Bleeding Espresso

OK Italian food lovers (and legal U.S. residents), here’s your chance to show just how deeply your passion flows and possibly win a trip to Las Vegas in the process.

That’s right! I said Vegas!

Carrabba’s Italian Grill recently announced the “Profess Your Love” contest in which Italian food lovers can submit a short love note to their favorite food or dish, expressing how it has made time with friends and family more special for a chance to win a variety of prizes, including a trip to Las Vegas.

One grand prize winner to receive the “Ultimate Love Escape” including:

• Airfare for two to Las Vegas
• A romantic dinner for two at Carrabba’s
• Tickets to The Beatles LOVE Show by Cirque du Soleil
• A two-night stay at The Venetian and private gondola ride

Nine runners up will receive dinner for four at Carrabba’s, an apron, and signed cookbook.

Entries can be submitted online here until March 31, 2008.

See official contest rules here.

Now Profess Your Love–and in bocca al lupo!

P.S. And although I’ve mentioned wanting to go to Vegas, if you win, I really won’t expect an invite. Really. Enjoy yourself. I’ll be fine. I’ll just go to the real Venice to spite you.

—————

Technorati Tags: Carrabba’s Italian Grill, Profess Your Love, Profess Your Love contest, contests, Las Vegas, Ultimate Love Escape

12 Comments »

Yesterday the sun rose:

The girls frolicked:

The sun set and the moon made an appearance:

And a few hours later, I used the Custom Random Number Generator to choose a winner of the $30 Amazon.com gift certificate as promised in the contest post here.

Can you believe the winner was Lucky Number 7?

FYI, I used 161 for the upper value as it was the number of total comments, then started from the first comment counting down only those eligible, i.e., those that told me they had linked/relinked and/or subscribed/resubscribed (or that they were going to these things and then in fact did).

And the winner is . . .

none other than my most favorite baseball player in the Bel Paese:

I’ll be in touch Lango!

With all the work you’ve put into .italiaball.com recently, you certainly deserve it!

A lot of you probably don’t know how much I *love* baseball, but it’s definitely one of the things I miss most from America (read about what else I miss here); Lango’s site and stories help fill that void a bit, although I wish someone would build a field around here so I could go to some games. Where’s Kevin Costner when you need him?

Anyway, thanks *so* much to everyone who stopped by, commented, and made the transition to the new place such a wonderful experience.

And I hope those of you who were unsure of the change are getting used to it. Because honestly, I just don’t have it in me to change looks again anytime soon.

—————

Technorati Tags: contests, italy, expats in italy, expats, dogs, sunrises, sunsets, calabria, badolato, ionian sea, moon, custom random number generator

28 Comments »

Ta daaaaaaaa!

I still have some tweaking to do, but please look around and let me know what you think. Be kind, though, because my eyes are literally crossing after many, many days of learning many, many new things in front of the computer.

Now the fun part.

To celebrate the move and new look, I’m going to give away a $30 (thirty US dollars) Amazon.com gift certificate to one lucky winner. If you win and can’t use an Amazon.com gift certificate, we can discuss an equivalent prize.

Here’s how to enter the drawing:

1. Link to me in your blogroll OR if you already link to me, update your link to http://bleedingespresso.com.

2. Subscribe to my new feed OR if you’re already a subscriber, sign up to the new feed; really you should be automatically transferred shortly, but you can never be too sure, right?

3. Comment and let me know that you’ve done either or both of the above by 11:59 p.m. CET Monday, January 21, 2008. You can comment as many times as you like, but only one comment will count for the drawing.

Along with a new look, I’ve come up with lots of exciting ideas for this year to be discussed soon, and I do hope you’ll come along for the ride.

As always, thanks so much for reading, and best of luck in the drawing!

————–

Technorati Tags: contests, moving to your own domain, new blog designs

163 Comments »

The other day I mentioned how kind the blogging community has been to me lately. Now I’m going to give you the details.

First, just before Christmas I received a care package of a crazy amount of cross stitch goodies from my friend Concetta of An Italian-Scot’s Stitching Journal.

Check out my favorite, “The Dreamer,” which some of you may remember is what “Sognatrice” means in Italian:

As I told Concetta, I think this would be gorgeous in a little girl’s room. Now I just have to get me a little girl . . . .

Grazie mille Concetta!

Then the Italian postal service continued to bless me with actual delivery when My French Life by Vicki Archer arrived just after Christmas. I had won this book in a contest over at Robin’s place My Melange.

