Announcing Our adidas Contest Winners

Congratulations to Brendan and Josh who won have been adjudged the winners of our adidas contest. Brendan will getting a nice D.C. United long sleeve t-shirt, and Josh will be getting a D.C. United jersey.

Now, it is easy enough for me to give away other people's stuff, which is basically what we have done here. So let me also throw in something to all of the people who submitted an entry that I reproduced in our Finalists post, you have earned publication of a six word novel or special guest post at the DCenters in the future, plus a free beer or non-alcoholic beverage of choice if you manage to catch me at the stadium. To redeem your posting rights, simply send me a six word novel or guest post (not more than 500 words please) at any point this season from the same email address you sent, and I'll put it up with the usual editing caveats (which, although I always express them, I don't think I've ever used.)

My thanks and congratulations to all who participated, and my thanks to adidas and their PR people for allowing us to do this.

And yes, I meant to this Monday, but logistics conspire, no? And, opportunity allowing, I would love to do something like this again someday.

Our adidas Contest Finalists

OK, our contest finalists are presented here. We will announce winners on Monday, and certainly if you have any strong opinions about who should win, please let us know. Remeber, ultimately this is a matter of taste. I want to thank everyone who submitted entries (we had about 20 total entries). Submitted for your consideration:

First, a few non-finalists that I enjoyed. RKE gave us this:

"Lured by swag, D sells out."

Damn straight! If I can get you guys adidas swag, and they're cool about providing it, then hell yes.

Kevin G, our old friend, gave us these two:

"DC United make Celtic Look Good." -- Right, like at that friendly a few years ago?

"Go Washington Freedom. Oh. Wrong Blog." -- No my friend, the right blog indeed.

Also, I admit that "Fenty, Fenty, Fenty, Fenty, Fenty ugh." from Anonymous K had a simple beauty, but I am going to disqualify it because it isn't quite D.C. United explicit enough.

There were also a few adidas themed entries, and since adidas and the PR folk were kind enough to do this thing, I want to let them know how much they were appreciated. Here are some of those:

"Winners wear adidas and watch soccer"

" adidas, soccer unite; take over America" - Kelly

"adidas sells DCU stuff, sales skyrocket." - Anonymous K

So I wanted to share those notes of thanks from our readers to adidas for sponsoring this contest. And now...

The Finalists:

"Mortal enemies: Ben Olsen, razor blades." -- Anonymous K (Personally, I can imagine Ben staring a Gilette Mach 3 Turbo in his bathroom, then challenging the blade with "Oh, you're in trouble boy")

"mozart music shakespeare drama United soccer" - Fabian (Truly, the finer things in life)

"First, adidas store. Second, United stadium." - Kelly (setting a timeline I hope to agree with.)

"Freddy Plays. DC Wins. Pops smiles." - Josh (The backstory? Josh tells us " San Jose @ DC - April 3, 2004. This was my father's last game in person before passing away from cancer on April 13, 2004. We had season tickets together for the previous 7 years." Even at my most cynical has to admit that I, well, got a bit sniffly. Allergies, no doubt.)

"Pontius Scores. Party Boy Celebration Ensues." - Erik (who thinks that this captures the "relation to 'Jackass: the Movie' and goal scoring." Certainly I hope so.)

"Cups and glory, that's our story." - Brendan (as nice a summation as you will see, and a rhyming couplet.)

Those are your finalists. Feel free to share opinions in the comments. Winners will be announced on Monday.

Contest Extension

We've gotten a few last minute entries, so we're going to extend the deadline just a bit (say, until midnight tonight). So our posting schedule is going to look like this:

• Tonight: First Impressions DC v NE
• Tomorrow Afternoon: Contest Finalists
• Sunday: Debrief
• Monday: Contest Winners

Just so you know, we take care of you.

Contest for Free D.C. United adidas Stuff! Really!

Oh, this is very cool. Here's the deal: The new adidas (all lower case, they're big e.e. cummings readers over there) store is opening in Tyson's Corner, and a representative from Adidas has offered to give away free stuff to our readers if we'd help promote the store and its opening. Now, normally I shy away from being a corporate shill, but this is a special offer to our readers, it is D.C. United related, and they're serious about promoting United as part of this deal. That's all good stuff.

So, here's the deal. I'm going to promote the store opening on this blog, and I'll try and make it out there on Saturday. You should go out as well. Talk to the MLS MVP and the two rooks. Get that kit signed.

And, we've got loot, merchandise, prizes to give away. Which we will do in a contest format. Details on the contest after this message on the D.C. United stuff going on, and where to go. Per the e-mail I got:

DC United players Luciano Emilio, Chris Pontius and Rodney Wallace will be on hand to celebrate the opening of the new adidas store at Tysons Corner Center on Saturday, April 18. The athletes will meet and greet fans, sign autographs and compete with costumers in a free throw shooting and penalty shot contest.

It is going to an exciting day at the adidas store and I thought your readers would be very interested in this special event. See schedule of events below and attached media alert. Thanks for considering.

Saturday, April 18
12 P.M. – Grand opening and ribbon cutting
12 P.M. – 1 P.M. – Gilbert Arenas autograph session and free throw contest
2 P.M. – 3 P.M. – DC United autograph session and penalty kick competition

adidas Store
Tysons Corner Center
1961 Chain Bridge Road
McLean, VA 22102

Got all that? You going to go? Good. Now here's the contest:

You are familiar with our six word novel recaps. Well, we want you to write one. Select a topic, and write a six word novel for it. For instance, here's Bob's six word novel:

On what should happen at the Adidas Store Opening: "Gilbert, Emilio new BFFs. Go drinking."

You can pick any D.C. United related topic for your six word novel. Here are the rules:

1. All entries to be e-mailed to thedcenters(at)gmail(dot)com, so we have an email address we can mail you back at. Entries must be received by Friday, 1PM. Please put the phrase "adidas contest" in your email subject line. We ask that you limit yourself to five submissions. Include any details of how you'd like your name to appear, and any links to websites you'd like to accompany your submission, in your email.
   
2. We will post our finalists, and our winners, on Friday. Which means that by submitting you agree that we can publish your entries.
   
3. We hope to give our one or two prizes, one for our winner and a runner-up. Not sure what'll be in them, it is whatever the adidas PR people decide, but they have said things like "jerseys" and "t-shirts." Winners will be chosen by, well, us here at The DCenters by whatever process we decide. Yes, it's totally subjective.
   
4. Winner(s) will be contacted by email, and we will ask for mailing addresses for your prize packages or figure out if we can actually give them to you at the adidas store opening
   
5. We reserve the right to edit your submissions for grammar, punctuation, spelling, or taste. Not that such a right means our grammar, punctuation, spelling, or taste is any better than yours.
   

Since this is a kind of neat thing for the adidas PR people to ask us to do, and it's nice of them to volunteer to give away stuff to our readers, I beg your indulgence as I may revisit this over the course of the week. Let's see those novels.