ESPN Title Town - Part II

In a fit of insanity, I emailed everyone I know in Valdosta yesterday with advise on how to game the security at ESPN's TitleTown and get in more than one vote. Right after that e-mail one of *my* friends posted a note from ESPN customer care saying that you could vote as much as you wanted. I started looking for a large towel to wipe all that pie off my face and marked that "friend" down for violent, hideous, payback.

Today's Valdosta Daily Times reveals that I was right and that one of my guiding principles of modern life survival is still right; never believe a single thing customer care tells you. Oh me of little faith.

Aglow in vindication and with even better information, here now are even better ways to squeeze in all the votes you can for Valdosta, my hometown, Titletown:

First, the bad news. If you are in a typical home with a broadband connection, you get one vote. Yep, one. You can test this by going to one of the computers on your home network and typing in the internet address http://www.whatismyipaddress.com/ You will get back a weird message like "Your IP address is 12.240.48.137". Go to another computer and repeat. If the message is the same you can now vote once for Valdosta, my hometown, and go have a decaffe skinny latte with lots of whipped cream.

Some of you over 50 may already be scratching your head about a home with more than one computer. Be advised that homes with young males over 13 now come equipped with five computers, a Wii, two Play Station Portables and at least 2 Nintendo DSes all plugged in to a
multi-node wired LAN and wireless network. This when they are home alone. Multiply each pantry vacuuming, refrigerator rummaging friend by at least two more connected devices. Aren't you glad you had your kids early in life?

Now the good news. If you work at a large corporation, you are in luck. Most large corporations have their own servers and set up each computer on the network with a separate IP address. You can test your office with http://www.whatismyipaddress.com/ , too. It is now a simple matter to walk around and make sure every computer voted. Yes, every computer voted. Humans don't count for doody in the ESPN TitleTown contest.

Now that every computer in your office has voted, have the boss to get his administrative assistant to spam the rest of the company asking for votes. Do not do the spamming yourself. When the IP department calls wanting the head of the spammer on a dirty plate, your boss can express outrage, assure them he will punish the miscreant, and then go back to making sincere noises on conference calls while playing Solitare or Free Cell.

There are lots of neglected computers in our town. In my first post on this issue, "Click on this Headline, A Lot", I suggested using preteen females to mindlessly vote over and over on one computer. Forget that, send the young ladies back to daydreaming about Justin Timberlake ripping open their bodice. Now is the time for the 16 year old and older teenagers with drivers licence and laptop. Who knew the little food shovelers would actually be useful?

Send them out to grovel at the front desk of every large hotel in town. Not the little hotels with their teeny weeny-dog wireless networks with one IP address. No sir, the new multi story monsters with wired rooms that each have their own, lovely, unused, IP address. Plug in, reboot, login, vote, and move next door. Repeat. The constant movement and adventure will appeal to their highly mobile, attention deficient, natures. It will also give your pantry and refrigerator a chance to lock and reload.

Finally, and this is the hard part, we now must go, hat in hand, and ask all those towns whose football teams we joyfully squished and whose hopes and dreams we regularly spoil -- to vote for us. Over on Facebook, there is a "Vote for Valdosta, GA for Titletown U.S.A." page where Valdostans are trying to get the word out. The wall there is full of out of towners pledging to vote for Gainesville, FL and cackling in glee.

Go there and write their names and cities down. Mark them for violent, hideous, payback. Unless, of course, we win.

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7/26 - Update - NOW Espn tells us we can have unlimited text messages. Bring back the preteens! Quit texting your bff Jill and start burning your message quota! ESPN gets money from these text things. You'd think they would make this simpler and just let us send them cash.

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7/27 - Update - ESPN is coming back to town and they want thousands of people to be at the stadium. Unlike me, ESPN doesn't have the brass to call thousands of people together to tell them they lost, so it looks like we won. Now comes the hard part -- where does the trophy go?