Monday 19 May 2014

Number crunching...

...today I got to thinking: what are the odds that I could win one of those online contests that I blog about?

The answer: slim to none

Here's why:

Too many others want to win too! Though the radio stations have no shortage of contests and prizes to be won, they have a finite number of giveaways.

Let's take News 1130 as an example of a station with only a few giveaways. How many people have an account and use their points to enter the draws? 500? 5000? 25,000? They have 67,000 Twitter followers, and over 7500 FB likes, so as a conservative estimate let's say that 10,000 people enter the online raffles. With maybe 5 prizes per week, that's 260 per year. If no one wins twice, that's 260 people per year. So if they wanted to spread the love and make sure each of their account holders won at least one prize, it would take 38 years to come full circle so someone would win again.

Let's look at CFOX: 13,000 Twitter followers and 5800 FB likes. Let's say 4000 people regularly enter their online contests (concert tix, movie passes, etc) and they give away 20 per week, that's 1040 per year. It would take about 4 years to come full circle, during which time new people have signed up.

I didn't include the plethora of call-in prizes because they have no control over who wins those - as long as a person hasn't won in the past 30 days, they can win (up to 12 times per year!) With the raffles, I suspect they have some say in who wins...

I only say this because when I first signed up for News 1130's club, I won concert tickets within the first month. Same when I signed up for CFOX - a MAJOR prize within the first month. And nada ever since from either (in YEARS!) So it would seem that new members are more likely to win these raffles...

Have any of YOU won more than once from the same station's online contest??

Saturday 17 May 2014

Get out!!!

Have you ever heard of a place in Richmond called Exit? The first of its kind in Canada (popular in Asia) it offers 4 theme rooms and you PAY them to let you try to escape. For people who love challenges and games, this is an awesome adventure!

You can choose from the lost ship, prison cell, Egyptian crypt, and laboratory. There is only a 1% success rate (!) with the laboratory being the most challenging. Each session can take up to 6 people, and if you book it with a friend ($45 per couple) you may end up in a room with 4 strangers. This can be awkward and daunting if you are shy or just wanted some quality time with your friend, but the advantage of having more people is that there are now more ways of thinking about the clues.

I had called and asked if I can book an entire room and just put my husband in alone - I thought it would be cool to kidnap him and have him wake up in a room and try to figure a way out. I was looking for a unique 50th birthday adventure. Turns out, you need at least two people to get out of three of the rooms (need four hands??) so they said it might not work. Plus, they don't actually LOCK you in, and you can open the door and walk out anytime. I could see someone having a panic attack as the spaces are quite confined and it gets hot in there...

You are given clues and 45 minutes. If you get super stuck, you can ask the hosts to give you a hint, but only twice! You aren't allowed to bring in any accessories - no pens, paper, cell phones, flashlights, etc. Your belongings and those of your game-mates are locked in your room's assigned locker, and you take the key in with you. I stuffed mine in my bra - ain't nobody gettin' in MY locker! LOL! (Actually, the pockets in the pants I was wearing were super shallow and I didn't want it to fall out if I had to do any crawling around. Which I didn't.)

We decided to do this yesterday on the spur of the moment, as my sister-in-law was in town for hubby's birthday and was taking the kids to Extreme Air Park. (So THAT'S what it's like to have family in town!!! It was so amazing to have a free afternoon!) When I went to book it on line, everything for the next two days was booked, with only one space available in a smattering of rooms. BUT there was ONE room that only had two people booked in it, and that was the Lost Ship (the easiest one, apparently). So we signed up (you only register on line, you pay when you get there), and had an hour to get there. The timing was perfect for us!

The room was surprisingly small. The clues were fairly easy, but there was some confusion with the memory sticks (we found 2 in the room, which you plug into a machine and it plays you a clue). There was already a memory stick plugged in when we walked in, but none of us thought to turn it on and see what it said! So when we found the second one, we played it and got the next clue, but they were numbered 1 and 3, so...if there was a 2, we never found it! LOL!

We ended up not being able to figure out the code for the second door, so we had to ask for a hint with only ten minutes left in our game. The others had wanted to ask for help after 20 minutes because none of our codes would open the door. I dissuaded them because I didn't want our adventure to end when we still had 23 minutes left! When we finally got the hint, we were easily able to open the door, only to find....another room!!! WHAT?!?! WTF?!

If I had known there was another room to escape from, I would've asked for that hint at the 20 minute mark! For SURE! Damn, how disappointing. So now we had less than ten minutes to decipher this room, and when we only had 4 minutes left, we asked for our final hint. That got one lock open for us, but our game ended with still one locked box and an unfound treasure. BLARGH!!!

But with only a 1% success rate I don't feel too bad. It was totally, TOTALLY worth the $50 (total, not each)! We will definitely go back! This is a great team-building exercise, and would be a really fun and creative first date too. The props and special effects were simple but so very cool, and now that I've been there once, I know what to expect next time.

The trouble is that now we know how to get out of that first room - if we are in there with people who have never done it before, I don't want to ruin the experience for them by rushing through to the second room. So I will try to book it on the spur of the moment again, and hope that no walk-ins join us if we do the Lost Ship again.

But I really want to check out the crypt room!!!

Thursday 15 May 2014

Back at it!

Apologies...

