While the main reason I decided to take the long shot stab of winning a trip to the Vancouver Olympics was to help out a good cause, I must admit that the thought of escaping Hello kitty Hell for a couple of weeks also made it worth the effort. When I asked my wife to help, she agreed to give away a few of her things with the stipulation that if I did win, I had to pick up Hello Kitty crap that I found in Vancouver.

Apparently, Vancouver is the Hello Kitty crap capital of Canada from the emails and comments I’ve been receiving telling me about where I can do all kinds of great Hello Kitty shopping. I know this may come as a shock to some of you because you have obviously completely misunderstood the title of this blog, but what I really need is advice on how I can avoid seeing any Hello Kitty crap if I am fortunate enough to make it to Vancouver — not where I can find it. Just saying…

This next contest is for a Hello Kitty bento making set. Believe me, if you ever want to thoroughly embarrass somebody in front of their friends (and have their friends crack jokes about what they are having for lunch for the rest of their career), use this baby to pack a lunch for that person (unfortunately, I know this all too well from personal experience):

The Olympic contest is to help support and spread the word about lesser known athletes participating in the Olympics games. I’ve decided to participate by helping get the word out to people by creating Facebook fan pages.

We’re going to step this one up a notch and give five easy ways to enter this contest instead of just one:

1. Become a Facebook fan of Robel Teklemariam who is the lone athlete from Ethiopia participating in the Vancouver Olympics.

2. Write a message of encouragement to Robel Teklemariam either as a comment to one of the posts on facebook or on the wall. The message should be 10+ words in length (let him know you really care).

3. Write a message of encouragement to Clyde Getty either as a comment to one of the posts on facebook or on the wall. The message should be 10+ words in length (let him know you really care).

4. Write a message of encouragement to Tugba Karademir either as a comment to one of the posts on facebook or on the wall. The message should be 10+ words in length (let her know you really care).

5. Follow The Olympic Dream on twitter.

You can enter once or up to five times – whatever number of the above you want to do. For each of the above you do, leave a comment letting me know which one you have completed (so you can have up to 5 comments for this post) and each comment will be an entry into the giveaway. I will have a random number generated for the comments that qualify which are left below. The person’s comment that matches the number will receive the Hello Kitty bento making set.

The contest starts now and will end at 11:59 pm eastern (10:59 pm central, 9:59 pm mountain and 8:59 pm pacific) on Thurs January 28th. Open to anyone living anywhere in the world.

Update: There were 206 entries in this contest and the random came out as #66. Congratulations to Joy for winning and thanks to all for the comments that you left. Several of the athletes have commented how much the support means to them.

This is my second post in my continuing long-shot attempt to win a contest to blog about the Vancouver Winter Olympics and in the process, hopefully help out a good cause.

This contest is for a Hello Kitty Nori punch courtesy of my wife (who incidentally has been greatly encouraged by acquaintances who say that there are quite a few places to buy Hello Kitty crap in Vancouver — which has me thinking that maybe winning isn’t going to be the escape from Hello Kitty Hell that I had first imagined…):

The Olympic contest is to help support and spread the word about lesser known athletes participating in the Olympics games. I decided to participate by helping get the word out to people by creating Facebook fan pages.

Entering this contest is easy — simply become a Facebook fan of Tugba Karademir, a Turkish ice-skater who has struggled to find coaches and sponsors when many top ice-skaters are treated like rock stars. If you have the chance (although not part of the contest), also leave a message of encouragement and I’ll make sure that Tugba reads it.

After becoming a fan, leave a comment letting me know that you have and that will be your entry. I will have a random number generated for the comments that qualify left below. The person’s comment that matches the number will receive the Hello Kitty nori punch.

The contest starts now and will end at 11:59 pm eastern (10:59 pm central, 9:59 pm mountain and 8:59 pm pacific) on Sunday January 24th. Open to anyone living anywhere in the world.

Update: For all those that entered the first contest and became fans of Clyde Getty (and if you haven’t, please do), he slightly injured himself doing a triple layout back flip in competition. I think he would greatly appreciate a message of encouragement for a quick recovery. Please consider doing so.

Update 2: Congratulations to Carol Browne who won the ice tray in the previous giveaway.

