Gonna be a winner this time...

I hate being one of those people. The kind of person who looks the proverbial gift horse in the mouth. However, I'm doing it today in spite of that.

I subscribe to e-newsletters for a couple of local radio stations even though I've readily admitted that, lately, I'm more apt to listen to my iPod than anything else when I'm in the car. More often than not, these subscriptions are used so I can find out what artists are coming to town to play overpriced shows so I can drool a bit and wonder "oh, if only..."

But I also use them to learn about station contests of which they have a ton. Sometimes it's tickets (I won a pair to see Diana Krall a few years ago), sometimes it's sneak previews to movies (I've given up on trying to win these because they all seem to be for theaters in Chicago proper on weeknights, which constitutes too late a night during the workweek and one heckuva commute), but, for the most part, it's CDs and DVDs.

I came home yesterday from work and saw a new DVD box set sitting on the countertop. I looked quizzically at Katie and she said, "apparently you won a contest."

For what, I wondered.

It was the box set for Twin Peaks, season 2.

Oh. I didn't even enter that drawing. I saw it on the contest page of one station and thought, "I've never been much for David Lynch and I didn't like Mulholland Drive or Blue Velvet and I had way too much trouble trying to get into Twin Peaks the three or four times I did try watching it." So I didn't enter. I'd rather waste my effort on something I would enjoy.

That would seem to be pretty reasonable rationale, right?

Yet, somehow, despite not entering it, I was still entered in it. And I won it.

Okay.

Yeah.

Great.

After three years of entering contests on this station's site and never winning anything, this is what I get to make up for it.

In all honesty, I'm not sure what bugs me more, the fact that I won something I'm likely never to use or that I've become the sort of person that complains about getting something that's 100% free.

Comments

[SJ]

Aww man, too bad it's not at least Season One, which was good! Season Two got so weird and convoluted you couldn't follow it.

Hell of a thing, though, to win a contest you didn't enter. Why doesn't that happen when the prize is a custom Ibanez guitar?

[jenny]

WHAT?!?!? you don't like david lynch? aww, kevin. i thought i knew you.

i really thought i knew you. ;)

[suze]

How odd that you would win when you didn't even enter...

[suze]

How odd that you would win when you didn't even enter...

Which, I understand, was the whole point of your post. Apparently all I'm capable of today is summary, not original thought :P

[sandra]

I LOVE Twin Peaks. You should get into it - you won't regret it.

[Chase]

You could always put it up on Half.com and make some bucks from it. Or sell it to any of the commenters here that say they love it! :)

[Hilly]

Here's your rationale (I am good at spinning things): You are upset for receiving a gift that someone less fortunate might have really enjoyed.

Ahem.

[L.A. Daddy]

It could be "contest karma."

Since you have been paying more attention to your iPod and not going to movies screenings... it's payback.

This time... it's personal.

(Psst! eBay it!)

[steppingoverthejunk]

that's really funny. now you have something to watch in the summer when everything is a repeat..unless of course, you actually watched Twin Peaks when it was on television.

[Elaine]

I hated Twin Peaks. Thw show just did absolutely nothing for me. Maybe once you watch a few episodes you'll get into it. Take one for the team Kevin.

[Bre]

I would complain too! But then I'd hock it on eBay and buy myself some swanky shoes with the profits!

[g-man]

Crank up the old blog-o-sell machine. OR you could raffle it off. An essay contest on "why Kevin is the greatest dude on the planet". Prize: one season two DVD of Twin Peaks.

[Foo]

That's it! I'm going to stop entering all local newspaper/radio contests, no one told me I just needed to check the mail every day.

[kapgar]

SJ, tease me with an Ibanez why don't you???

jenny, yeah, I can't think of any Hollyweird personality that freaks me out more than he does. Not even Courtney Love.

suze, I don't get it either.

sandra, I'm not sure I can do it. Lynch is just too weird.

Chase, I was thinking the latter option. Not sure what I'd get through a Web site.

Hilly, no hinting whatsoever, eh?

L.A. Daddy, is it karmic revenge on the part of the movie industry for not watching them or on the part of my iPod for overuse?

sotj, I think I'm going to try to avoid my TV this summer if at all possible. ;-)

Elaine, why am I always the one "taking one for the team"? I say you do it!

Bre, considering your taste in shoes, I'm not sure this set would earn enough to offset it.

g-man, and get no entries because people have ethical and moral conflicts with the theme of the contest? I wouldn't want to depress myself like that.

Foo, strange one, isn't it? Makes me wonder if they miscoded one of the contests I did enter.

[Dagny]

No way. How could you not love Twin Peaks?

[nicole]

Don't feel bad, I'd complain too. At least you're not like some people who enter every contest whether they really want the prize or not. I only enter if I really would like and use what they are giving away.

[Karl]

Twin Peaks was too freaking convoluted and bizarre, as is most of David Lynch's stuff. Still, congrats!

[kapgar]

Dagny, kinda easily. Lynch is weird. I need only reference Dune.

nicole, if I was younger, I might do that just out of spite. Heh.

Karl, I'm right there with you, man!