I don't know if you've noticed or not, but I have been slacking off in my contesting posts lately. As my husband's 50th birthday neared, the burden of keeping the surprises a secret really weighed me down! I couldn't concentrate on anything else and couldn't wait for the date to pass. Now that the party is over (and he was SUPER surprised!) I can once again put a greater effort into the contests...

First up: the online contests! I will write that up today while my little guy is in preschool. Then I'm going to step it up a notch and do some posts about other, non-radio contests. I am suddenly re-energized and pumped!

So if you see any contests online and you feel like sharing, send me a link and I'll post it. Even if it's not something I would want to win for myself, I always share in case someone else might be interested.

Let's slap on our WINNING smiles and get busy!

:D


Monday 12 May 2014

Weekend Rap-Up May 12th

Well, I'm up early so let's do this!

Friday night I crashed your party,
Saturday I said I'm sorry,
Sunday came and... Oops! Let's start over.

Saturday was the Sonic Escape party
Had a great time
Didn't win the car but that was alrighty
Maybe next time

The KCS were looking fine
Randi sure is pretty
That Andrew is a looker too,
Charming and a little flirty

Ball Buster Suzie is surprisingly short
She packs a lot of punch in that frame
And Kid of course was handsome as ever
I wonder if that's his real name?

When I was in high school
I called myself Kidd
Two Ds 'cause I was cool
Nicknames is what we did (?!)

Mother's Day was disappointing
Just wanted to be alone
But hubby was busy in the morning
It was noon before he got home!

Then he took kids to Playland
So I spent the day cleaning
Which for me is super relaxing
When kids aren't around screaming!

:D


Sunday 11 May 2014

Can I get a HELL YEAH?!?!

Oooooh, how I love, love, LOVE JRFM!!!

Firstly, let's all give thanks to the promo peeps for laying YSIWPI to rest. Yes, they gave away a ton of money; yes they helped a lot of deserving people; yes, it kept us tuning in; and yes, yes, YES, we got to know many of the listeners better. There were so many NICE things about this contest that I don't want to say anything bad about it.

So I won't.

But what's THIS?!? Another awesome and exciting prize for the Best Call of the Week, that's what! Man, these people really know how to treat their listeners...

But wait! It's not quite as simple as it seems... you still have to wade into shark infested waters. So roll up your pant legs and make sure you don't have any open wounds - they can smell blood, and even more ominously, they can smell fear. Do not call unprepared, as a simple hesitation can get your call cut off. I can just see Karen ROLLING her eyes at the dead air...

So if you do go wading into those waters, you'd best take some shark repellent - a damned good story! Witty comments and interesting stories are welcome, but please, please, PUH-LEEEEEASE don't sing! Making them laugh is a sure bet so a great joke or anecdote (even a lymeric) might do it.

Oh! And here's what you win: a trip to Nashville for the CMAs, plus a meet and greet with Rascal Flats! Rascal frigging Flats!!! Eeeeeeeee!!! Their song "Broken Road" was our wedding song 8 years ago and still brings a tear to my eye... *sigh*

I look forward to hearing the winner squeal with delight on Friday!

:D

Thursday 8 May 2014

Oh Seth...

Last night we went to a movie for the first time this year. The passes were given to us by a kind person who had won them from Breakfast Television but couldn't go due to work. I put a shout out to my friends and one offered to babysit, so all of the stars aligned to make this happen. So now I'm going to a FREE movie, we have a babysitter we trust, and the movie (Neighbours) was purported to be "the funniest movie in a loooong time". I was SO excited!!

For some reason, I'm a big fan of Seth Rogen. Maybe because he's from Vancouver, maybe because he's so down to earth, maybe because he's goofy and endearing. But when I think about it, I can't actually name a single one of his movies that I thought was great, or even good. His role in 40 Year Old Virgin was my favourite! But as a lead, I don't think he can carry a movie.

Zac Effron is in this, and I've never seen him in anything so I had no idea what to expect. I didn't expect to be blown away, but I did hope to be entertained.

And I was! But only in a few guffaw-inducing memorable scenes. Overall the movie was disjointed, and I think the editors were stoned. There were scenes that left us wondering WHY they were even included in the movie, were they just filling space? Most notably, the Robert DeNiro party scene. And what was with all of those overly-repeated I Love Yous near the end?! Did they run out of lines? I can't imagine the director telling them "say it again!" Strange and irrelevant. Awkward.

Speaking of awkward, Seth's sex scenes were exactly that! Cringe-worthy and uncomfortable. Filled with too much dialogue (does he really say that stuff when he's actually having sex?? "Oh yeah, this is happening, it's happening right now, on this chair, oh yeah" Ugh! Stuff a sock in it!)

Zac Efron was a surprise to me - I had no idea he was so pretty!! And his acting was really good, for what it was. I will definitely go see another of his movies...

My favourite character was their divorced friend. He had the best lines and his comedic timing was perfect, though he ended up being sucked into the black hole of unfunniness in the end.

It had its funny moments for sure, but overall it was disappointing. It didn't live up to the hype (in my opinion) but I still love Seth. My husband said it was "Jackass good", which means it wasn't a blockbuster but it was good for the genre - a cross between Porky's, Animal House, and American Pie. But as my husband so eloquently put it, "a hot dog is still a hotdog, even if it's the best hotdog at the BBQ."

LOL!