Update 3: There were 94 official entries in this contest and the randome number generated was 46 making Harriet the winner. Congratulations.

It is not often that my wife will give away things in her Hello Kitty collection, but she always has a soft heart when it comes to good causes. When we were in Japan, we used to give toys to a local orphanage. Now that we are back in the US, we needed to come up with a new project. We have set a very ambitious goal to provide a lot of food to food banks, and although we have just started, we are making a difference.

I recently heard about contest to blog about the Vancouver Winter Olympics, and while the odds of being picked to do so are long, I have decided to at least try and win. While it would certainly be cool to attend the Winter Olympics, an added benefit is that I would be in contact with a lot of Olympic athletes who I could let know about Penny Experiment and possibly help out with it. Even better, I would get to escape Hello Kitty Hell for a couple of weeks.

When I asked my wife is she would be willing to give up anything, we ran into a slight problem. The vast majority of my wife’s collection is in storage in Japan and she only brought with her essential (in her view) evil feline items. After some thought, she picked out a number of items that I will be giving away over the next 10 days or so.

Of course, in order for my wife to give up anything, I also had to make a deal with the devil. If I do end up going, I’m required to buy any Hello Kitty items that I come across (I can’t escape Hello Kitty Hell even when I will be on my own). While both terrifying and nausea inducing, I agreed to the deal for the positive benefits in furthering a good cause.

This contest is for a Hello Kitty 3-D ice cube tray:

The Olympic contest is to help support and spread the word about lesser known athletes participating in the Olympics games. I decided to participate by helping get the word out to people by creating Facebook fan pages.

Entering this contest is easy — simply become a Facebook fan of Clyde Getty, a 48 year old that will be attempting 2 triple flips in freestyle skiing (worth watching some of his videos – they are amazing).

After becoming a fan, leave a comment letting me know that you have and that will be your entry. I will have a random number generated for the comments that qualify left below. The person’s comment that matches the number will receive the Hello Kitty ice cube tray.

The contest starts now and will end at 11:59 pm eastern (10:59 pm central, 9:59 pm mountain and 8:59 pm pacific) on Thursday January 21st. Open to anyone living anywhere in the world.

UPDATE: There were 137 entries in the contest and the randomly generated number was 10. A big congratulations goes out to Carol Browne for being the winner:

If this is any indication of how this year is going to shape up, it’s going to be one Hello Kitty Hellish 365 days.

Now that we’re back in the US, my wife is dutifully trying to Hello Kittify our new place like in Japan. To keep my sanity, I try to take off each day to an Internet cafe to get work done. One would think that I would be safe now that I am not in the land of the evil feline, but that would be greatly underestimating Hello Kitty’s will to make my life hell.

I now know that I should never, ever check this blog in public. There were some notices in my email that a number of comments needed to be moderated, so I headed over to this blog to approve them. If I had only known what would happen next.

As the blog came up on the screen, the woman next to me must have glanced over to see it.

Woman: “Oh, I love that blog!”

Me: Instantly knowing this wasn’t going to be good when I looked to see a variety of Hello Kitty crap among her possessions. I forced a smile and remained silent hoping against hope that she would leave the conversation at that, ignoring the universal truth that if a person is a Hello Kitty fanatic, there is no shutting them up once the topic turns to Hello Kitty.

Woman: “I didn’t know guys like to look for Hello Kitty stuff too. Are you looking to get something for your wife? I love looking for new stuff there.”

Me: “Well, not exactly…” (thinking: “Seriously, this can’t be happening to me.”)

Woman: “Oh, you should buy your wife Hello Kitty jewelry. She’ll LOVE (repeated 3 times) IT! See, I have this necklace…” and the woman begins to go through and explain about all the Hello Kitty items she owns.

Me: (Thinking: “you have got to be kidding me…”) as I interrupt her, not really thinking what might happen because all I want to do is get this woman to stop talking about Hello Kitty. “Look, I am the guy that writes this blog, and…”

Woman” “OMG! OMG! OMG!”

Me: (Thinking: “oh crap, what have I just done?”)

Woman: Starts excitedly talking a million miles a minute so that nothing is comprehensible except for the final sentence which is, “your wife is my hero.” She then takes something out of her purse, hands it to me and says, “I want your wife to have this.”

