Step Right Up! The Cure For What Ails You For The Low Cost Of Free! Give-A-Way Starts!

Step right up! Step right up! No matter what ails you we have the cure!
That's right, to a lucky few who are wise enough to obtain Professor L. Ferret's patented, pertinent,  permanent, prescribed potion to unburden the weary woes that is your life.

Stuff!  Stuff my friends.  The tangible tanticularities of the firmament made manifest in your hands.
The sounding stones of the otherwise dubious incertitude of the nature of reality and one's place within.

Stuff.

And it can be yours! Nay, it verily must be yours for the verisimilitude of your peace in existence.
I say this not lightly.  Now, I am no saint.  No sir, no madam. I am but a humble traveler along life's path, blessed with unreasonable good fortune and so I should, no, I must, share this fortune and gift with others.

And so I present you good folk with a chanceful opportunity to receive this elixir of entities of entertainment.
Not for coin, not for dollars nor trade.  I have so much faith in the validity of my claim I offer these oddities freely!

Now, who shall be the first to come forward?

......................................

So I'm not waiting to hit 300 followers, I don't know when that will happen, or if it will, and while I'm close to 500 updates, that's a couple months off I'd expect.  And since the blog hit 200,000 views that seems like a good spot to stop and have a Give-Away!  More of that in a bit, but first, the 200,000 hits analysis:

200,000 Hits! 

If that was 1 hit a year it would go back to the very earliest occurrence of our species! 

First Blogger: 198,000 BCE

200,000 hits: Who's checking in around the globe? 

Just like when I hit 50,000 and 100,000  I also did a bit of digging to find out where the most visits were coming from.

Again, the top 5 countries in (the same as before) order of the most visits was: USA, UK, France, Germany, Australia.  But I don't count raw numbers, it's just not a fair way to do things when some countries have much larger populations.  So, punching numbers for per capita.. the last two times it was: 1.UK, 2.Australia, 3.Denmark

Would it be the same again? Would the home country rise to place, would Australia beat the UK? 

Let's find out!

FIRST PLACE, with an index value of 26:

United Kingdom, for the third time!

SECOND PLACE,with an index value of 25:

New Zealand!  Knocking Australia from her position.

THIRD PLACE, with an index value of 21:

Denmark! Maintaining it's position at 3 for the third time. 

Australia slipped to 4th, followed by Sweden, then Canada, then the US with France just a touch behind. 

I really enjoy finding out all the international visits and hobby goings-on in other places. 

...................................

THE GIVE-AWAY

OK, I promised a contest, so here goes. 

DURATION:

The contest lasts 11 days.  At the end of September 1st, 11:59 PM Pacific time I'll draw it to a close. 

THE PRIZES:

There are 11 items to chose from.  See below for details.

WHO IS ELIGIBLE? 

Anyone who enters. Great if you are a 'follower', but I know some people 'follow' without being a 'follower' because they don't have a google or blogger account.  If you follow by email or by bookmark, that's fine, I'm not here to change how you get about the internet. Winners could be anyone, from friends locally I see fairly regularly to people anywhere on the planet a postal worker can reach: selection is by random chance.

HOW DO I WIN?

You get points for certain things. At the end of the contest I'll add up all the points and generate a random number from the total, if it is one of yours: you win! 

Here's what gets you points:

1 point: Comment on this update. 

1 point: Plug* this contest on your blog, or if you don't have a blog, somewhere else that is appropriate and reference it here in the comments. 

1 point:  In addition to linking to the contest, link to another past update that you like- something you enjoyed or think is useful, interesting, weird, or whatever criteria you have.  Just to get the older stuff noticed again.  Internet & human attention span being what it is, things older than a week tend to get lost, but there could be fun stuff in past updates people hadn't seen. 

* Plug: 

Plug means promote, endorse, refer, link, town-crier, or chicken little it. It does not mean 'pimp'.  

That's a massive pet peeve of mine that I wish would die by fire.  

Pimps are assholes.  Pimps are as low as slavelords. Pimps should have their humanity status revoked.  

The fact this word has come into common usage to mean promote or endorse or make fancy is disgusting. The fact that common culture now seems to admire pimps is repulsive.  Anything that helps make this acceptable I want nothing to do with.  I have nothing against, though no personal interest in, prostitution, but pimps are parasites.  Prostitutes work for a living, they don't abuse and use others as property.  Pimps are not bad because they are associated with prostitution.. they could only aspire to reach such heights: pimps are a rotting fester that sucks the life out of, abuse, and dehumanize human beings. I don't accept taking advantage of other people.

So no 'pimping'. 

If you want to use the word, feel free, it's your right, but if it's associated with this contest all points are lost. 

I know a lot of people use the word without any such intended meaning, so I don't judge people who use it in a casual unthinking way, most who use the term don't give any thought beyond the immediate innocent meaning they intend, but I do think about it, and now I can't help but notice the offensive nature behind it.

The subconscious affect is real, and I'd prefer to not even have a second-hand association with it.

Avoid the word and I'm happy.

Words shape ideas. Ideas shape reality. So I draw the line on that one. 

/soapbox. 

So you can get as many as 3 points.  

I will roll randomly to select at least 3 winners. 

First rolled gets first choice, then second, then third. A person can't win more than one time. 

If there are a lot of entries I may open it up to have more than 3 winners, but there will be at least 3. 

So here are the prizes: 

1. 15mm Sci-Fi transport by GZG (not assembled, pieces placed to show how it looks)

2. Twelve 28mm Mordor Orcs on spru by GW for Lord of the Rings

3. 28mm Blood Bowl Referee (converted & painted by me) and set of Block Dice

4. Six 25mm Pirates by Wargames Foundry

5. Two 28mm Bandidos from Black Scorpion

6. His & Hers 28mm Demon characters from Reaper

7. A whole mess o' dice: wide variety of colors of d6s 2d10, a d16 and a direction die.

(I'll switch out a grey d10 for a second color so they can be used for percentile).

8. The Tolkien Companion. Hardback 531pgs.  A-Z chock full of Tolkien Lore

9. 40k history codex bundle: the first ever codex: Space Wolves (2nd ed), & 3rd ed. ImperialGuard

10. English Reformation. Trade Paperback,367pgs. Lots of info on life during the Tudor times. 

11. The Vampire Encyclopedia. Hardback, 303pgs. A-Z chock full of Vampire Lore.  

Good reference for Horror gaming. 

So 11 choices, hopefully something appealing to everyone. 

Good Luck!