I’d like people to start spreading the word about the book. I know that most of the books I read are recommendations from friends, bloggers or people on Twitter or Facebook. I want to encourage you guys to let your friends know about Chocolate & Vicodin, so I’m launching a contest.

Visit the Chocolate & Vicodin: Spread the Word Contest page and you can enter numerous different ways to win either an iPod Shuffle, a $25 Amazon gift card, or a $10 iTunes gift card. You can tweet, like the book on Facebook, leave reviews on Amazon or Goodreads, email your friends, or post the video trailer or a site link on your blog. Once you do, submit proof via that form and you’ll be entered to win!

Winners will be drawn randomly. Anyone is eligible, including international readers. The contest is open until 11:59pm EST on May 30, 2011. Thanks for spreading the word!

MizFit and The Ellen Show
Mizfit is attempting to get on The Ellen Show, much like Ellen campaigned to get on the cover of Oprah’s magazine. Carla has always been delightful and helpful, so I hope she makes it!

Trapped in the spam filter
I migrated to a different blogging platform a few weeks ago, and I’ve been very happy. However, I noticed that the spam filter trapped at least two legitimate comments in its electronic nets. I only saw them because I happened to be browsing through the spam. If you left a comment that didn’t get posted that wasn’t spam, it might have gotten trapped. I apologize for that! To increase your chances of getting through, be sure to leave a real email address and not a fake one like none@none.com, which might have been the reason it got discarded.

Camera contest
I’ll draw the winner of the camera contest next week after I have a chance to check my PO box for any final entries. Thank you to everyone who entered!

Thank you for using my affiliate links!
Thank you to everyone who has purchased stuff on Amazon using my affiliate links. I had a really good month in January, and it’s only because of you. I really do appreciate it. My landlord appreciates it too.

I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter! Superbowl gift set winner
I drew the winner of the Superbowl gift set from I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter! this morning. There were 192 entries! Wow! The winner was Karen, who blogs at Musings From Grandma’s Attic. I emailed her this morning, but I might not have gotten past her Earthlink spam gatekeeper. If you’re reading this Karen, email me at blog [at] pastaqueen (dot) com with your address! As a consultation prize for the other 191 of you, I’ve posted three recipes from I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter! after the jump that you can use at your own Superbowl party.

If you are shopping today, like so many Americans, good luck to you and don’t forget your scarf! I froze my ass off in line at a Circuit City two years ago at 4:30am to get some bargain USB drives. It was fun to do once, but I don’t have any desire to relive the experience. If you prefer to stay at home and shop online in your pajamas with a warm cup of coffee, and you’re shopping at Amazon.com anyway, please consider clicking through to the store via one of my links. If you do so, I earn a small commission on any item you put in your cart after you click through that you buy. There are also some coupons for Avenue and other stores here that you might find useful.

I usually wouldn’t be so overtly and annoyingly commercial as to ask for your click-throughs, but the fact that I might be unemployed at this time next week has made me a little more brazen. Either way, I hope you spend the holidays with the people who matter to you. They’re more important than any Amazon gifts. (Don’t tell Jeff Bezos I said that!)

The item(s) listed below will actually ship sooner than we originally expected:

Jennette Fulda (Author) “Half-Assed: A Weight-Loss Memoir”

[Paperback]

Estimated arrival date: 04/21/2008

The Amazon book page lists the book as “In stock.” They’re still offering it at the $10.85 pre-order price too.

A couple people have asked me where is the best place to buy the book so I make the most money. First off, thanks for thinking of my financial well-being! We all know food ain’t cheap and those weird fruits and vegetables can be expensive. I make the most money if you buy the book directly from me because that cuts out the middle man. However, I’m not selling copies until I actually have them in hand, which will hopefully be soon. If you just can’t wait, the next best thing is to purchase it from Amazon using my affiliate link or any of the links on this page. I get a percentage of the price of the book, plus a percentage of anything else you put in your cart and buy at the same time. If neither one of those options works for you, buy the book new from a bookstore and I’ll get a royalty. If you buy it used, I don’t get a penny. Pennies don’t buy much these days, but I could still use one to ride the mechanical pony at the front of the Meijer store.

Also in the news today, Marci Alboher from the Shifting Careers blog/column at the New York Times wrote a great article about the blog, the book and how weight loss has affected my career. Thanks, Marci! Marci’s got a great blog too (and she just got a cute little puppy), so be sure to check it out.

Things are starting to gear up with book promotions, plus I still have a full-time job to go to every day and a personal life to maintain and a mini-marathon to train for (who’s bright idea was it to take on all this stuff?), so blog posting might start to get erratic in the month of May. I will do my best to keep writing fresh, funny, relevant entries, but if I disappear for days at a time just assume that I have collapsed on my bed with my running shoes still on. I thought your comments on my last post were better than the post itself, so I’m sure you all can handle things even if I’m unconscious.

Also, Amazon is currently offering an extra 5% on all books pre-orders. So, if there was something you wanted to preorder, you can save an extra 54 cents and buy yourself some gum afterwards! I don’t know how long they will be running this offer, but thanks to Sara for pointing it out.