(UPDATED!) Announcing The Stupid Pineapple Blogfest!

UPDATED: Heather Arundel (blogs at My Demon Spirits, is a great writer) has a great idea. +1 point for her already.

Her idea: in addition to extra numbers for all the other stuff, you get extra numbers for tweeting & Retweeting about the Stupid Pineapple Blogfest.
But you MUST mention @whyihatepeople in the tweet or retweet, so that I can track them.

You may or may not have heard that author Patrick Dilloway, a/k/a Grumpy Bulldog, got a book deal.

Over on his blog today, Grumpy complains about how as a Big Shot Author with a Million Dollar Book Contract, he has to actually relate to people and interact with them in hopes that they will buy his book and justify his publisher providing him with one of the castles that Nicolas Cage lost to foreclosure. This, in turn, legally obligates Grumpy to be nice to you and me, and to take part in as many blogfests as the Internet can throw at him.

Which is how I came up with the idea for The Stupid Pineapple Blogfest!



Now, I've never run a blogfest before, so I don't know what really to do. Whatever I do, I expect that Michael Offutt, Pagel Hater, will immediately point out to me what I did wrong and then expect me to pay him for that, so you can rest assured that one way or the other, this will end up being a colossal mess.

But... a colossal mess that will get you a free book and $10 to Amazon.

The BOOK is one of MY books -- whichever one you choose, from this list, and $10 on a gift card to Amazon, all just for participating... and winning.

Here's what you have to do:

1. Leave a comment saying you're going to enter.

2. On Friday, February 3, 2012, post, on your Blog, a post on the following topic:

"This Stupid Pineapple is..."

That's it. It can be a post, an essay, a poem, a picture, even, if you are daring and so inclined, a karate-ballet demonstration featuring several black belts.

(That last one would almost certainly win.)

Then, on Saturday, the 4th, I'll go read all the posts of people who left a comment here saying they were going to enter, and I'll post links to them, and I will assign a panel of distinguished judges made up of:

A. Me.
B. Mr Bunches
C. Mr F

To determine who wins, based on the following exacting criteria:

1. You have to enter by commenting and posting something.
2. I will assign a number to each entry, in the order in which you posted your comment.
3. I will have Random.org pick a number.

BUT WAIT! THERE'S MORE EXACTING CRITERIA!

4. If I really like your post, I will give it not one, but two numbers. Or more.
5. And if you link back to my blog in your post, I will give it a third number.
6. And I will give your post an extra number for each person who comments on YOUR post at YOUR blog.

So, to recap:

The total number of numbers will begin at "the number of people who enter." Let's say four people enter. Each person gets assigned a number:

1, 2, 3, 4

But if I like your post, and you were #1, you'll be #1, and 5, with the total numbers being 1-5.

If you link to "Thinking The Lions" in your entry, you get another number, so you'll be, say, 1, 5, and 6, with entries 1-6, so you'll have, what, a 99% chance of winning or something?

Then, if you get a bunch of people to comment on your post, each comment is another number. So someone who gets 83,000,000 comments on his blog, like Michael Offutt, you'll get even more opportunities.

I know it's a complex system, but what did you expect? It was thought up by a Stupid Pineapple.