Well, I tallied all the write-ins and all the comments and it looks like we have a winner. But first, a huge shout-out to Hitachi for hooking us up with the P42H401:

Hitachi’s more than 50 years of TV experience, manufacturing and image refinement come together in the 42″ HD1080 Plasma HDTV. Hitachi uses proprietary technology to redefine High Definition, providing outstanding picture quality regardless of input type or resolution format. It’s sleek cosmetic design and slim bottom speaker help the 42″ panel stand out for style as well as picture quality. Hitachi’s P42H401 utilizes unique HD1080 resolution, which has 1,000 lines of resolution at a similar value to panels with 720p resolution. The Hitachi 42″ HD1080 Plasma HDTV is Accessible Luxury.

It was great of them to offer the prize and I’m glad one of our readers gets to rock out to some HD plasma action.

This is my official tally.

+—–+—–+——–+——-+———-+
| aid | qid | answer | votes | added_by |
+—–+—–+——–+——-+———-+
| 77 | 16 | Johnal | 318 | 0 |
| 78 | 16 | Nigel | 7 | 0 |
| 79 | 16 | Jeremy | 307 | 0 |
| 80 | 16 | Travis | 4 | 0 |
| 81 | 16 | Chris | 53 | 0 |
+—–+—–+——–+——-+———-+

It was a close contest for a while but write-ins and comments — I counted all of them — pushed both contenders over the edge. In order to handle the write-ins, and to be fair, I only took votes with the proper subject line “PATER OBSOLETIS: [entrant]” in any alphabetic case — I just did a search based on that subject line and tallied the entrants. In terms of comments, I took each “vote” in comments and counted it as one. I finally closed voting at 12:01, added the write-ins with an UPDATE query, and did a final SQL query that you see there. I apologize that the polling software eats it. Next time we’ll try something different, but it’s notoriously difficult to find good web polling software.

I’m glad to report that Johnal, his cool sister, and his obsolete dad are the winners of the Hitachi 42-inch Plasma. Thank you all for entering — I really appreciate the effort and creativity. I understand these contests are difficult, but I just can’t bring myself to say “Hey, just email me and I’ll pick you at random!” when we’re giving away a 42-inch TV set. An iPod case? Sure. A plasma? You gotta work for it!

I hope you all had fun and here’s to the obsolete Dads out there — we’re thinking of you and I hope when I’m Johnal’s dad’s age that my son and/or daughter love me enough to make me look like a fool in front of hundreds of people in order to win me a great new TV.

Remember — our Pops made us the geeks we are today. Like it or not, they paved the road we now all walk with their experience and education. You’ve got to love a man who’d do that for a mewling, squalling baby, then a terrible toddler, then a know-it-all teenager, and finally a strapping example of man- or womanhood. As Mark Twain wrote:

“When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned.”

Thanks, Dads.