I don't want to become an immoral parasite. I already vote Democrat. It would be redundant.

It has been proposed that they're after the -- Twihards? Fangnatics? What do you call one of those? (Better yet, why do I care?) But the pegasister/brony connection just seemed more postworthy at the time. And still does.

Investigations into Beta are proceeding. Twitter users report that if you want to get the tier point for the link, you are essentially granting Coke permission to tweet through your account whenever they like. I don't even want to think about what this means for Facebook and Instagram.

And if you want to see some truly wretched lure attempts, have a peek at MCR's not-quite-full attempt to explain all this.

http://www.mycokerewards.com/beta/how-it-works

"We made Twilight the best because it's the most magical sounding. Also Twilight is shinier than gold and we know you like shiny things. You're loving this so far, right?"

What age group is this directed towards?

MCR requires account holders to be at least thirteen. Therefore, my best guess would normally be that this was written by a fourth-grader -- except that a lot of Coke's non-legal text comes out this way.

The ponies have no minimum or maximum age limit, but I did see one fan note that nearly everyone at a convention seemed to be late teens and early twenties.

Have you seen the Kellogg's Family Rewards website?

http://tinyurl.com/morepointsstuff

Before you go browsing their Rewards catalog, keep one thing in mind: the average points value of a KFR code is probably around 80 or so, which would represent a normal box of cereal.

Now look at that catalog and start calculating everything there in terms of not just Actual Retail Value, but Bowls I Must Personally Consume.

...right. Colon Blow, Part II.

And one extra joke: a few of the items -- the Snapfish pieces, mostly -- are things MCR has given away just for entering, say, five cap codes in the same month...

For the record: I started pulling these out of my cardboard recycling hutch just because -- they were there. If I didn't take them, they would go to total waste. So now they're in an account. And as a result, they're going -- to total waste. This particular program is supposed to shut down on New Year's Eve. My current plan is to put in the very stupid sixteen-digit codes once a week and hope the digital downloads don't go away.

If they do, salt shakers.

http://www.grantland.com/blog/hollywood-prospectus/post/_/id/92320/the-internet-is-magic-exploring-the-wonderful-world-of-my-little-pony-fandom-in-bronies

On the one hand, I was honestly expecting this article to tear the entire fandom apart.

On the other, dedicating a micro-fraction of it to 'and incidentally, adult female fans also exist'...

*mutter*

Women and children like MLPFIM?

Freaks

(I'll probably start a new separate pony thread when S4 premieres.)

We just got the dates and brand list, with the latter almost a repeat of last year: only one store switched. However, what we didn't get was point costs and card values. And that may not show up for a while. Given the kind of year it's been, I'm half-expecting $5.00 across the board. Or possibly combined. At 1500 points per redemption.

It's probably safe to assume one card per account, though. Again.

Coke is claiming you need to put in a code each day in order to access the reward -- probably just a cap will do -- but they claimed that last year and it never worked out that way.

There was one major change. This year, each card is being released at noon. Last year, it was midnight -- inconvenient for most, but if you stayed awake, you'd get the card. Noon means that much more traffic as three, four, twenty times the people log in and try to get the reward of the midday. I'm expecting dialup load times on 4G connections, site crashes from user overload, and no one getting much of anything. Which was no doubt The Master Plan all along.

...anyway, here's the schedule and list. I'll update this if I get point costs and values.

12/1 Target (Not on list last year: was previously $25 Walmart for 600 points)
12/2 McDonalds (2012: $5.00, about 150 points)
12/3 Nike (2012: $25.00, 600 points)
12/4 TJ Maxx/Home Goods (2012: $25.00, 600 points)
12/5 Best Buy (2012: $25.00, 600 points)
12/6 Dominos (2012: $10.00, about 270 points)
12/7 AMC (2012: two Silver Experience tickets and two large drinks, 470 points)
12/8 Home Depot (2012: $25.00, 600 points)
12/9 Bass Pro Shops (2012: $50.00, 1200 points)
12/10 Southwest (2012: $50.00, 1200 points)
12/11 Shutterfly (2012: $20.00. Don't remember the cost -- didn't redeem for it.)
12/12 Coke (2012: four 12-pack coupons at 30 points each.)

I had incredibly vague hopes for Amazon given that we've had a pair of MP3 reward codes this year, but no such luck. The surprise is that none of this year's fresh Ecards (Gap, Petco, Barnes & Noble, Gamestop) made the list.