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Win a $100 Amazon card for Black Friday 2011.

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Yesterday I went into a drugstore and found several aisles completely stocked for Christmas: lights, ornaments, wrapping paper, toys, candy and, of course, traditional sacred images such as Mickey Mouse wearing a Santa hat. Sigh.

While too-early Christmas marketing and commercialism in general both bug me, I am also practical enough to acknowledge they exist — and to help a reader stretch his/her dollars to the utmost. That’s why I’m happy to announce a giveaway sponsored by the Consumerism Commentary blog: a $100 Amazon gift card, just in time for Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

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Getting out of town.

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I got back from BlogHer 2011 late in the evening on July 9. Since then I’ve been hitting MSN Money and Get Rich Slowly deadlines pretty hard, and spending time (including a day in Vancouver, B.C.) with an old friend who’s here in town.

Just before midnight tonight I get on a plane for the East Coast, where I’ll be spending just over a month:

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Join Swagbucks. I’ll make it worth your while.

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I love Swagbucks. There. I said it. I love Swagbucks because it helps me earn Amazon gift cards for doing what I’d do anyway, i.e., online searches.

I’d like for you to join Swagbucks using the widget here on the site. That’s because I’ll get bonus points if you do.

Yes, the Internet is a giant Ponzi scheme and I just want my piece of it. So I’m proposing a little incentive.

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A winner, on my way out of town.

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Melissa Allison was the one whom the random number generator loved best this week. She gets the $20 Amazon gift card. Everyone else gets to try again on Friday.

My first week here has been fun: Little sleep, but plenty of family, friends and food. The weekend was given to attending (and recovering from) a reunion of current and former women of the Anchorage Daily News in picturesque Hope, Alaska. This was a great group of kickass wimmen, and of course the food was major.

Oh, and yesterday my niece and her boys and I ran into a couple of bears while hiking.

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Giveaway: $20 in Amazon scrip.

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Even as I tossed out three possible prizes and asked you to vote I realized what the answer would be. Of course most people were going to want the $20 Amazon.com gift card.

After all, not everyone lives near an AMC movie theater and not everyone has a tween-ager in his life to whom to give Jean Chatzky’s “Not Your Parents’ Money Book.”

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Winners: The giveaway and the carnivals.

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Practical Parsimony was the winner of this week’s giveaway, a $20 Amazon.com certificate. I’m sure her grandson will be relieved, because Practical P. plans to spend the scrip on an iTunes card for her grandson, to “accompany the boring bathrobe I am giving him.” Happy birthday, grandson — dodged a bullet there. In other news: … Read more