"Legendary" winnings

When I entered the Halo 3 caption contest here on 2old2play last month I thought there was no way in hell that I would win.  I mean, sure, I guess I thought there was SOME chance, or else I wouldn't have bothered to enter, but I pretty much just sent in my entry and then forgot about the contest.  No need to get my hopes up in the face on long odds.

So imagine my surprise when I checked my e-mail one day and there's this message from doodi saying "Hey, you won the caption contest, send me your address and I'll send you the prize".  At first I thought it was a joke, or maybe just a mistake.  I thought maybe doodi and DSmooth had been fooling around with some mass e-mailing software and had accidentally sent out hundreds of e-mails declaring us all to be winners (I'm not desparaging their programming skillz, I'm a programmer myself and I just know that sometimes "shit happens").  Or maybe some nefarious prankster (a Timmie no doubt) had gotten wind of our contest and decided to spam everyone on the site with fake e-mails.  So before I responded to the e-mail I loaded up 2old2play in the old internet browser to check it out.  Sure enough, there was the article declaring the winners and there was my caption at the top of the list.  To seal the deal they had even photoshopped my caption on top of the original picture.  If this was a hoax, it was pretty damned elaborate.

After I started believing what I was seeing, I continued reading the article to see what I had won.  For some reason I thought that first prize was supposed to be limited edition of H3 that came in the tin, and that second prize was the standard H3.  And once again I was shocked when I realized that it was in fact the LEGENDARY edition that would soon be headed my way.  Holy fargin' poop-cakes!!!

I've been checking my doorstep nearly every day since then to see if the package had arrived and today was my lucky day.  I'm sure that if you are a Halo geek at all, you already know all about the cool stuff that comes with the Legendary edition, but I decided to unbox it and take some pictures anyway.  This thing is just TEH AWEZOMES!!!

The box before opening:

Contents laid out:

The cardboard "wrapper" around the box is actually a big poster.  If you get a Legendary edition, be careful opening it up if you want to keep the poster:

Everything on the floor:

Yeah, I know the helmet doesn't really fit my head, but it is fun to think that it could.  But I will say the helmet is MUCH bigger than I expected and the level of quality is very high.  I don't usually go in for gaming schwag, but this thing is just damned cool:

The helmet is packaged with this weird black shroud over it, I guess to protect the paint job during shipping.  I think it makes a dandy Halo 3 Executioners Hood:

So a big thanks to Doodirock and all of the folks who run this site and make it a cool place to be.

Back in the "real world", my wife now thinks that I have gone completely over the edge into gaming nuttiness, but I don't care.  If having this much fun is crazy, then I don't ever want to be sane.  I feel like the father in "A Christmas Story" trying to explain to his wife how a leg-shaped lamp is really a "major award".

By the way, Amazon.com was selling the Legendary Edition today for just 60 bucks, including shipping.  If you've been a good little boy or girl this year, then you should treat yourself.  Come on, you know you deserve it...