Just make sure you don't sniff too close to the marker tip or you will have a blue (or red or black or green) nose.

Snow globe sig and starfish globe by Agman 2011

*snort* Sharkie wipe please!

sig Syren, bouncy by IceCat, bobble head by Tribephyl, and snoglobe by agman

But... where's the orange? It's got the best scent!

(The Expo brand comes with scents built into certain colours... that reminds me, I need to order a fresh supply for the start of the winter semester next Monday)

Snow globe sig and starfish globe by Agman 2011

I am so tempted to just give you 600 points right now.

Not that it would do anything -- Canada has a separate program, catalog, and code system. But just think of all the fun you'd have not being able to indulge!

Actually...

*checks Canadian catalog*

Nothing.

Seriously, nothing. I just went through the entire catalog. ( http://www.icoke.ca/ ) And roughly eighty percent of it was desktop wallpaper. I've been there before, but it was never this bad. I thought the States program members were suffering? RC could take over the country with one pair of movie tickets per citizen. No wonder y'all keep waiting to Roll up the Rim: it's the only game in town...

But at least you still have the white cans.

LAST EDITED ON 01-03-12 AT 09:17 PM (EST)

Not any more... since about a week before Christmas, we've been getting the red cans with white polar bears on them.

And, yes, Roll up the Rim is practically a national holiday around here -- it's the only thing to do in late February to keep us from freezing to death.

Two more new Rewards hit the menu a few minutes ago. And there they shall stay, because...

http://tinyurl.com/7sbasaq
http://tinyurl.com/7oqgmru

So what's the first thing you'd want to know about these items? Material's high on the list, right? Especially for those cupcake pans. Metal? Silicon? Can you microwave the food storage container? What's the cubic capacity on that? Anyone want to explain those middle bits? You know, just the normal sort of crucial information you need before you'd even remotely consider spending cash.

But you're (potentially) spending points. And all they're essentially telling you is this:

850 for one.
950 for the other.

It's too early in the year to be this insulted.

http://www.amazon.com/Xtraordinary-Home-Products-Party-Traveler/dp/B004N3C47W/ref=sr_1_fkmr3_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1325634094&sr=8-2-fkmr3

http://www.amazon.com/Good-Cook-Count-Cupcake-Carrying/dp/B000H0WEIY/ref=sr_1_1?s=home-garden&ie=UTF8&qid=1325634292&sr=1-1

Snow globe sig and starfish globe by Agman 2011

*blink*

You? Are good. I haven't even made a decent start on finding the single-level steam cooker. (Not that I really wanted to, given that 'single-level' was perfectly visible in the picture -- which is why I'm not linking to it. As far as I'm concerned, a steamer needs at least two levels.) SlickDeals would put you over a thousand rep points in a month if you kept that up... Thankee.

*reads*

So the food storage may not be bad value, but it's underreviewed right now: too few buyers to find the flaws. And now that I can see the cupcake unit -- well, now we know why MCR showed it as they did: once you see it assembled, you know this thing won't work with high-dome icing and decorations. And then there's this:

"Item Under Review

While this item is available from other marketplace sellers on this page, it is not currently offered by Amazon.com because customers have told us there may be something wrong with our inventory of the item, the way we are shipping it, or the way it's described here. (Thanks for the tip!)

We're working to fix the problem as quickly as possible."

To me, that says something very specific: 'Someone dumped a batch of them and MCR got them on closeout.'

I got used to looking for things of that nature on Amazon, after dealing with Club Bing prizes, and here lately, Woot items. Woot sends out an email every night with deals. I go to Amazon most times to see the reviews and find out more about the product.

Snow globe sig and starfish globe by Agman 2011

Looks like someone either really wanted that stuff or they only had one of each.

Bobblefred by Tribe. Fred's snowed in by Agman

Weird. My first thought was that items which had wandered in from the school catalog by accident had been found and corralled back -- but they're nowhere in that section either. (At least, not yet.) Maybe after the irony wears off.

Oh -- this is the current Schools Only catalog.

http://tinyurl.com/77cvo8v

If some of the redemption prices look high, they are -- but school coordinators can enter up to 200 codes a day (of any value, as long as there's two hundred of them), so it's expected that an active donation program can get pretty far in a hurry.

http://tinyurl.com/7qdrp7f

*facepalm*

So in the 'how stupid do they think we are?' category...

There's also two new Instant Wins up this morning: one set of Coke and Pringles coupons per day -- or a $25 Best Buy card per hour, a chance at a larger prize, and a sweepstakes draw at the end for about $25,000 in total value.

Gee, wonder which one more people are going to free-alternate-entry play.

The networks had their midseason press conferences recently, and American Idol used the opportunity to show off the skills they got from Faux News: forgetting anything that would make them look bad if they could bother to remember it. So they started with bashing the other singing shows by noting that the competition hadn't produced as many U.S. hits as they had, happily forgetting the respective length of air times. Then they said the other shows were all about second chance professionals while they were personally all about amateurs, merrily ignoring every plant they've ever pushed into the ground and Lee DeWyze's entire non-career. And for a finale, they looked to their partnership with MCR and joyfully dismissed the idea of MCR members having standards.

http://tinyurl.com/7kkznsg

Kind of makes you want to castrate Nigel all over again, huh?

Bad code... we've talked about the Arctic Home Initiative. Apparently donations are going slowly. In fact, I know they're going slowly because the goal is a million dollars in public handovers and the main AHI site posts a new total every day: they've barely crept over a quarter-million. So MCR decided to sweeten the pot a bit. They announced that if you could find a red diamond while searching the virtual Arctic, you would get bonus MCR points.

People flocked to the site. And for many, the thing would not completely load. Regardless of connection speeds or browser or raw computer power, the site would get to the point of asking for them to log in -- and then wouldn't let them do it. The 'waiting' image for AHI is a spinning radar needle. It can spin for hours and hours without going anywhere or finding anything, especially your password. Sometimes you could spend a whole day trying with no results. Some people got in immediately and then never again. And for those who did manage to get in -- no diamonds.