Me: (Thinking: “this can’t be happening…) Thanks, but there is no need to do that.”

Woman: “No, I insist. I love your wife.”

Me: (Thinking: “under no circumstances should I ever let this woman and my wife meet if I want to keep my sanity…) “No, really, it’s not necessary…”

Woman: “Your wife will love it! You have to give it to her from me.”

Me: “Seriously, there is no need…”

Woman: Interrupting me mid sentence. “You have to promise to give it to her.”

Me: “Well…”

Woman: “There are no buts about it. It’s settled. You promise to give it to her, right?”

Me: “Seriously, she doesn’t need it. Have you ever read my blog? She has more…”

Woman: interrupts mid sentence again. “Oh, I LOVE (repeated 3 times again) your blog” and then goes into her undecipherable, mile a minute blabber about all the things she likes on the blog.”

Me: (wondering: “what is the worst of these two evils – having to listen to this woman blather for the next half hour about Hello Kitty or taking the thing for my wife and getting out of there asap.”) “Fine, fine,” I said grabbing the Hello Kitty face carabiner key chain and getting the hell out of there as quickly as I possibly could:

So now I have this and there is no possible way I’m going to give it to my wife because if I do, she’ll insist on meeting this woman and that would certainly produce unimaginable ripples in the very fabric of life as we know it. So I will instead give it away.

The contest is simple and should give Hello Kitty fanatics a fun dilemma to try and overcome. Simply leave a comment in this post listing 3 or more reasons why you hate Hello Kitty. Any comment which has anything positive to say about Hello Kitty will be disqualified.

I will have a random number generated for the comments that qualify left below. The person’s comment that matches the number will receive the Hello Kitty face carabiner.

The contest starts now and will end at 11:59 pm eastern (10:59 pm central, 9:59 pm mountain and 8:59 pm pacific) on Tuesday January 12th. Open to anyone living anywhere in the world including my wife (oh, how I would love to see her list three reasons she hates Hello Kitty).

Update: There were 181 entries in this contest and the random number came out 20 – contragatualtions to Yasmin for being the winner:

First, the posts and updates that happened this past week that weren’t mentioned on the front page:

Hello Kitty Girl Mike Carroll Skateboard Decks
Hello Kitty Assault Rifle (update)
Hello Kitty Schoolgirl
Hello Kitty LCD TV (update)

And now onto the contest…

I have been able to breathe a sigh of relief because the Hello Kitty toaster and both the pink and black Hello Kitty “shoulder massagers” are on their way to new homes that are — and this is quite significant — not where I live.

Of all the things that came in the unwanted, creepy Hello Kitty package that turned out not to be so creepy, the only one that I don’t think that my wife has in her collection is the Hello Kitty optical mouse and mousepad:

That is not to say that she doesn’t have Hello Kitty mice and mouse pads – she has plenty of both to the point where she has even purchased me one for Xmas a couple of years ago – I just don’t think she has this particular pattern.

This fact makes this giveaway a bit riskier than the others since there is no way of knowing how my wife will react when she finds out, but this has not lessened my determination to make sure that the contents of that box don’t end up in my wife’s collection (especially since the cheeks on the mouse supposedly light up. I don’t want to have to spend a month listening to how cute and adorable that is every time my wife uses the computer).

Entry into this contest is going to be a bit different than just leaving a comment and will help me clean up this blog at the same time. If you have been following this blog for any amount of time, you will know that my posts often have many spelling and grammatical mistakes in them. While I’d love to lay the full blame of this on the evil feline (and part of this is true because I don’t feel like spending any more time on this blog than is necessary to get the next inexplicable Hello Kittified item up), the other is that I simply suck at writing.

For this contest, find a spelling or grammatical mistake in any post (not comments since I didn’t write those) and point it out to enter the contest. Your post should have the following 3 bits of information:

1. The url of the page that has the mistake
2. The paragraph (1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc.) in the post that has the mistake
3. The correction of the mistake

For every mistake that you find, you get one entry into the contest. You may enter as many times as you like. If you find more than one mistake on a post, be sure to list each one separately as a comment so that you get an entry for each. The more mistakes you point out to me, the better your chance to win. I know there are hundreds of mistakes in this blog so there are plenty of chances to enter.

