The contest was jacked. Not by me, nor any of my friends. In the end, it got jacked by a person with a sympathetic story, and the person running the contest to promote the contestant's charitable cause plea for votes.

All I did was ask a few friends to vote, and after the counter got reset to zero, I didn't even ask my office-mates to go back and revote for me, but I wouldn't have won, anyway, even if they had.

I thought I was simply up against a naked lady, not a sympathy plea, but hey, live and learn. Never wave your bad art out there ever again, because nobody wants it--sell it at a garage sale.

Sour grapes? Not at all! I admire the tactic and wish I had thought of it, using one of my family's diseases for charitable contributions--multiple types of concurrent cancers, heart, Alzheimer's, arthritis, etc. I already have arthritis myself. But none of us are cute kids anymore; we're all adults, so nobody would have given a flying rat's ass, anyway. You all know that's the truth.

Kudos to you and your approach to the contest, Jessica. It was a winner for sure.

Now, for those of you who are inclined to flame me for this post, go ahead. I don't really care. This whole thing was just a rather bad experience. When the contest "owner" was promoting one contestant over another because of the charitable contribution aspect, it was never meant to be a level playing ground.