Then some of those who had donated reported finding (typically) a diamond a day. And the only ones finding anything were those who'd given money or points.

So, cautiously, other people slowly donated and then warily tried the site again. Which still wouldn't load. And had a giant movie file at the start to make the dial-ups cry. And if they did get in? Surprise! Sometimes there would in fact be diamonds! And if you clicked on them to add the points to your MCR account, you got -- a spinning radar needle. Which could spin for hours and hours and hours without ever finding your points... And you couldn't even try to trade with people for bonus codes because the points were applied directly to your account. Or, mostly, not.

I did donate points. I have, after a week of reloads and trying not to rip the radar needle out of the screen, gotten my donation back through red diamonds. But at best, I can get into the site one time in fifteen. Diamonds freeze the code about a third of the time. And while I found the key to skipping that movie because it drags you down on any connection -- use https://www.arctichome.com/web/index.html#/login/ instead of the main URL -- it's still a Flash site which refuses to operate at anything over a low crawl.

It might be possible to find thousands of bonus points over the life of the donation program: we may have until 3/15 and the smallest diamond is worth 35 points. But getting in...

At some point, you kind of have to believe they're doing this on purpose.

Early this morning, I hit on the Powerade NCAA March Madness instant win game. Roughly six to eight weeks from now, this will have the following items (all Powerade-branded) arrive at my apartment:

Five towels.
Five squeeze bottles.
One five-gallon cooler.
One basketball, NCAA regulation.
One ten-foot basketball hoop, backboard, and pole assembly, NCAA regulation.

As a result, I have spent most of the morning trying to find a home for:

Five towels.
Five squeeze bottles.
One five-gallon cooler.
One basketball, NCAA regulation.
One ten-foot basketball hoop, backboard, and pole assembly, NCAA regulation.

It's not as easy as you might think.

Are you within rough driving range of Darien Lake? MCR just added ticket redemptions for their theme park: 563 points for one, 1125 for two. This is several hundred miles too far away for me, but if you can get anything out of it...

Subway's running an instant win contest and those cup codes are currently the only means of access. Last Prize is 40 bonus MCR points, which I could find some small amount of benefit from. So if you happen to have a Subway cup whose code you aren't using, would you please PM that code to me? I promise to lose with gradually ebbing enthusiasm.

Optionally, if you're playing the game and have no use for the Last Prize you just got, I'll happily take all donations of those codes as well. After all, forty bonus has to have a use.

For someone.

Eventually.

In theory....

Subway's been sending out a few freebie codes which allow people to play for the lowest two prizes only: a $10 Visa card (2000 available in a two-month contest) and the 40 MCR bonus point code (120,000 out there). So I got to try my hand at the game of the movie of the game, which asks you to try targeting alien ships moving about the ocean with your torpedoes. Three tries per code.

Second shot: direct hit.

The computer scored it as a miss.

And why? Because -- and I quote -- "Impact absorbed by alien force field."

Within minutes of receiving that message, I traded with another SlickDealer for hir already-won bonus code. Because I really don't want to play that game again for a while. You can program misses and circle runners and duds, but anything which happily sounds the false alarm is an instant win I'm going to approach with caution.

Feh.

So. Coke entered a sponsorship relation with the upcoming Battleship movie, which has resulted in several vaguely military rewards (dogtags with no ID) and an instant win game which was scheduled to begin on Friday. The game itself is a slightly weird setup: it's free to play, but only at Level One. At Level One, the most you can get is a movie poster (along with a $0.99 off coupon and ye olde Exclusive Footage). To reach Levels Two and Three, you need to enter codes from Coke Zero caps into your MCR account. Eight caps will unlock the entire game, from which you can win a $1.50 coupon, $10 Subway card with two movie tickets, your choice of a classic Battleship game or a movie tie-in video one for the system of your choice, 52 twelve-pack coupons, $150 for LiveNation and, at the highest level, a concert trip. There's only four concert trips for the two-month duration of the game, as opposed to 100,000 coupons for $0.99 off. And you can play for all the prizes in one visit just by working your way through the game's levels.

Seven a.m. Friday came: the game's scheduled launch. And went. The game did not load. The page just said 'coming soon'.

Same for Saturday.

And most of Sunday.

Now: this was a code error. The Coming Soon graphics didn't know to get off the Internet and wouldn't let anyone past them to play. But by the machine's logic, the game is running. Randomly assigned winning times come and go without anyone there to claim the prize. And by the game's own rules, a prize is claimed by the first person to play at or after that time. The prizes must be given away. More than two days pass and winning times are backed up out the door.

Guess what happens to the first person to play the game after it came back up?

Right. Just about every prize. No concert trip: the randomly-assigned time for that hadn't hit during the blockade. But everything else was available and won. The next person to play got everything up through the game choice -- and apparently, so did the next fifty or so people to go after that.

I? Had put in my points for the week already. On purpose. I'd been waiting for the game to come up, but yesterday was the big storm and sometimes heavy rain sends my home connection down for the duration. I couldn't play until Monday, when the limit reset -- and by then, the backlog would be cleared out. But because black caps were needed to get access to the larger prizes and possession of them guaranteed you at least a six-level prize run, they were suddenly in very high trade demand...

Ultimately, I'll get back more points than I gave out. (Waiting on a few return codes.) Also in the swapping was two movie passes and a $5.00 Amazon code, all very happily traded by people who knew it was the prize of admission to more than they paid with. I didn't ask for anything people hadn't already offered. Swap out all my black cap stock excepting the eight I needed for myself, and watch everyone else ride my points bank down Winner's Highway.

I put my last eight in this morning. Got access to the game, now cleared out of backlog and operating normally.

It won't load.