I will have a random number generated for all the comments left below. The person’s comment that matches the number will receive the mouse and mouse pad, which will be sent out by my parents.

The contest starts now and will end at 11:59 pm eastern (10:59 pm central, 9:59 pm mountain and 8:59 pm pacific) on Friday November 20th so there is plenty of time to look around and find the errors. Open to anyone living anywhere in the world except at my address in Japan.

Update: This contest is officially over and mhkitty summed it up rather nicely: ”

Man, you just opened the floodgates of hell upon yourself! Only thing worse than a crazed hello kitty fan is a crazed hello kitty fan who thinks they know it all about grammar and spelling!

I have learned my lesson. The random number generated was 283

making SexieBexie the winner. Congratulations.

So, apparently my mom read my post about the free Hello Kitty shoulder massager and followed the link explaining what the alternative use for it is. To her credit, when I talked to her on the phone, I didn’t get the reaction of disgust and lecture about the sexual promiscuity of the younger generation that I expected. No, the reaction was far, far worse…

Instead, mom had a hint of curiosity in her voice as she started asking me subtle questions about the use of the device. While there are a lot of awkward conversations in life that I would never wish upon another human being, trying to have a conversation with your mother about a Hello Kitty vibrator (while still not actually admitting what you are talking about) most definitely ranks well near the top. And then things really got bad…

Through the conversation it became apparent that my mom’s curiosity stemmed from the fact that besides the black Hello Kitty shoulder massager, there was also a pink Hello Kitty vibrator that arrived in the package.

That’s when it happened. The lights clicked on and I realised why my mom was so curious. (warning – this would be a good time to stop reading this article and make sure that you are in no state to do any type of imagining. If you are, the results will not be pretty).

While there are a lot of horrifying images that you can conjure up in your mind during your lifetime, I guarantee that the image of your mom using a pink Hello Kitty vibrator is one that has the potential to scar you mentally for life. I know because I went there and it’s a place I never want to go to again. I have tried to lock that thought into the deep recesses of my mind where I hope it will never be able to escape.

Not wanting to have to spend the rest of my days knowing that my mom was using the evil feline in ways that were never intended for sons to ever have to think about, I quickly explained that the pink Hello Kitty shoulder massager was also going to be immediately given away.

If you are interested in the pink shoulder massager, simply follow Hello Kitty Hell on Twitter and make an original and interesting tweet which includes both of the following:

@hellokittyhell (so I know you make the tweet) and

http://bit.ly/4zTnZ7 (the link to this post)

I will have a random number generated for the tweets left on twitter. The person’s comment that matches the number will receive the Hello Kitty shoulder massager, which will be sent out by my parents. While I still hope that it goes to someone that dislikes the evil feline and that person takes the time to record its demise, the number one priority is that it does not end up in my wife’s collection or my mom’s dresser drawer.

The contest starts now and will end at 11:59 pm eastern (10:59 pm central, 9:59 pm mountain and 8:59 pm pacific) on Tuesday November 10th. Open to anyone living anywhere in the world except at my parents’ address in the US or my address in Japan.

Update: This contest is now over.

Congratulations to rnrollgirl for creating the 68th tweet.

OK, I’m feeling a little less uneasy about the creepy stalker package for my wife that my parents received after the person that sent the package emailed me and said she wasn’t trying to be stalker-like at all. Apparently she was simply getting ready to move and felt inspired to rid herself of much of her Hello Kitty collection due to this blog (of course, it would have been much more inspirational if she had decided to try and give it away to someone other than my wife, or better yet, set it all on fire and sent me the video).

All the stuff she sent is new and in its original packaging (which will be important to know for this next giveaway, and if for some reason it isn’t important to you, that’s kinda creepy in itself). Her explanation on how she found the address was pretty innocent and simple, although I will refrain from explaining it here since I’d rather not have the whole Hello Kitty package thing for my wife happen again.

