Announcing The "Where's Garth's Book?" Contest

You're all either old enough or young enough to remember "Where's Waldo?"   It involved a lovable scamp with glasses who would get himself trapped in awfully complex situations and only keen eyes could rescue him.We have our own lovable scamp, sans glasses, and his name is Garth Sundem.   If you haven't seen Garth be lovable, watch this clip from his show on the Science Channel.  I'll wait.  

You're all either old enough or young enough to remember "Where's Waldo?"   It involved a lovable scamp with glasses who would get himself trapped in awfully complex situations and only keen eyes could rescue him.

We have our own lovable scamp, sans glasses, and his name is Garth Sundem.   If you haven't seen Garth be lovable, watch this clip from his show on the Science Channel.  I'll wait.  

See what I mean?  If you still aren't convinced I will put up his clip from "Good Morning America", after which I am pretty sure Diane Sawyer tried to kidnap him and chain him to the radiator in her closet he was so charming.

Anyway, two days ago I got an email from Josh Witten, showing the misadventures of Garth's latest book, "The Geek's Guide To World Domination" (inserting obligatory Amazon linkbox in 3...2...1 ...)

Here's what he sent ...

... and I thought that was the funniest thing I would see that day, but then Becky Jungbauer followed it up with her bookstore tale, which showed Garth's book in another pickle:

Garth Sundem book

I was sitting around with me better half, Kim, last night and I said, "I kind of want to know what Garth's book is up to at Border's" and then "Heck, I bet if we ask the whole country his book could be in even more ridiculous situations"  but then "Step Brothers" came on TV and I promptly got distracted (you know that part where Wil Farrell gets naked, like he does in every movie?  Well, he goes way beyond that with a drum set) but somewhere in the back of my mind the idea sat ... and sat.   

So it came back to me just now and I decided I want to have a contest.

If there's one thing you know about me, it's ... well, it's that I can't even order off a menu in under a thousand words, as this blog post attests.  But if there are two things you know about me, it's that I know nothing about marketing and promotion.  I totally Forrest Gump'ed my way into starting a successful science site.

So I can announce a contest but I have no way to promote it.   It may be a total flop, in which case Garth would probably rather I not have done it.   But if you know something about promoting a fun contest, and can help promote a fun contest, and would like to help promote a fun contest, here is what we can do:

1) Go to a bookstore.

2a) See if Garth's book is in a funny situation

or

2b) Get commando and put Garth's book in a funny situation

3) Take a picture and put it here.

If yours is the funniest picture, you will win ... a signed copy of Garth's book.   He doesn't know I am doing that, I just introduced it, so I will probably have to buy one, which will make winning even more special for you.   And a cool t-shirt, like this one.   A coffee mug too.

   
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Hank Campbell

I founded Science 2.0® in 2006 and since then it has become the world's largest independent science communications site, with over 300,000,000 direct readers and reach approaching one billion. Revolutionizing the way scientists Communicate, Participate, Collaborate and Publish is the goal of Science 2.0 ® and it is a work in progress, so if you agree, sign up and help. I've also written for USA Today, Wall Street Journal, Wired, Investors Business Daily, Chicago Tribune, Detroit News, LA Times,The Hill, CNN, American Thinker, Federalist, San Diego Union-Tribune, New Scientist, Genetic… Read more