Mega Giveaway versus Giant Contest!

At the top of this year I had to do two things: replace my Mac laptop, which is so old the operating system is called Sabre Tooth (baddaBING!), which in turn meant rearranging my office as well (to make room for all the joyous new cables). While performing this archaeological dig I unearthed a lot of really cool stuff lying around in boxes and bags, plus a lot of what can only be called random crap, so I figure the sweat of my brow is your good fortune: I’m giving it away.

That’s right! I’m having Yet Another Bad Astronomy Giveaway contest, and this time it’ll be on Twitter. What am I including? This:

[Click to sharktopusenate.]

This is truly an awesome load of geekiness. To wit:

A SyFy tote bag from Comic Con last year that says "GIANT BACK PACK" on one side and "MEGA TOTE" on the other. Yes.

A copy of George Hrab’s CD "Trebuchet" (it has a track on it narrated by Yours Truly), signed by him and me.

A pre-production signed copy of my book Death from the Skies!, because why not?

A very cool 2011 desk calendar "The Year in Space", with tons of great pictures; that would normally run you $12 plus shipping. It’s published with cooperation by the wonderful Planetary Society.

A copy of (the sadly now-defunct) Geek Monthly magazine that has an article about me, and another about Wil Wheaton — signed by both of us.

A copy of Skeptical Inquirer with an article I wrote about star naming schemes.

A bunch of stickers, including one signed by SETI astronomer Seth Shostak.

Two anaglyph glasses (one red/blue, the other red/green) so you can see stuff posted in glorious 3D.

The SkepStick, a flash drive given away at the first TAM London, with cool skeptical documents on it.

A bunch of other stuff, including an NOAO four port USB hub, a plushy cosmic microwave background, some buttons, some postcards, a deck of Amazon cards I picked up at a conference, an origami flying pig folded by Aussie skeptic Richard Saunders, and more.

Phew! So, how do you win this megastuff? There are some rules, so avast:

0) This contest is free. Also, in case of error or such, I reserve the right to change the rules slightly as needed.

1) This contest will be held on Twitter. Leaving comments here will not enter you in the contest. So yeah, you need a Twitter account to win, but it’s easy and free to get one.

2) On Thursday, January 6 at noon Mountain time (19:00 UT), I posted a tweet that says:

Bad Astronomy Megagiveaway: book, magazines, cool swag. RT to enter. Rules: http://is.gd/kfizR #BASwag

The #BASwag hashtag is critical! See #4 below.

3) To enter the contest, you must retweet that tweet.

4) All retweets must be posted before Friday, January 7, 2011 at noon Mountain time. Yup, just 24 hours. After that time, I’ll pick two random numbers, and then search Twitter for all instances of the hashtag #BASwag. The first random number will be the search page result (using 100 results per page), and the second will be the number of the retweet on the page (1 – 100). That person will then win the swag! Note: Twitter searches run a limit of 1500, which I doubt I’ll reach, but if I do then only those 1500 retweets available to the search engine will be eligible to win. If that sounds unfair, complain to Twitter in 140 characters or fewer.

I will notify the winner via Twitter, who will have until Saturday, January 8, 2011 at noon Mountain time to respond. If I don’t get a response, I’ll pick another random retweeter, who will have until Sunday at noon, and so on.

The winner will then send me their postal address so I can send them the loot.

5) Anyone on Earth is eligible, except (to be fair) for people who know me in real life. I’ll leave that up to you to decide if you count or not. People who know me can certainly retweet it, but they cannot win the megaswag. Those retweets will count in the random numbers I pick (in other words, if @TheAaronDouglas retweets it, I won’t give him the prize, but his RT will be counted in the search results). Please don’t retweet it more than once. That’s an airlock-blowing-out-of.

Them’s the rules, so go forth and tweetiply!