prizes

Citizens of dekeOpolis, the results are in, the winner of the Martini Mashup Grand Prize is...well, we have a tie. Deke and I managed to narrow down our faves to two: Gale Franey's "Something's Fishy" and Steve Newton's "Bar Folies Créateur." Try as we might, we couldn't make the call between Gale's modern fantasy, replete with impeccable bubbles, and Steve's clever simultaneous homage to both Manet and my grad-school stint as bar mistress (not to metion his amazingly accurate imagining of the back of my head). Both will recieve a One-on-One book of their choice from O'Reilly and a free month of training from lynda.com.

We only had one set of "other" prizes in the grand prize goodie bag, so we declare Gale the winner of the tie-breaker by virtue of her being on the same continent as we are. We love our Wide World of Deke (represented recently with the birthday wishes you sweet folk sent to Deke in a gazillion different languages), but frankly, times are tough and shipping is cheaper to Canada! Here are all the prizes laid out on a chair in my living room, ready for their trip to the great white north. The list now includes a sock-like Adobe cover for your small electronic of choice and my burlap Adobe sac from SXSW to hold everything!

And a big thanks, and prize, to everyone who decided to play along. In fact, everyone who entered will recieve a serial number for a free week subscription to lynda.com! Read more » 

I know you all are feeling mellow and groovy after that Droplet Song. I don't blame you one bit . . . listening to the poncho-sporting pied piper of Photoshop for a mere five minutes and change is equivalent to a three-hour massage followed by a soak in a hot tub with a three-olive martini.

But don't let this lead you to miss out on fabulous prizes. The contest deadline for the Martini Hour mashup is tomorrow at cocktail hour (which I argued is early evening but Deke is declaring to be midnight because he's apparently taking this "nice Deke" thing seriously for at least for another day or two). To entice you last-minute lazy larrys, let me tell you a little something about the fabulous Grand Prize:

• A One-on-One book of your choice (!)
• A free full-month subscription to lynda.com (!)
• My fabulous mardi-gras style necklace from a martini-themed event at PMA
• A dekePod t-shirt (collector's item!)
• Love and admiration
• And possibly some other stuff depending on whether you live in a place I can ship foodstuffs to

So seriously people, as Deke would say, "DO IT." Read more » 

Hey, dekeOtonians. It's clear to those of you who recieve the newsletter that I should not be in charge of launching contests in the wee hours. Although I had all the creative details in place, I failed to, um, actually spell out the specifics like exactly how and when you should send your Martini Hour visualizations. So, I'm going to take a moment to outline the details (as well as replay my fabulous artist rendition known as "The Lollypop Heads" for your inspirational enjoyment):

Read more » 

OK, so the story behind the "What Is Deke Saying?" contest is this:

A few months ago, when we were filming the now infamous video, Deke took a moment to gather his thoughts before launching into his 101 Photoshop Tips in 5 Minutes. Unable to just let a simple meditative moment alone, we brainstormed something clever for Deke to say, then to up the hilarity yet another notch, we used an online Pig Latin translator to increase the wittiness. (I kid you not, Pig Latin-translation, something any 10-year-old knows how to do, we required outside help.)

Fast forward a couple of months, the video is produced, and no one on our team can figure out what Deke actually said. I distinctly remember him trying to say, "King of Photoshop," but between the translation and Deke's delivery, it sounded more like "Ting of Photoshop." Ting of Photoshop? What the fu -- heck do you mean by Ting of Photoshop, Deke? Read more »