First, let me say they made me write this. They being the marketing department, the people who make others write about themselves in blog posts about contests that the writer figures into as a prize. Would it be too unsettling to write about myself in third person instead? Let me try that.

…

Alright, so after four attempts I saw pretty clearly that writing about myself in the third person only comes off as snarky. I’ll just face this.

So you know me and Chuck as co-hosts of Stuff You Should Know. Obviously, you’re at least familiar with the blog. Maybe you hang around our Facebook page or follow us on Twitter. There are plenty of ways to interact with me and Chuck, but all of them — unless you were at the trivia nights in Brooklyn and Atlanta or a couple of extremely low-key live appearances around the country — are from a distance. Digital, even.

Should you be the person who is randomly selected as the grand prize winner in the contest HowStuffWorks is running from now until the end of the year, all that could be altered radically from its current distance-based version to one of far greater proximity, namely within the very city of Atlanta and even at the same lunch table.

Sure, anyone with a few hundred dollars could make it to Atlanta; for even less if they don’t care about getting back home. But the beauty of this contest is that not only does it bring an invitation from HowStuffWorks to come to Atlanta, but under the auspices of the grand prize of this contest, HowStuffWorks actually pays for the winner’s airfare to Atlanta. What’s more, for two nights there will be a hotel room leased out on behalf of the contest’s grand prize winner in or around the city of Atlanta. And since it would be ridiculous to expect a winner — by definition, “a promising or successful person or thing,” (see definition 5) –to also bring his or her — I say his or her, as this contest is open to all people, regardless of gender, creed, race, the whole bit, with some exceptions as we’ll see at the end of the post — own transportation for the days that encompass the sum total of the grand prize trip, the contest winner will also be afforded transportation between the airport, Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport (the world’s busiest airport, where you will be one of almost 90 million passengers to pass through in 2012), and the very same hotel that has been leased in the winner’s name and back. Included at some point during this grand prize trip is a visit to the HowStuffWorks.com offices, a visit which will include one (1) lunch with me and Chuck. We haven’t picked out the place where we’ll eat yet, but rest assured it will be the kind of place that serves bread before the food comes out and where there is no type of self-serve soft drink dispenser. As if all this wasn’t enough, the grand prize is rounded out with a $100 American Express gift card, which Chuck and I will likely not make you use to pay for lunch as we are both under the assumption that one of us will be allowed to cover it with a corporate card. I mean, that’s a business expense, right? There’s no way Discovery expects us to pay for this lunch ourselves, right?

What do you have to do? What indeed. You are required to expend almost no physical energy whatsoever to enter in this contest. Seriously, the whole of the contest involves traveling to the contest’s page on Facebook.com and filling out three fields: Your first name, your last name and your email address. You press the enter button and you’ve entered the contest, sure as snow. Following that, you will be prompted to share your recent entrance into contestanthood with your friends on Facebook and Twitter. You may disregard this prompt, but you will do so at your peril: Should one of your friends who is referred to the contest through your shared link become the grand prize winner, by proxy you, the referrer, will win an Amazon Kindle, which Chuck and I both agree is a far better prize than lunch with us.

There are rules; all contests have rules. Without rules things would be thrown into chaos. To maintain order and prevent the type of anarchy depicted in post-apocalyptic films such as The Road and Waterworld, we must follow the rules and this contest is not about to be the straw that breaks the back of the  metaphorical camel that is civilization. There are more rules than really should be displayed here, but suffice to say that if you live in Canada, you’re out. Now that I think of it, if you live anywhere else in the world beside the 50 United States and the District of Columbia, you are out. The same goes for people who don’t have a Facebook account. The whole contest plays out on Facebook and it’s a requirement to have a Facebook page to enter. Like I said, rules.

So that’s about it. Chuck and I and the rest of the HowStuffWorks.com staff wish you all good luck and we hope to see you here in our offices as the grand prize winner. The promising or successful person, as it were.

** Here’s a link to the contest.

***And here’s a link to the contest rules.