Included in the package was a black Hello Kitty shoulder massager:

(yes, I realise that is not how most people refer to it as, but since I really don’t feel like having to explain the alternative use to my parents, humor me and let’s just stick with what Sanrio claims it was produced to be used for). What I absolutely do know is that if I have to sleep on the couch in the Hello Kitty sleeping bag, Hello Kitty should not be taking over my duties (the entire set of rainbow color ones my wife currently has are for her collection and therefore aren’t used — and while I don’t think she would turn to the evil feline when I’ve been out-casted to the couch in the Hello Kitty sleeping bag, there is no reason to take any chances), so this needs to be given away asap.

If you are interested in the black shoulder massager, simply become a friend of Hello Kitty Hell on facebook and leave a comment on the “free Hello Kitty shoulder massager” post on the wall there. One entry per person, so please don’t leave multiple comments.

I will have a random number generated for the comments left on the facebook post. The person’s comment that matches the number will receive the Hello Kitty shoulder massager, which will be sent out by my parents. While I hope that it goes to someone that dislikes the evil feline and that person takes the time to record its demise, the number one priority is that it does not end up in my wife’s collection. Just to make things clear, if you decide not to destroy it, I have absolutely no interest hearing about any uses you find for it.

The contest starts now and will end at 11:59 pm eastern (10:59 pm central, 9:59 pm mountain and 8:59 pm pacific) on Friday November 6th. Open to anyone living anywhere in the world except at my address in Japan.

The contest is now officially over there were 241 entries in the contest:

The random number resulted with Rebecca being the winner. No matter what she decides to do with it, I’m just happy it won’t be added to my wife’s collection…

Hello Kitty Hell took a major step down into the depths this past week which I never anticipated. I received an email from my parents in the US saying that a packaged addressed to a “Mrs. Hello Kitty Hell” arrived at their house and they wanted to know if I had any idea what it was about (they had no idea that I even wrote this blog). I instantly knew that whatever was going on, it was not going to be good.

After a few emails back and forth and having my parents open up the package, it was determined that some unknown person (the note inside only said “Some gifts for you” and was not signed by anyone) had sent my wife a rather large package of Hello Kitty crap, but had made the mistake of thinking that my parent’s US address was our address. This makes me want to ask a couple of questions to the sender:

1. If you have been reading this blog, what on earth makes you think that my wife needs any more Hello Kitty crap?

2. Isn’t it just a bit creepy and stalker-like that you decided to try and track down my address instead of just asking? (although had you asked, I would have refused to give it out)

Since there is absolutely no way I am going to let any of this stuff end up in my wife’s already far too large Hello Kitty collection, it’s your lucky day. I’m simply going to give away everything in the package before my wife gets a chance to lay claim to it. While I’m still trying to figure out exactly what was in the package (my parents have no idea what some of the stuff is since some of it has foreign writing on it, but they should be sending me photos shortly), there is no doubt that a Hello Kitty toaster was part of the package. I think it is best to get rid of it as quickly as possible.

If you would like to enter the contest for the free Hello Kitty toaster, simply leave a comment below. One entry per person, so please don’t leave multiple comments.

I will have a random number generated for the comments. I will have a random number generated for all the comments left below. The person’s comment that matches the number will receive the toaster, which will be sent out by my parents. I will put up the rest of the Hello Kitty crap from the box once I get photos and know what it is that needs to be given away. While I truly hope that someone that dislikes the evil feline wins and then takes the time to show how they destroy the Hello Kitty toaster, even if it goes to a fanatic it is better than it landing back at my house and in my wife’s collection…

The contest starts now and will end at 3:00 pm eastern (2:00 central, 1:00 mountain and 12:00 pacific) on Wednesday November 4th. Open to anyone living anywhere in the world except anyone living at my address in Japan

Update: The contest has ended and we have a winner:

#20 on the list is Lauren who I shall be emailing shortly. Congrats and I’m happy it will be going to your house instead of mine!

Update: For all of you that lost, this little tidbit may make you feel a little better:

I recently read your blog post about your wife’s mysterious toaster (weird but that’s not why I am emailing you). I have a couple of small hello kitty things like some pens and a mouse pad so my friends think I love it (they should meet your wife) a lot. They bought me that same toaster from target for Christmas and a month after I got the damn thing it had an electrical malfunction and almost set my kitchen on fire! — Kerry

Then again, in you are a Hello Kitty fanatic and your house is filled with Hello Kitty crap, a fire might be the best result you could hope for…