Perez Hilton: Mission Accomplished

When I heard Nick Lachey (singer, reality star and Jessica Simpson's ex) was coming to Tacoma the other weekend, I couldn't resist hatching a plan to get my photos and experience posted on perezhilton.com, a celebrity gossip blog that gets more than a million hits per day. My task was fairly simple: get good photos, draft a compelling story and send to Mario Lavandeira (aka Perez Hilton) in a timely manner. With my mission laid out, I thought in advance about potential subject lines, strategized about what pictures would be most valuable and prayed that it was going to be a slow Hollywood news weekend.

Despite a busy weekend of celebrity gossip and disaster, my story made it onto perezhilton.com in less than 48 hours. To date, more than 170 comments have been posted. While I somewhat expected to get my story posted via Perez, I did not know that this experience was going to go full circle. By that I mean, I did not anticipate hearing about my blog success on a local radio station twice -- once WHILE Nick Lachey was a phone guest.

Below is a timeline of my incredibly exciting blogging adventure:

Friday, August 24
8:00 PM: Charged camera batteries

Saturday, August 25
10:30 AM: Arrived at Richard Karn Celebrity Softball game at Cheney Stadium in Tacoma, WA
10:35 AM - 12:30 PM: Snapped photos of Nick Lachey and surrounding celebrities, including his girlfriend Vanessa Minnillo
12:45 PM: Met Nick Lachey, received autographed picture
11:40 PM: Sent 3 color photos of Nick Lachey and quick write-up of experience to famed gossip blogger Perez Hilton

Sunday, August 26
9:00 AM - 4:00 PM PT: Checked perezhilton.com incessantly
7:55 PM PT: Received a "thank you" note from Perez himself!

Monday, August 27
11:28 AM PT: Perez posts my three photos and an excerpt from my email in his blog entitled, "They're On the C-List Now"
11:29 AM PT: Started bragging about my success to friends, family and co-workers

Tuesday, August 28
7:32 AM PT: Seattle radio hosts Jackie and Bender of Kiss 106.1 discuss the celebrity softball game and mention photos of the event made it to the infamous perezhilton.com
8:37 AM PT: Jackie and Bender speak to Nick Lachey via telephone about the charity softball game and briefly chat about Perez' coverage of the event

-posted by Lindsay
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