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Amazing Coincidence

Sacha Baron Cohen, filmstar of "Borat", has selected another Madison, Wisconsin contestant as the winner of the Caption Contest on a funny photos contest website. As Judge of the site's contest, Baron Cohen, awarded the prize, for the March contest, to C. Nanstad's entry, "Wait…Hold it! If we are all counting, who's gonna hide?" In an email Baron Cohen sent to JoAnn Friedman, owner of the website, he wrote in keeping with his famous characters, Borat, Ali G, and Bruno,

"Hi joann,

Hope alls well with you, have to keep this short as keep getting dis connected, i knew i should of paid that bill, anyhow...

great picture and some great captions there to but my fav and clear winner will have to be number 1 also Isla's fav too !!! (Note: Isla Fisher is Baron Cohen's fiancée)

anyway take care and i will try and fix this laptop

regards

Sbc x

The other Madison winner whom Baron Cohen picked for the website's Caption Contest in January was D. Moe.

To add to this interesting coincidence the photographer, who submitted the snapshot for the recent March Photo Caption Contest, lives only one block away from the creator of the winning caption. Of course, when choosing the winner, Sacha Baron Cohen had no way of knowing about this close connection.

JoAnn Friedman, a Madison, Wisconsin native, started her website after retiring, as a computer trainer, from the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Division of Information Technology. It seemed like a perfect hobby for retirement. However, little did she ever dream that the website would take over her life. Website businesses are similar to other businesses and with little previous experience, Friedman has had to learn "on the job."

Friedman launched her website on June 1, 2006 and one of her first lessons took place at midnight only two weeks later. With two new contests each month, Friedman had scheduled the dates as the 1st to the 14th and the 15th to the end of month. No problem…right? Wrong. A few days before the 14th she suddenly realized these dates presented a huge problem. The first contest of the month would end at midnight on the 14th, and the next would begin IMMEDIATELY!!! When would she make the transition from one contest to the next? She needed time to remove the photos from the first contest, upload the new photos, and post the winners.

Of course, she had no choice for that first contest, but to carry her laptop computer upstairs to bed on the 14th and set her alarm clock for 12:00 a.m. Luckily, she was able to carefully organize everything in advance so that the process took only 10 minutes. However, this was obviously not a pattern she wanted to continue. She needed a day for production between the contests. And so, the new dates became the 2nd to the 15 th and the 17th to the end of the month. Although, not as neat and tidy as the 1st and 15th, the dates appealed to her much more than an ongoing midnight rendezvous with her computer.

With viewers voting for their favorite photos on the website, contestants can win a bi-weekly prize of $50 for the funniest photo or $10 for the cutest photo and $25 monthly for the best photo caption. In addition, twice a year in March and September, the winning photos from the previous six months are judged by the owner of a local camera company. The winner for the funniest photo receives an additional $500 grand prize bonus and the winner of the cutest photo receives an additional $100 grand prize bonus.