This book is *gorgeous* and if I didn’t want to head to France to visit my expat Froggie bloggie buddies, I sure do now (although truth be told, I did before anyway).

And then I got news that I also won a contest over at Valerie’s 2 Baci in a Pinon Tree. I know! What did I step in, right?

Valerie was compiling a list of expat bloggers in Italy and offered up some fabulous prizes: a copy of Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well by Pelligrino Artusi (English translation) and–get this!–”hand-crafted chocolates from the best darn cioccolateria in Le Marche.” Woohoo! *So* exciting!

And then I read that Geggie of So…What Else? What Else? What Else? is having a contest giving away some Burt’s Bees goodies. Well I’m on a lucky streak, so of course I had to enter–and you should too!

CLICK HERE TO ENTER TO WIN BURT’S BEES GOODIES

But wouldn’t you know it? I’m already a winner! In the contest post Geggie asked for a little technical help and has now offered to send me some fun stuff as a thank you. Thank *you* Geggie!

Speaking of contests, head on over to Grace’s Sandier Pastures and leave a comment explaining why you need a new blog design–and you just might win one.

CLICK HERE TO ENTER TO WIN A FREE BLOG DESIGN

And finally I got a big ole virtual bacio from Jenn at The Verge. She wrote some truly wonderful, heartwarming thoughts about me which mean so much coming from a blogger who I just love visiting.

So I’m passing along this:

to Concetta, Robin, Valerie, Geggie, and Grace (and back at Jenn) for their generosity and kindness not only to me but to all of us who are lucky enough to have found them.

This blogosphere just keeps on giving I tell you, and I couldn’t be more grateful to be a part of it.

—————

Technorati Tags: cross stitch, contests, my french life, vicki archer, blogging awards, science in the kitchen and the art of eating well, pellegrino artusi, burt’s bees, free blog design

22 Comments »

Various announcements this Friday, so let’s get to it:

W00t!

Merriam-Webster has recently named its Word of the Year. It’s “w00t” and yes, those are zeros in the middle of it. Yes Virginia, this is a word that’s not even made up of letters.

W00t is defined as “expressing joy (it could be after a triumph, or for no reason at all); similar in use to the word ‘yay.’”

Hey, who knew that “yay” was a word?

Anyway, you can read more about “w00t” and its origins here. As much as I love an evolving language, are we getting a bit too lax on the criteria when words are made of numbers?

I’m kidding (mostly) but what I’m really wondering is how long it is before I hear Italian children shouting this in the piazza:

“Ci vediamo dopo…w00t!”

Eh. I guess it’s still better than all the English-turned-Italian technological terms that have become part of the lingo around here like clickare, downloadare . . . bloggare. Don’t get me started.

Vote!

As you may know, I recently entered this photo in Write From Karen’s Photo Contest 5: Holiday Cheer:

Doesn’t Pap Pap just *scream* Holiday Cheer?!

You can read more about the background of this photo here in my official entry to the contest, but let me just say that for the record, Pap, who has since passed away, put these bows on himself of his own volition. And it was so very out of character that the hilarity was monumentally increased.

You still have time to enter your own photo (until 4 pm Central today) but then just an hour later at 5 pm Central today, I invite you to vote for my photo in the contest–voting lasts through the weekend until 8 pm Central on Monday, December 17, so you have a few days to get to it.

There will be a voting poll here when the precincts open.

Make your voice heard!

Grazie mille in advance!

Enter/Email!

This is a note to my fellow expat bloggers in Italy. If you haven’t already, head over to Valerie’s 2 Baci in a Pinon Tree to see about a contest she’s running just for us.And to those who aren’t expat bloggers in Italy, head on over to Valerie’s anyway for some great reading on her and her husband Bryan’s move to Ascoli Piceno in Le Marche from New Mexico.

Valerie is trying to compile a blogroll of all of us expats who blog from Italy–a very worthy pursuit–and so she’s asking us to send her an email at:

italybloggersAThotmailDOTcom

with the following info:

Your Name (as well as your blog moniker if you use one)

Your Blog’s Name and URL address

A one-line description of your blog’s focus

Your Location (city and region)

Send the email by December 30 and you can win “[a] brand-spanking new English translation of the quintessential Italian cookbook, Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well by Pellegrino Artusi.”

Sounds great to me!

And that’s all for today kids. Busy weekend ahead for many of us, I’m sure, so…

Buon weekend!

—————

Technorati Tags: woot

24 Comments »