This is for any variety of Diet Coke (regular, Splenda, Plus, Lime, Caffeine-Free, etc), but it only applies to the 12-pack sizes and goes all the way until the 31st. I've probably got enough to get through about a week, so any codes sent by PM will be graciously thanked for. And yes, I still have no idea if any of this will go anywhere in November -- but at least I would have a few more points to not spend anything on.

Meanwhile, the regional Reward coding has now decided I live in Connecticut. Tickets to see the Sun (WNBA), World Tennis Hall Of Fame, Mystic Aquarium, a dinosaur museum, and I don't even know what the @#$$ Sahara Sam's Oasis is. *shrug* Give me Cooperstown and I'll make the drive...

Oh, and in Other Soda news, Mountain Dew is doing a caps-for-camping-gear summer program with some interesting items available. Check out the catalog.

https://www.dewoutdoors.com/show_gear.cfm

If I happen to see the caps, I'll collect them -- but I don't personally expect to do much with this. It does look like there's some nice pieces, though.

http://finances.msn.com/saving-money-ideas/7536ecc4-ba8d-4d03-96d7-97381d7a05fe

*sigh*

Wait until he gets a look at the new Mountain Dew program. (Great camping items for low amounts, but the points are currently impossible to find.) Better yet, maybe he shouldn't.

LAST EDITED ON 06-07-12 AT 03:54 PM (EST)

Whole lot going on right now, so I decided to compile the complaining in a single post.

1. The Five Million Point Giveaway. This is similar to the bonus point handouts they've had in the past, only with more total points given away, less open access -- you need one of the Olympic-branded 12-packs to get a freebie entry, otherwise it's AMOE or spend three points to play -- and the prizes are more stratified. You can only win one prize at each level, and those levels are 10 points (lots), 1000 points (one per hour), and 10,000 points (once a day). Every play also gives you an entry into the final sweepstakes, where one person will win their choice of either 250,000 points (at 10k a week for 25 weeks) or a $10,000 Visa card. (I'm not taking that last one too seriously because pretty much everyone who enters an Olympic twelve-pack code has a ticket in the draw and that makes the odds worse than the lottery.) The instant win runs for the rest of the month.

I've been lucky on this one: the 10-point code came on Day One -- and then much to my surprise, a 1000-pointer followed it. (It's fun merely to see the words 'You Just Added 1000 Points To Your Account' appear on the screen). I don't think I'm going to sweep the field, but I'll keep trying until July hits. Couldn't hurt. Much. But there's nothing I can do to increase my odds here:

Stumbling along.

* MCR is currently having a half-price points sale on most of the stock for their current all-things-photo-printed partner, Shutterfly. (Yes, I have made pony jokes. There's a yellow pegasus out there who will never sue because she just doesn't have that kind of aggression.) As with their previous partner, you can get prints, books, your image on a mug, blanket, poster... Presumably all images must have clothing involved. Or not. The half-price sale has made them pretty popular, to where Item #1 on the charts is the 50 prints for 25 points. (Plus shipping.) Dead Freaking Last for non-regional rewards is the official Battleship movie T-shirt at 760 points. However, that one is kind of MCR's own fault, because...

* ...they've been experimenting with social media lately. The program has just about always had a Facebook presence and they've even been tweeting here and there. It's still a horrible place to go for any information other than 'call our customer service line so they can ignore you'. But they've also been posting special Social Media Only rewards -- and total freebies, redeemed at no points cost. Put up the link and it's there until it's gone. (It usually takes a certain number of Likes or retweets to trigger.) One of those complete freebies was the official Battleship movie T-shirt. 0 points. Gone within minutes. In fact, it arguably did better than the movie. There's also been posters, a McDonald's coupon (for the spicy chicken bites, now on the regular menu at 75 points -- serving size not listed) -- people are now forced to check in with those sites and hope to spot the link before the stock runs out. Or check SlickDeals and cross fingers on great timing.

So it shouldn't surprise them that the shirt isn't selling well after they gave it away for twenty minutes. And the movie's performance may also be their fault. I haven't decided.

* This link is for a miniature bean bag chair designed to hold your cell phone. It costs 350 points.

http://tinyurl.com/brxvvrv

No, really.

No, it doesn't charge the phone.

Yes, your boss is justified in firing you if she sees it on your desk.

* Another new partner: the Hilton Honors hotel rewards program. MCR is offering the chance to convert one kind of points into another, at an exchange rate of 225 MCR to 500 HH -- or 800 MCR to 1500 HH.

Think about that last one for a second.

I've been through some of the Hilton catalog. Supposedly free hotel rooms start around the 7500 level, but that's got to be Dates Available, Off-Season, and The Broom Closet Counts As A Room. I do appreciate that they really have things regionalized -- different continents get different catalogs -- but for the most part, the conversion rate is horrible. Right now, MCR's scant non-Nike gift cards are 1750 points for $25. (Nike remains 1000=$25 -- for now.) So 7000=$100. Hilton Honors offers gift cards of all types -- at 50k of their points for $100. A direct conversion across from MCR to that level would require 22,500 MCR points.

For the record: at full maximum entry per week without figuring for bonus points, that's nearly four years.

The SlickDealers are starting to discuss this. One person in the programs says HH points expire if you don't add fresh ones every so often, so this at least keeps that account active. Also that even a lousy Hampton Inn takes at least 10k for a room and 20k if it's of moderate quality. So -- pass. Once again, I'm better off selling Nike cards through Plastic Jungle and paying with the resulting cash. I'm not sure that's what they had in mind.

* Have you ever seen an AM/PM convenience store? I haven't. But that chain is putting out special codes: you can enter one a day followed by nearly any two product codes (bottles through 20-packs) and get ten bonus points. Seventy a week through July 31st if you play it right. Happily, MCR has made the codes publicly available on-site. It's no ArcticHome for bonus points, but it's better than the standard 120. And it's also given the three-point caps extra value, because you can't enter a dozen twelve-pack labels over a week and get the full bonus: you'll fall one day short. So now there's a trade market again. Huzzah.

