A University of Arkansas baseball cap. I won it on a cable access game show. I was in the Society of Professional Journalists (still working on that) and my Quiz Bowl-like team was playing the Sierra Club for charity. We kicked their nature-loving asses!
Ahem. Anyway, there was a bonus question in which the prize was the cap. I don’t remember what the question was, but I got it right. I do remember answering a lot in the form of a question, though.
A shiny Quake t-shirt. Style and sophistication!
I won $100 in a raffle at work two years ago.
I didn’t tell the wife, and promptly went to the computer store and bought a portable USB CDR drive. Then I sent it to my brother, the architecture student.
Being able to burn 150Mb images onto a CD at school and take them home made his life a lot easier.
I won a large screen television which is still in use after something like 15 years. It was a sales contest at work, and that was one of the prizes I could pick based on the points I accumulated.
But the best was probably tickets to a Broadway show. About ten years ago, a local radio station had a call-in contest wherein listeners would do a voice imitation of someone famous. The first caller we heard did a completely lame imitation of Ernie from Sesame Street, and it cheesed me off so completely I called the radio station and started talking like Ross Perot. The DJ cracked up and I won two tickets to Broadway.
NOTE
Never take a pregnant woman to see a production of Miss Saigon.
Never really won anything very much (lousy premium bonds, they’re a mug’s game i tell ya, and make terrible presents) until I won a spanky pair of B&W series 3 602 loudspeakers.
And yes, they’re looooovely.
J.
Just last Sunday I got a pair of Paint ball gloves as a door prize. I had actually lost my first pair so that was cool.
A few months ago I won $150 in gift certificates at work for 2nd place for performance. So far I’ve used $100 getting 2 DVD box sets.
And the best item was a HP Journada 568. My friend at work won it and didn’t know anything about computers. I picked it up for $400 (CAN) which was less than half price at the time.
[ot]EllenCherry – only tip for the try-out is to have something in mind for the “tell us about yourself” portion, if s/he makes it that far. I both have a cool and interesting profession (puzzle editor) and a slightly off-the-wall hobby (tap-dancing), which I think gave me a leg up (sic) over the teachers who like to travel and the lawyers who collect stamps, or whatever. Other than that – at this point, you know what you know and you are who you are, and there’s not much to be done about either.[/ot]
An electric can opener at a firehouse dance. I am so pathetic.
I won a Bose wave radio/CD player. Not the tiny one, but the full size thing. It’s exactly what I need in a music system.
It was at a company meeting, and folks were chosen from the audience. Our company had just been purchased by this east coast company, and I was the only one chosen from our group. It was a trivia game format, and whaddya know, most of the questions were trivia about upper management of the parent company. I still managed to pull off a win.
I once won three “instant win” Sprites in a row from a cart vendor in Disneyland. Standing in line was a very tooth-floating experience after that.
And I won an unspecified prize from Tropicana orange juice. I fibbed a little when filling out the claim form, so when I got my useless little Tropicana matchbox car, the real pleasure was in having it delivered to “Mr. Yog Sothoth.”
A $200 gift certificate for a dinner at a local (okay, a half-hour from my house). Old-style private getaway resort (with its own airstrip!). The restaurant decor left a lot to be desired, but the food was wonderful. Rough idea of the prices: the vegetarian five-course meal was $67.50. The chicken was $85. House wine was included in the price.
Daaaaaaaaaaaamn good meal for (former)Roommate and me for $30 (tip was not included) and a quarter-tank of gas. Nothing I would have ever bought for myself.
The first three Rage Against The Machine’s albums , which I won in a radio contest. Only thing I’ve ever won.
A Palm m130 at a marketing conference last year. I never use it.
An Ozzy Osbourne bobble-head doll on a radio call-in.
Dinner for 2 at Ruth’s Chris steakhouse from an internal promotion here at work.
A brand-new quisinart 7-cup food processor, moderately tricked out with 4 blades and 2 tops. I won it in a raffle, on a $2 ticket. I was kinda miffed. It was the grand prize, but I really wanted the first prize - a lovely chef’s knife and steel.
I use it all the time now. It was actually a much more useful prize than the knife would have been.
In grade one, I won a medium-sized teddy polar bear (polar teddy bear?) named Charity Bear. He became my very favourite, and my best friend and pillow all the way up until high school. Still have him, tho’ he is now enjoying an honourable retirement on my bookshelf. Truly a Well-Loved Bear.
3 days at Disneyland/DCA from a radio show, a jumanji sweatshirt from another radio show and two bucks on lotto last week.
Let’s see: the best thing I ever won was a performance award at work (at the same company that has since laid me off.) I got $3000 worth of gift certificates to various places.
The coolest thing I won was a Fan of the Game drawing at an Atlanta Thrashers game. That was cool – my name up on the big board and the “Omigosh, that’s ME!” feeling. That one netted me a $100 gift certificate to Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse and a Thrasher’s prize package, including a polo shirt.
sold the most Girl Scout cookies one year in my hometown, and won a lovely pink bike with tassles on the handlebars. Haven’t won a thing since.
I’ve actually won a number of cool things.
The best would have to be a cell phone, at an Ottawa Senators hockey game, a few years back. It even had a year of free service! I loved that! I didn’t even have to buy anything, I was just sitting in the right seat. My parents were visiting me, and a lot of my co-workers were at the same game, so everyone knew!
The second coolest (close second) is a photograph (on real Kodak ™ paper) of Mount Olympus on Mars. It was when I was a kid, and they had a drawing contest to draw someone hang-gliding on Mars, and I won! People all over the province heard my name on the radio, but I missed it! Got the photo though. Hey, wait, it’s still at my parent’s house … <pout>. Here’s a link to the picture if anyone is interested.
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap970915.html
I’ve won things at company christmas parties, $50 gift certificates for dinners, or at local stores.
I think that’s it. But I think the Jeopardy win is the best story! Great question, and some neat things people have won!
Heather
My wife won dinner for two at the Playboy club in Chicago back in '83. We went on a weeknight and the place was empty. We had two bunnies serving us whatever we wanted. They brought up nearly everything on the menu. I think they were having as good a time as we were.
An autographed script for the film Patton.