></tr> </table> </div> I've been entering this contest every hour that I've been awake and near a computer since Oct 4 (when I found out about it). Apparently you can win more than one, so I don't believe I've been stopped in my tracks just yet… I've wanted an iPod since they were first introduced, but could never justify the cost. Shelley and I have been discussing the possibility of buying a Mini for her running recently, but that idea had been shelved when we realized how much we really need a second computer in the house. A little while ago, we had an internal promotion at work to win an iPod, and I entered with the hopes that the odds were pretty good. After failing to win that one, I had said to a coworker that I had better win one by Christmas, or I may do something stupid like buy my own. He had quipped that there wasn't exactly a lot of opportunities to win one by Christmas, so I was probably well on my way to buying one… Just a few days ago, my sister was in the market for an MP3 player. I suggested she look at the iPod Mini, but joked that her buying one before me was going to bug me. She ended up buying something far more sensible, which was a good choice. I did warn her that looking at the iPods in the store was going to make it tougher, though. I was right, since she called me from the store to tell me that if they had it in pink, she'd buy it on the spot. Just yesterday, as we were running some errands, I was hurrying home (as I have done a lot in the last few weeks) so that I could make sure I got into the 10-11am contest. When Shelley made fun of me for being a big nerd, I told her that if I won an iPod, she'd thank me for being such a crazy addict for the contest. I was also starting to doubt my chances at this point, as well. After doing some serious repairs around the house yesterday (builders suck badly, by the way), I decided to chill out with Homer, Marge, and the gang, on TV. I was ready to pass out sleeping, but kept making sure that I got my entries in, even though a ton of other people across Canada were probably doing the same. They have well over 50,000 registered users on the promotion site now, so my odds weren't great. Shelley's brother Dave showed up with pizza a little later and we ate a mini feast. During that meal, I could have sworn I heard a little buzzing from far away. You see, I created a rule in GMail to forward a Pepsi redemption email to my BlackBerry, so that I would be sure to get it. I thought I was just hearing things, and didn't attribute the buzzing to a winning email. Many minutes later (since the buzzing didn't click as a potential winner, nor did it register as my BlackBerry buzzing), I decided I had better enter for the 6-7pm draw, and saw that I had mail. Upon checking, my heart skipped a beat. "Way to go, Chris!", it said, along with some instructions for claiming my prize and answering the skill-testing question. Immediately I yelled down that I had won, and Shelley kept telling me to shut up (Translation: "Are you serious?" Really, why does one tell you to shut up when really, they want you to explain further…). All of us were by the machine as I entered the details to claim my prize. At the end, the little flash applet told me to simply wait 3-5 weeks to receive the booty. I shall be sure to update once it arrives. I'm so excited!