* Supposedly if you enter a code from a special 28-pack (available at Walmart only) this month, you get access to a limited-edition Olympic catalog. I've seen exactly one of those packs. Ever. My Walmart doesn't have any and likely isn't planning to get some. I'll try to trade for one because I'm morbidly curious to see just how bad it is. (One public Olympic reward catalog sold out within hours -- pins.) I just don't have any faith in the results. Walmart's offered one exclusive catalog before this, and it was two discounted magazines and a few points off song downloads. Not encouraging.

* Speaking of which, Last Prize in a recent IW was one song download.

For one specific song prechosen by MCR.

No substitutions or changes.

* Unless something spectacular hits the catalog, I should be at 12k by the end of the season. Slow, steady progress towards -- something. It's still too early for word on program renewal or final ending.

I'm kind of rooting for final ending.

Just added to the Reward menu: for 400 points, I can have my choice of:

A T-shirt (unwearable) autographed by David Boudia.
A refrigerator magnet autographed by my choice of David Oliver, Henry Cujedo, Alex Morgan or John Isner.

All of which would probably be a lot more appealing in the collectibles department if I had any idea who they were.

I'm up to 16 points. At this rate I'll have enough for nothing sometime around 2045.

*sigh* I got nineteen points (three caps plus ten points from the AM/PM bonus) just by going to check the mail this morning. You need to learn how to tune yourself to the presence of the caps around you. Because they are everywhere. You just haven't figured out how to sense them yet. I'd give you the full hint list, but I don't know how seriously you want to take this...

You have an option I don't, though. You're a teacher: you can become a school coordinator and get people bringing in caps and labels by the bucketload directly to your desk. Of course, all those points have to be spent for the school -- but gosh, think of all the fun you'll have pouring them into a gigantic caps bin and swimming through the stuff.

http://www.koinlocal6.com/mostpopular/story/Albany-duo-accused-of-Coca-Cola-scam/y_7GLef6B0aPyFkqAKRcZA.cspx

The question being asked by the SlickDealers: how the %^&& do you get that many winning entries in the first place? They must have had phones set up on some kind of auto-text feature and sending every split-second, but they'd need the actual codes -- red caps only -- to send in... We're talking about mega-effort to set this up in the first place. Maybe one of them worked in a bottling plant.

Impressive results -- but seriously, blaming the President for this one? Everyone knows people born outside the States only drink RC.

Okay. First up: I know I'm doing this earlier than usual, but it snuck up on just about everybody. McDonald's is doing another promotion with MCR bonus points as a prize -- a non-Monopoly one. This particular game is Olympic-themed and should run through the 13th of August or while piece supplies last. The problem is that you don't -- and can't -- win immediately.

I've already tried one code. Upon entering it, I was randomly assigned to an Olympic event and a potential prize. If the U.S. wins gold in that event, I get the prize. If they don't, I get the honor of having entered. And that's it. Limit of five entries per day. And the vast bulk of the prizes are MCR bonus codes -- forty points each -- but there's no guarantee of seeing any, especially if the medal count goes silver and bronze.

So once again, I'm asking for the alphanumeric codes from the game pieces, sent by PM. (Like the Monopoly codes, the codes will be along the bottom edge.) As before, this includes codes off instant win food pieces -- but if you peel-win anything bigger than that, do not send me the code and be sure to use it yourself on their site.

Pieces can be found on:

Premium Grilled Chicken Sandwiches
McMuffin® Sandwiches (excluding Sausage McMuffin)
Medium Fries (oh, the irony)
Hash Browns
Oatmeal
Filet-o-Fish®
Medium Size McCafé® Cold Beverages (clear cups only)

The pieces are blue. So far, I've only seen one on a Medium Fries: it was on the back of the package. And if you're wondering about that weird assortment of food items, they're trying to push their lower-calorie entries.

Thankee for any contributions to my futility in advance.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
The other event today: for over a week, Family Dollar has been offering a 10-point bonus code that would open access to a special Olympic catalog -- with a given purchase. Today, two such codes were revealed on SlickDeals, each completely generic and useable once each by any MCR member. And the catalog? Is not bad. Sadly, the biggest piece either never made it or sold out before I saw it: supposedly there was a console gaming system of some sort in there. *sigh* Of course, that could be coming later -- but don't place any bets. And MCR could have changed their mind and never posted it, and yes, I know I am sour graping right now.

However, there's still nine items left, and they're fairly interesting -- especially for the prices. If you have enough points, you can get one of each -- but you can't get two of any piece.

Free: Sprite mobile wallpaper
10 points: Olympic decals
15 points: $1.00 coupon for Cheese-Its.
50 points: Powerade drawstring bag
50 points: Sprite t-shirt (normally 550 points)
50 points: Sprite cap (ibid)
300 points: Nike basketball (generally around $65)
1000 points: $20 Visa card
1500 points: LeBron James Team USA jersey, autographed

(Yes, I am wondering how much the console system would have been. I wish I could stop.)

Because the Family Dollar access codes are generic, I can freely paste them here for the use of Grit and others without using them up. Courtesy of SeaDawg at SlickDeals:

10096071476917
10096122897198

Using those two codes will give you 20 total bonus points and two free entries to nearly any sweepstakes of your choice. You're supposed to use them for a chance to meet LeBron in Miami, but they'll work for any sweepstakes with a 3-point ticket buy.

And in case you're wondering -- yeah, I bit. I got the LeBron jersey. (I would have gotten the gaming system if -- *sigh*)

I was stupid enough to research until I found someone who had redeemed for the gaming console. It was an XBox 360 4gb with the London 2012 game included. And it was 1500 points.

Megacrap.

