Explicitly and without apology a marketing vehicle MaryMaryQuiteContrary

We have our winner(s)!

Happy Monday everybody! Awesome super-extra-long-weekend on the MaryMaryQuiteContrary front. It was a four-day holiday for me and I loved every minute of it. The whole back-to-school-back-to-work thing this morning was a downer. The weekend was just so awesome. I didn't want it to end.

Plus, we're almost to the end of the month. Which means my monthly report is due soon. Which means I need to quick do something. And that always stresses me out a bit.

So I was definitely fighting off the Monday Morning Blues this morning.

But then I read the comments posted to the most recent Friday Free Stuff and I got all chipper again.

So it's with great pleasure that I award the big prize package to Olaf!

Olaf impressed the heck out of me by including a diagram in his response to my question. -- how is it that the Ancient Greeks annotated all their great ideas about mathematics when numbers as we know them today hadn't yet been "invented."

But wait, there's more.

Because Vanessa -- my favorite Brazilian Java developer (you're a close second, Miguel) -- posted. And because I happen to know that Vanessa...


  
...  -- pictured here in the t-shirt that she "won" from me -- happens to be a collector of pens. And because you guys are so smart that you all really deserve to be winners.  And because we're officially into the Christmas shopping season and that means the spirit of giving here in MaryMaryQuiteContrary land is spreading like the Chicken Pox ... EVERYBODY is a winner.

That's right. EVERYBODY who posted to the most recent Friday Free Stuff "contest*" wins a pen!

Shipped directly to you. Free of Charge. With stamps that I buy at the post office!

Now if that didn't put you in a good mood, I've got something else that just might...

So crazy stuff happens to me. It just does. I can't explain it. I just try to roll with it and not ask too many questions.

Last month something crazy happened. The MaryMaryQuiteContrary blog was mentioned in a magazine article. Also mentioned was another blogger -- a fellow named Scoble who works for Microsoft. You know me, I'm all about making friends I haven't met yet. And since my biggest boss and Scoble's second-biggest-boss shared some really interesting news with us then sat next to each other and slapped each other on the back...



... I figure it's probably safe for me to pass a note across the aisle.

So I sent Scoble email telling him we had something in common (both bloggers; both mentioned in the magazine article) and introducing myself.

Get this: He hit the reply button! He sent a note right back!

So I'm sitting there thinking -- holy cow (no offense intended, you guys... just an expression), I got an email from Scoble. I gotta tell somebody.

(i'm sure that's exactly what Scoble was thinking when he received the email from me.  ;-)

Anyway, so I shoot off a note to Tim Bray and tell him.

Tim Bray is world renown techno celeb extraordinarire who happens to be a Sun employee (which means I've got something in common with him too and he's a blogger. so i guess we need to elevate that to the power of 2. anyway..) I figure Tim would be sufficiently impressed that Scoble sent me email. (ok, replied to an email; close enough.)

Get this Tim Bray writes back (setting off another round of email inbox excitement around here) and he tells me not only does he know Scoble, he's had lunch with him...



... He also said that Scoble is a really good guy. He used the words "super nice" and " integrity" in describing him..

Well, anybody who's a good guy in Tim Bray's book is a good guy in mine -- especially since he hit the reply button.

So how crazy is that whole thing?

I'm telling you, I'm living the vida loca over here.

Inside. Outside. Upside down.

:-)

mary

p.s. it is a happy Monday after all.

p.p.s. Click and Hack said they'd try to send me the solution to the puzzler today so that we can close out that Friday Free Stuff too, and then we'll be all caught up. And then it will be just a matter of me getting to the post office to send all this stuff. (i'm supper sorry Tom, Bill, et al, for taking so long; it's just crazy busy and the blog is -- after all -- extracurricular).

p.p.p.s. *I don't do contests. I use the term euphemistically. The free stuff -- it's all about me giving away stuff that I personally own to people I choose. I pay for shipping with stamps that I buy at the post office.