First of all, this last week was hectic. Not only did I try to keep up and crank out some good posts, but I also had a lot of work to do at the office. This is always the case after coming back from a trip.

So what made the week so awesome?

First, John Chow and I both posted about the contest to win our money that we got from BlogWorld. This weekend, John picked a random winner from over 120 entries. The cash goes to Adam Mlynarcik of Creadiv.com, who boosted his chances by making a post about the contest. Thanks for participating, Adam, and congrats!

I also had my own stroke of luck when I won one of the daily ShoeMoney.com t-shirt prizes in the middle of last week. I had been hoping to score a ShoeMoney shirt at BlogWorld, but didn’t, so I was pretty pleased to have won one. On top of that, there’s a monthly grand prize that I am now entered into with about 1/30 odds of winning, as I understand it. If I win, you can bet you’ll see a post about it, detailing the prize when it comes.

Finally, today I checked in on ZacJohnson.com to see who won the Super Affiliate Caption Contest. I threw in my caption because I thought it was a bit witty, but there were a lot of good ones, so I wasn’t holding my breath. I also just wanted the ZacJohnson.com/MoneyReign Package (includes “a MoneyReign.com Black T-Shirt, Bumper Stickers, Pens, Buttons and maybe something else extra”), which was part of all three top prizes, so I didn’t care that much which I won. As it turns out, I won 3rd place! Go check out the contest and all the funny captions.

I love contests, so this week has been tons of fun for me. I’m also thinking up more contests I can have, too, so stay tuned.

OK.. Maybe I said he could… Here’s what happened…

ShoeMoney challeneged John Chow to a contest to see who could get the most moneyfrom the Cashinator at the Market Leverage booth. The winner would get all the cash and the loser would have to throw in an additional $100 from his own pocket. In the eleventh hour, Tyler Cruz and Zac Johnson joined in and they decided that they would all jump in together and the losers would give the cash and $100 each from their own pocket to the winner to give away on his blog to a reader.

Tyler won and his prize was the unmanagable stack of cash seen above.

Yesterday, I stopped by the ML booth and was asked if I was going to jump in the Cashinator. Why not? After a short lunch, I haded back and found myself in the shower of money, trying to grab all I could. I came out with a small bundle of bills, and John was getting ready to go in, himself. He said he’d give his away on his site and I told him to throw mine in to the prize pool, too. He also decided to throw in the $28 he got from an earlier cash grab. Added to his $19 and my $20, the total is $67 and it’s easy for you to win.

How to win
Head to John’s blog post and leave a comment for an entry. If you want 5 entries, just blog about this contest and send a trackback and he’ll give you five entries. He said he will draw the winner this Saturday at Dot Com Pho.

This is pretty cool. Think Geek has announced a new shirt that features a picture of a drum set. When you tap the drum set pieces, they make the expected sounds. Watch the video. It’s pretty cool.

From ThinkGeek:

We could do what those other supposedly geeky apparel companies do, and print a regular t-shirt with a cool looking picture of a drum kit on the front because it looks fashionable. We then would tell stories about how it was trendy, make a few Rock Band references, tell you it will make you look hot and basically try to convince you to buy it. But we don’t roll like that. At ThinkGeek we know you expect innovative new products and we’re here to pony up the goods. So, how about an electronic t-shirt with both a cool picture and an actual playable drum kit on the front? That’s right. Hit the drums on this shirt with your fingers and they play through the built in speaker… simple but amazing. With 7 different drum sounds you’re ready for a personal drum solo on your chest.

Now you just have to keep your drunk from bruising you up every time you wear it.

A long time ago, I heard about a currency tracking project called Where’s George. The idea is pretty simple, really. Someone in posession of United States paper currency enters the serial number of that currency into the site and then spends it. Eventually, someone else who comes in contact with that bill will enter it into the site and add their own note about where they got it or where it’s going. To speed the process up, someone writes “wheresgeorge.com” on it, prompting the next owner to participate.

How does it work?

1. Go to the site and log in. If you don’t have an account, create one.
2. Select the denomination of the bill ($1, $5, $10, etc.)
3. Select the series the bill is in (2003, 2003A, 2006, etc)
4. Enter the serial number like the one above.
5. Enter your zip code if not already filled in.
6. Enter a note. Most people just state where they got the bill and where they might spend it.
7. (optional) Add a note to the bill asking people to participate (see the example below)
8. Spend it somewhere so others can join in.

I get it, but why?
The best place to find your answers about the site is their FAQ, but I can tell you why I not only participate, but decided to write about it. For as long as I can remember, I’ve heard things like “you don’t know where that’s BEEN”. When I was younger, it was an often response to coin money entering my mouth, and usually followed by me choking on said coin money. As an adult, I’ve heard people speculate on where their bills came from. Several times, friends have wondered if their singles were once nestled in a stripper’s G-string. Well, now I’m just a little closer to finding out. These days, I don’t put money in my mouth anymore, but it’s still nice to happen upon a bill that the site tells me has been across the country a couple times.

Your Challenge
Open up your wallet or purse and pull out all the U.S. or Canadian paper money and enter it into the site. The note should say “Entered in contest at JoeTech.com”. Then come back here and post the tracking URL to the bill into the comments below. Do as many as you like. When I return from BlogWorld next Monday, I’ll pick a random winner, who will get the bill pictured above (which started out in Hawaii, by the way) and $20 via PayPal.

First and foremost, I did not find this out on my own. Credit goes out to tehinternetz on Twitter who mentioned this article. I thought it was pretty cool and just had to share.

This trick is extremely easy and fun to play around with, but the practical uses are limited. Regardless, it can be good for a laugh. All you have to do is visit any web site and then replace the contents of the “location” or “url” bar with the following and hit enter.

After you’ve done this, you’ll be able to edit everything on the page. You can make it say whatever you want. As OpenJason.com suggested, you can fake Google Adsense earnings, put yourself in the top position on Google, etc. Below, I’ve provided a couple snapshots of my few minutes playing around. Click on any image for the full size.

javascript:document.body.contentEditable='true'; document.designMode='on'; void 0

I’ve tested this out in Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari, and Chrome. I did all my editing in FireFox and it’s pretty easy, actually. You can click on any text to edit it. Many of the keyboard combinations you would find in Word and other WYSIWYG editors work here. For example, you can highlight text and then press CTRL+B to make it bold or CTRL+U to underline, CTRL+I to italicize, etc. Want to edit an image, just click on it and resize, cut, paste, etc.

I’d love to see your screen shots, so post any you do in the comments.