My only consolation is that the post I found describing the item (with picture, and I later found the expired catalog page on MCR) was dated July 6th, which is when the Family Dollar catalog would have first gone live. I have no doubt there was an incredibly limited quantity available. I'd top this out at a hundred on the most generous day of MCR's life (which July 6th might have been), more likely fifty or less -- possibly a lot less -- and July 6th was almost guaranteed to be the date they sold out. I would have had to be in a Family Dollar first thing in the morning on Day One getting the bonus code and then been one of the first two dozen or so people into the catalog. 'Slim chance' just about begins to describe it.

The good news is that if the LeBron jersey -- now sold out -- is authentic, comes with paperwork, and is equally limited in release, I might be able to sell it for enough to cover an XBox if I truly want one. But his stuff isn't all that reliable on eBay, and a lot will depend on how Team USA does next month.

A thousand points for a $20 Visa or fifteen hundred for --

-- I'd like a one-time exemption to the PG13 language limit now.

Very irritating game.

After a slow start, I've managed to get a piece or more each day (although contributions would not be turned away) and traded on SlickDeals for a few more. So I have a nice list of events for which, if the U.S. athletes take gold, I get a prize. But...

1. Roughly half my potential prize list is comic books. And normally, this would not irritate me. In fact, I was pleasantly surprised when I first saw 'Comic: ARV $2.99' on the master rundown. Because I very mistakenly thought that if you got that prize, they sent you a coupon good for $2.99 at your local comics shop. And if they somehow turned out to be cumulative and I hit on a few of them, maybe I could get a graphic novel or two. Not in any way a bad prize.

It turned out to be a comic book. Singular. One issue, one character, mailed to me sometime in October. And that character? Is Sonic The Hedgehog. This title has roughly a one in thirty-five chance to come up every time you're randomly assigned an event. And it's half. my. bloody. list.

I have won two of them.

They won't let me trade down.

2. You can pretty much guess on #2: if that much of my list is Sonic The Arrogant, then I logically have very few chances at MCR points. Right. They're the vast majority of the prizes -- over two-thirds -- and I keep getting the same stupid comic.

3. The possible events comprise the entire list where a U.S. athlete is entered. I have not gotten dressage. Everything else is up for grabs. You can imagine the odds on some of the more obscure sports. Typically, my even-more-stupid-than-they-were-an-entry-ago comics have come from swimming events. And you can get multiple prizes on a single event if you draw it enough times -- but as noted at SD, there's no illusion of control here. You can't enter in the least-used hours and increase your odds. All you can do is try to find pieces and hope that both the computer and the Olympic judges are merciful. Good luck with that.

(At one point, I thought the events where the U.S. was most likely to win gold (basketball, both sides) were being held back for the biggest prizes only. A SlickDealer proved me wrong by coming up with Men's Basketball -- for Guess What.)

4. The only other prize on my list is music downloads. Which would normally be fine as a low-level win, but it's Universal Republic Records only and they pick the available artists & tracks. Haven't won one yet, so the point is moot -- for now.

5. And most important: I'm not having fun. With the Monopoly game, I was able to pile up enough MCR bonus points to feel I was accomplishing something. Here? Piece entry feels like a chore. I've gotten a single MCR bonus code out of this. It was more of a 'oh, well: I guess I might as well put in some more entries' than a 'yay'.

The instant win food prizes are better than they've been in a while, yes: it's nice to have smoothies on the list and my circle is enjoying all the iced coffee. But I started asking around for these things because I thought I might have two bites at the bonus points apple this year.

The first apple is rotten.

The SlickDeals thread feels this may be the worst McD promotion ever. That feeling is gaining support.

Those two Family Dollar codes above? They can both be used once a day. That means twenty free bonus points every day you care to log in to MCR and use them -- plus two free sweepstakes entries to be used on any sweeps with a three-point buy in rate. At the moment, I'm assuming this can last no longer than August 12th -- the last day to enter the LeBron sweeps these were designed to be used on. If you sign up now and do nothing but the freebie codes every day until then, you'd have 360 points -- enough for nine free bottles of soda, or just about any available magazine subscription. Enough to do a little something with, anyway. So this is a good time to jump in at no cost for as long as the ride lasts. And for those already in the program, this is rocket fuel.

It doesn't make up for losing out on the XBox, but it sure helps recover the part of the jersey cost. Onwards and upwards...

10095913378567

This one may also be once a day through 8/12. If so, the bonus points are starting to pile up.

I am not ready for this much football.

http://www.mycokerewards.com/catalog/sweepstakes?sorts=PA&itemsPerPage=1000

Count 'em. That's well over a hundred football-related sweepstakes at various prize value levels, with every last one at three points per entry. (It feels as if the more obscure the school or less popular the pro team, the lower the value.) And what did Coke do with so many sweeps on the board, every last one of which is going to run for three months? They changed the rules. From now through Halloween, as long as you're entering into the football sweeps, you can burn one hundred entries a day -- up from fifty. So that's three hundred points of account death on a daily basis just to take a chance on some tickets, trips, or mostly memorabilia. Who's got that kind of total to wreck? Just about nobody -- and nearly all who do, wouldn't.

But to be fair, MCR also gave everyone another means of getting an entry. If you put in a Coke Zero code, you get a free one to the football sweeps of your choice. In fact, you can get multiple entries this way.

To wit, five.

Over the entire three-month span.

And by the way, most Coke Zero caps? Are being read by the system as Powerade Fruit Punch.

*rolls eyes*

BTW, note that Coke does not have a good relationship with the NFL right now. 'New Orleans Professional Team'?

LAST EDITED ON 07-30-12 AT 01:52 PM (EST)

10095827987467

Think about it for a minute. We're now up to forty free points a day, possibly going through August 12th. If you signed on for an account right now, you could pick out anything 560 points or less for going to the site a few minutes a day over a little less than two weeks. Plus you could enter some sweepstakes. Without having to buy a single Coke product.

I will ride this horse until it drops.

