One of my worries with this contest contest R and I are doing is that I will end up winning so many trips that I may have to quit my job to go on them all.  Luckily, my coworkers still have me around for a little while.  But soon I will be going to the following places:

• The Cook Islands, through the Fashion Magazine website
• Hawaii, on the Mazda website
• A Caribbean cruise, on the Maritime Travel website
• New York, through the Kit website
• Anywhere hockey during the 2011 NHL Playoffs
• Anywhere close by, thanks to a contest for a $50 Petro Canada gift card (luckily my car has excellent mileage)
• PEI, on Canadian Prizes (a rather dodgy website)

I also entered contests for:

• $500 worth of groceries from Kellog’s
• A Kobo e-reader (for my dad)
• Makeup, on the Kit website
• A Starbucks coffee maker, on the Prize Today website (Matt really wants this)
• Some Canadian Tire organizational stuff, on the Women’s Post website
• The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest DVD, on the Saveland website (Matt and his sister want to watch these)
• The Withnail and I DVD, also on the Saveland website – I started watching this movie when it came out over a decade ago and I keep meaning to watch the rest of it
• The Let Me In DVD (ditto for contest location), because I heard that the remake of Let the Right One In is actually good
• An Annabelle gift basket, on their website
• An Airbus A-320 resin model, on the My Aviation School website, for my friend Lee
• An iPad on the Daily Squeeze website, because my dad could sure use one (and my sister would thank me for it)
• Another iPad or $600 on Prize Today
• A $500 Chapters gift card (I love books)
• Wii Sports stuff, on Prizes Canada (we love Wii bowling in this household)
• Tickets to the 2011 Earlybird RV Show, on the Fraser Valley Pulse website
• Cargo Noir, a new boardgame, entered on Boardgame Geek (Matt and I love boardgames)

Phew!  23 contests in one day and I had a busy day of errands and social activities cut short because the play tonight was sold out by the time I got to the box office. 

Congratulations to R on the first winning!

Now that we clarified the rule that the contests we enter must be for prizes we want for ourselves or to give away to people we know would appreciate them, I almost wish I could retract some of the contests I entered.  Hence, from now on, I will only enter for contests that will enrich my life.  Thus:

Friday January 21:

• Entered a contest at my alma mater for an autumn cruise from Athens to Istanbul this fall – inspired by Michael Palin’s Around the World in 80 Days perhaps, by fall I am pretty certain I will need a vacation.  Before any vacation, I plunge into a schedule of reading up on the place.  Istanbul (and Constantinople) have been places about which I have been collecting book titles for my to-read list, so a vacation there would also cure a self-education itch.

Sunday January 23:

• Entered to win $5000 cash from Reader’s Digest because who doesn’t need more money?  (And, yes, I would give some away to my favourite charity lest you think I am consumed with greed.)
• Entered to win a BirdWatch Cam.  Birds coming to a feeder or bath trigger the camera to take time stamped photos.  I was inspired by Rurality’s game cam, her last post with pictures from it had a beaver, a bobcat and a very plump opossum.
• Entered the Elle Canada February contest for beauty products and clothes.  Because, um, I could use some beautification.
• And another Elle Canada contest, this time for a four-day trip to the West Indies, which my parents could sure use.
• Finally, also entered to win a one-year supply of toilet paper, because I do not have an unlimited supply of moss or whatever Paleolithic people used.

Tuesday January 25:

• Entered a Warner Bros contest for a Blu-Ray.  I think Matt said something about wanting this.  
• Entered the Ferrero Rocher contest for Valentine’s trips to Paris, Santorini or Tuscany.  The contest entry field for sex was defaulted to female (even though it was the second choice).  Guess they know their target market, but not sure why they didn’t have the sexes in alphabetical order.  I guess because men always come first.  Yeah.
• I also entered the Hictoric England contest for a trip to London, having answered the question “When will the Olympics be held in London?” right next to the clue-ful London Olympics logo.

Saturday January 29:

• Entered to win a $250 gift certificate at Urban Fare.

As for winnings, so far I have nothing to report except frequent calls from a persistent automated telemarketing answering machine.

Leave it to the Dutch and their weird humour to make a contest really fun to enter.  Since this one depends on more friends entering, let me know if you want an invitation and I’ll send you the link to the jokiest contest.

I took a break from contests last night, after the shock of seeing how far R was ahead of me.  But today, I gritted my teeth and entered a few more contests and entered:

• Miss 604‘s Taste the World draw for two Food & Wine passports (becuase I like food & wine)
• Miss 604’s Taste the World draw for two Food & Wine passports on Twitter (do these entries count as one or two?)
• Also on Miss 604, I entered a contest for family passes to the Vancouver Lookout
• Another Miss 604 draw for $100 gift certificates at either a Season at QE or the Teahouse in Stanley Park because Matt will sure be able to use that
• A Miss 604 draw for a $100 gift certificate to a Glowbal restaurant (this one was easy to enter: preserved lemon risotto mascarpone)
• I think I entered to win an iPad, which either my dad or my cat could use (cats love iPads, I have heard)
• Playing by the Book‘s contest for a copy of Chris Wormell’s book Scruffy Bear and the Six White Mice (technically two entries)
• the Vancouver Police Museum‘s contest for movie tickets to an unspecified film – to enter, one had to comment with a paranormal story (mine’s not creepy, but I have to support the museum!)
• Kellog’s $5000 voucher for Air Canada (or a $100 gift card, presumably for cereal, which I eat on occasion)
• Starbucks’ contest for a trip to Palm Springs (I can use a vacation anywhere)
• Another contest on the Chatelaine website with all manner of prizes, including trips

Apprently R and I have inspired my sister and she has already entered three contests as well.  I asked her if she wanted to blog here too, but she declined.  I suspect she just doesn’t want other people to know about her contests and become competition.

On my to-do list for the day: more contests!

My plan was to enter all of the Georgia Straight’s contests.  These are the ones I entered:

• Taiko drummer concert tickets
• Movie tickets for The Roommate
• Tickets to the musicals Avenue Q
• Tickets to the movie The Rite
• Assorted cooking stuff for voting on top Vancouver restaurants in different categories

Matt also sent me a link to a Boardgame Geek contest: winning the Alvin & Dexter Ticket to Ride Monster Expansion.

And then I ran out of steam on this project for the night.

Just to make sure I don’t fall behnd, I entered the Vincor Canada contest for a trip for four to go spend Mardi Gras in New Orleans.   $7500 value, I can’t win because I’ll be refused time off at work.  Thus the bind I am in means I have a good chance of winning as fate will want to mess with me.

First official day of the contest and I realize the contest I wanted to enter (for a porcelain Moomin mug and plate set) was for EU residents only.   Doh! 

So instead I entered the MTV Can Sex Friends Stay Friends $5000 contest.  I just googled contests and that’s what came up.  I’m desperate to not fall behind, you see. 

I have no idea what $5000 has to do with sex friends, unless it’s because one needs to purchase the services of said sex friends.