This goes with the football sweepstakes deluge and takes a little caution to work with. Any flavor or size of Coke Zero (excepting 32-packs) will double through Halloween -- if you enter a UPC code from a Nabisco or Planters product with it. And after some experimenting and lost bonus points, the SlickDealers have determined that you have to enter one UPC for each Coke Zero code you want to double: a single UPC and a dozen Coke Zeros is one doubled value and a whole lot of screaming. However, you can use the same UPC multiple times during the promotion. The full list of workable products is at http://tinyurl.com/nutstocoke -- and individual UPC are easy to get through a search engine.

While this might seem like a great chance to get account totals moving at speed, there's a catch. (Isn't there always?) Codes from 12-packs on up are being read normally by the system. But for bottle codes, the Fruit Punch problem mentioned above is still active. MCR has been told about it. They said they were working on it. And there's been no word since. But until it's fixed, Coke Zero caps (or any small black cap that someone might lie about being from same) are not being taken as such -- and thus no bonus points.

There's a way around this, but most people don't have the stock to use it. The white Arctic Home caps from this past winter appeared on every single bottle brand, and can be entered as any of the major lines -- Coke Zero included. Some people held onto them in case a wild card was needed, and it's paying off here. (I'm among them -- barely: I've got about two weeks' worth. Better than nothing.) But unless the code issue is fixed, most people are going to get the now-traditional shortchanging -- plus it's unlikely that we'll see another double points promotion for a different brand while this one is running.

We push on for November, and the boulder keeps getting heavier.

LAST EDITED ON 09-24-12 AT 03:02 PM (EST)

Feels kind of futile to do this right after Molaholic announced his new School Coordinator status, but I just got the news today and that means the post has to go up. So...

The Monopoly game will launch September 25th. Pieces will be distributed in the various McDonald's through October 22nd or while supplies last. However, online game entry runs through November 3rd.

As before, I'm asking for donations of the piece codes on common pieces and food winners (found on the lower edge, typically an eleven-character alphanumeric) so that I may play the online game and try to win bonus MCR points for my yearly fall push -- especially because my odds are extra-bad this year, because McDonald's reversed the prize numbers.

For the last few years, there were 3.5m-4m MCR codes available to be won online, with a scattering available through peel-and-play. Now it's been flipped. There are 900,000 MCR codes available through the online game over the 41-day span -- and 4,000,000 in the stores. Why? Because the online codes are the ones that get redeemed. Store codes have as good a chance of being tossed as entered. Every time a winning game piece gets thrown away, everyone involved saves money. So switch those numbers and watch the savings mount!

Think four million MCR codes in the fast food places means we'll be running into a lot of them? Think again. The actual odds on that break down to 1:151.

Look at that number for a minute. Work out the total amount of Monopoly pieces in play. Consider weeping.

*sigh* If I managed to enter ten pieces a day for the entire duration -- which, let's face it, is not going to happen -- I might be lucky to find a pair of bonus codes and win ten more. And that's assuming MCR doesn't add injury to insult by putting a cap on individual winnings. This is going to be a very long contest with practically no payoff -- but I have to try.

So if you have a code and would care to donate via PMing it to me, I'd be happy (if frustrated) to accept it. But remember -- common pieces and food winners only. Don't send the code from any rare because if I use it, that registers the piece to me and you'll have a hard time collecting the prize.

The rare collect-to-win pieces are, as always:

Mediterranean Avenue
Vermont Avenue
Virginia Avenue
Tennessee Avenue
Kentucky Avenue
Ventnor Avenue
Pennsylvania Avenue
Boardwalk
Short Line

As long as I'm posting, here's the numbers.

Food prize odds:

Medium Fries 1:9
Quarter Pounder® with Cheese 1:44
Small McCafé® Frappé or Small Smoothie 1:44
Regular McFlurry® or Fruit 'N Yogurt Parfait Odds 1:44
Any Breakfast Sandwich 1:22
Overall: 1:4.4

Yes, this means Death By Medium Fries again.

Non-food in-store Instant Wins, with quantity and odds:

Redbox® One (1) Night Standard Definition DVD Rental (4,500,000) 1 in 134

My Coke Rewards® ("MCR") 40-Points Bundles. (4,000,000) 1 in 151

Snapfish® Two (2) 5"x7" Digital Photo Prints (3,800,000) 1 in 159

Ten Dollar Arch Card (6,000) 1 in 112,396

SpaWish® Twenty Dollar Gift Certificate (10,000) 1 in 67,438

Twenty Five Dollar Arch Card (3,000) 1 in 224,792

Hasbro® MONOPOLY® Millionaire Board Game (9,000) 1 in 74,931

Fifty Dollars (5,000) 1 in 134,875

EA SPORTS Video Game (15,169) 1 in 44,458

Five Hundred Dollars (700) 1 in 963,391.

NHL® All-Star Weekend Trip (1) 1 in 674,373,700

EA SPORTS™ Ultimate Game Room (10) 1 in 67,437,370

Five Thousand Dollars (25) 1 in 26,974,948

Ten Thousand Dollars (20) 1 in 33,718,685

Ultimate U.S. Soccer Family Trip. (1) 1 in 674,373,700

Twenty Thousand Dollars (20) 1 in 33,718,685

EA SPORTS Lifetime of Games. (4) 1 in 168,593,425

One Hundred Thousand Dollars (4) 1 in 168,593,425

Collect And Win prizes:

Mediterranean Avenue (#925) and Baltic Avenue (#926): Fifty Dollars (8,500) 1 in 402,602

Oriental Avenue (#927), Vermont Avenue (#928), and Connecticut Avenue (#929): Five Thousand Dollars (20) 1 in 578,695,060

St. Charles Place (#930), States Avenue (#931), and Virginia Avenue (#932): Beaches® Resorts—The Luxury Included® Family Vacation (250) 1 in 12,953,122.

St. James Place (#933), Tennessee Avenue (#934), and New York Avenue (#935) Ten Thousand Dollars (20) 1 in 518,330,833.

Kentucky Avenue (#936), Indiana Avenue (#937), and Illinois Avenue (#938): Delta Vacations Trip to Any Delta Vacations Destination (20) 1 in 161,914,024.

Atlantic Avenue (#939), Ventnor Avenue (#940), and Marvin Gardens (#941): Twenty Thousand Dollars (20) 1 in 499,516,192

Pacific Avenue (#942), North Carolina Avenue (#943) and Pennsylvania Avenue (#944) 2013 Fiat® 500 Sport Hatchback: (20) 1 in 158,948,243

Park Place (#945) and Boardwalk (#946): One Million Dollars (2) 1 in 306,939,484

Reading Railroad (#947), Pennsylvania Railroad (#948), B&O Railroad (#949), and Short Line (#950): EA SPORTS™ Fan Trip Championship Get-A-Way (20) 1 in 539,566,072

Online prizes. Note that odds are not quoted as it depends on the number of plays, and the company reasonably can't predict those:

Redbox® One (1) Night Standard Definition DVD Rental (redeemable at www.redbox.com or via the official Redbox app only) (500,000) (No Blu-Ray.)

My Coke Rewards® 40-Points Bundle (900,000)

EA SPORTS Ten Dollar ($10) Origin.com Promotion Code (100,000)

Fathead® $14.99 Promotion Code (500) (Limited to one per transaction, not that it matters.)

Shop.NHL.com Twenty Five Dollar Gift Card (175)

NHL® Officially Licensed Hat (100)

My Coke Rewards® (1,000-Points Bundle (42)

NHL® Officially Licensed T-Shirt (100)

Fifty Dollars (600)

SpaWish® One Hundred Dollar Gift Certificate (500)

NHL® Authentic Jersey (10)

Five Hundred Dollars (20)

U.S. Soccer Family Trip 4)

Beaches® Resorts—The Luxury Included® Family Vacation (30)

2013 FIAT® 500 Sport Hatchback (10)

The irony of having so many prizes based in a league that's about to go lockout has not been lost on me.

Donate your losing/food piece codes to me or donate them to Moley, but if you're not going to play them, just donate them to someone because every code which isn't played online is potentially a little bit of the prize fund which McDonald's gets to keep. And they're relying on a certain percentage of pieces never being played, so let's cut into that slightly, shall we?

I actually have pieces already. My few SASEs have not come back (and I didn't expect them this early), but one of my local McDonald's jumped the gun, putting out their promotion Medium Soda cups and 20-Piece McNuggets boxes. I can't play anything until after midnight, but my online Day #1 is covered.

Yes, I have a Medium Fries.

Currently: 5 for 30 with three MCR codes and 2 Redbox. But that was four for ten on the first day, one win on the second, and zilch this morning. (There were people playing hundreds of pieces on Day One across multiple accounts. I probably don't want to think about that too much. Someone else announced the bonus points limit was 2000 per week and I really don't want to think about how they found that out...) Given the lower number of prizes, I'm hoping to average one or two wins every three days and get about a dozen MCR codes over the lifespan of the promotion. Online runs through November 3rd -- but piece distribution stops after October 22nd, so getting that bank together is going to be the usual nightmare.

For peeled codes, I've completed the IW food set and gotten a *sigh* bloody stupid Snapfish prize code good for two, count 'em, two prints. I tried to give it away on SlickDeals. It's been hours and no one bit.

Bank: A couple of days' worth. None of my SASEs have come back, but no one at SD has said they've seen one, so I'm not going to assume I messed up McDonald's very specific rules yet.

Food: Feels like it went backwards. The promotion has made me eat at McDonald's just to burn off some of the food winners, and I can stomach a few of the breakfast sandwiches, need to seriously denude the Quarter Pounder (which had the rough consistency of week-old tar), and pray for fresh fries. The McFlurry is like shoveling (and eating) dirty snow. The yogurt? Meh. And for the smoothies, I can slowly work through a small Wild Berry and quickly give the others to someone else. Non-winner food? No comment.

I'm pushing forward, but I'm really not sure why.

As of the FedEx delivery ten minutes ago, I am now the proud owner of an autographed LeBron James jersey.

...now what?

Craig's list

sig Syren, bouncy by IceCat, bobble head by Tribephyl, and snoglobe by agman

Death first.

Because I got started early thanks to one of my locals putting out their pieces ahead of deadline, have the circle passing in their buys & finds, and sent in a few SASEs for the first time, I have been able to play ten pieces a day from the start of the contest forward. I'm also only eighty-one pieces away from being able to play at that rate all the way through the end. (Anything I might somehow get over that number would be donated to Molaholic so he can try his luck at getting bonus points for the school. It's a big number to overcome, but not an impossible one.) That would put me in the dead zone -- the time when pieces are no longer being distributed at the chain, but the online play is still going. There's theoretically less players at that time -- but most of the prizes have been won, so no real benefit generally results.

For peel-and-wins:

4 Quarter-Pounders
5 Frappe/Smoothies
4 McFlurry/Parfait
8 Breakfast Sandwich
25 Medium Fries *sigh*
2 MCR Codes (40 points each)
1 Snapfish (2 5*7" prints. If anyone wants the code, PM me.)

Online:

4 Redbox
7 MCR

And enough 0-for-10s to make me an honorary New York Yankee.

I think the corporate goal this year was to make the online portion of the game so dismal, less people than ever would want to play it. If so, mission just about accomplished. I've assembled three MCR bonus weeks with luck, careful salvaging, circle, and Hobbs. But even with 40 points per win instead of last year's 30, I don't feel I'm going to match or exceed the previous total. I do feel like I'm wasting my time, mostly after yet another 0-for-10.

And I have too many gawdsdamned Medium Fries.

They decided to change things up a bit. As probably only I bother to remember, for the last two years, MCR released a whole bunch of holiday stuff on the same day and had most of it sell out during the first few hours after launch. In the second year, they made a few items Facebook-Only for a week (although everyone eventually found the direct links) and then released them to the main catalog -- where they sold out within hours. But the key was that everything went up (and typically out) on the same day.

This year, they've been advertising Twelve Days Of Christmas: one brand, one day, repeat eleven more times. No word on how many items for each brand, what the redemption limits per item are, if any rewards will be more than 2000 points, and so on down the line. Just that they're spreading things out, possibly to make people stay up until midnight (Eastern) on multiple occasions instead of just the one. But we do now have a tentative schedule/list, which I'm posting here for the benefit of the few OTers with points to consider.

Dec. 1 - Walmart
Dec. 2 - McDonald's
Dec. 3 - Domino's
Dec. 4 - Nike
Dec. 5 - TJ Maxx
Dec. 6 - Best Buy
Dec. 7 - AMC
Dec. 8 - Home Depot
Dec. 9 - Southwest.com
Dec. 10 - Bass Pro Shop
Dec. 11 - Shutterfly
Dec. 12 - Coca Cola

So for me, the critical days will be the 1st, 4th, and 6th, with an option to spend any potential leftovers on the 8th and 12th. It all depends on what's offered and how much I can get of it. (If I can empty the account on Walmart, I will -- that's a lot of groceries on the Evil Empire's tab.) On the 11th, I can sleep in.

Typically, new Rewards go up just past midnight. No promises that such will be the case here, but it's the way to check until proven otherwise. More information as details warrant.

To me, this makes things a little worse. We don't know if redemption prices are standardized. Some items could be on sale, others might be normal cost, and a few could easily be increased prices. Do you risk points on Day #1 for double cost thinking nothing better will be along -- or wait and have nothing better ever show up, plus you lost the #1 item because you waited? Since you can't compare and contrast the whole catalog in one shot...

Nothing to do but wait.

As per a newspaper ad taken out by the Empire, it'll be a $25 gift card.

Now all we need is total inventory released, number redeemable per account, cost in points, plus a launch time, and we're all covered.

LAST EDITED ON 11-30-12 AT 06:54 PM (EST)

A few more costs and values came out as an incidental in a bonus offer mailing (which I did not receive, because MCR does not love me. It's a mutually abusive relationship). I'll edit this post for as many days as I can while/if more information emerges.

No one still has anything on redemption limits or release hours, but we're getting more about items and costs.

First major edit: MCR released the entire list to Facebook about an hour ago. And then they released the Walmart cards.

There was an explosion.

The stock they released went within minutes. And people -- myself included -- who are used to assuming the worst-case scenario is the only one for MCR -- decided there was a chance that was the entire stock. (I was figuring twenty percent.) Much yelling ensued to the point where MCR finally said that was in fact a social exclusive preview stock release, and the rest of the Day One inventory would go up at midnight tonight. That's good news and bad news -- we now know when to look, but so does everyone else. I'll be lucky to get my one and only card as the site gets slammed with traffic.

And it will be one and only -- because they released redemption limits too.

12/1: Walmart $25 gift card. 600 points. A little cheaper than expected: most people were figuring 625. Limit one per account.

12/2: McDonald's $5 Arch Card. 90 points. Just about useless if you can only get one per account. And it's a limit of one per account, so 'just about useless' it is.

12/3: Domino's $10 gift card. 180 points. Not known if it's a physical or Ecard. Limit one. So one pizza on a sale day.

12/4 Nike $25 gift card: received as a Email code, but can be traded to Nike for a physical card. 500 points. That's a normal half-price, but limiting it to a single card per account makes this into a coupon.

12/5 TJMaxx $25 gift card. 600 points. Also usable at Home Goods or Marshall's. One per account. Are you starting to sense a pattern?

12/6 Best Buy $25 gift card. 600 points. One per account turns this into another coupon.

(I suspect this was the point where most of the SlickDealers started to breathe fire.)

12/7: AMC Two Silver Experience tickets and two large sodas. 470 points. This is pretty much the same as last year. One redemption per account. Whee.

(Silvers cannot be used for a given movie until two weeks after it's released. Additional charge for 3D and Imax. No expiration date on the tickets: soda coupons run out after three months.)

12/8 Home Depot $25 gift card. 600 points. Just the one. Gosh. Golly. Gee whiz.

12/9 Southwest $50 gift card. 1200 points. One per account. I want to get away.

12/10 Bass Pro Shops $50 gift card. 1200 points. Repeat after me on the redemption limit. I have none in my area and can't use much of anything they stock. I may get one anyway out of spite.

12/11 Shutterfly $20 gift card. 200 point. Limit zero per account, at least for mine.

12/12 Coke Twelve-pack coupons. 30 points each. You can get four per account. Well, at least it wasn't one, right?

Christmas hasn't been canceled, but it's been significantly devalued.

Day One: early release of some Walmart cards. People freak after cards sell out in less than ten minutes. Some facebook members claim Coke somehow tricked them into wasting their points and demand refunds. When rest of stock goes up at midnight, site slows to sub-crawl and makes redemptions into half-hour ordeal. Additionally, the one-per-member limit only applies to the 99%, as anyone able to get one of the early release cards can get another. Some more backlash results.

Day Two: link to McDonald's card cycles browser back to the site's front page. Only certain browsers avoid this issue. Those without those browsers have to get them in a hurry: everyone else holds their nose and loads up IE.

Day Three: Domino's link does not go up on What's New page: McDonald's link remains there instead (and still can't be used). Only way to reach Domino's is through the front page's rotating banner, going off the holiday calendar.

Really looking forward to seeing how Nike goes wrong.

I have a Bass Pro Shop 5 miles from home.

All this work has to be so well worth it.

sig Syren, bouncy by IceCat, bobble head by Tribephyl, and snoglobe by agman

{Buzz Lightyear}You're mocking me, aren't you?{/Buzz Lightyear}