Day 15: You Spin Me Right Round Baby Right Round

I WON $55.50 TODAY!

$50 Gift card MyWeather.com for a second place win in their photo contest

$5.50 from WorldWinner.com for Wheel of Fortune game play

2011 Total Winnings so far:  $1,680.50

After a final marathon campaign of getting votes for my entry "Jazzhands the Snowman"in the MyWeather.com winter photo contest (thank you to all who voted, especially those from Mrs. Archie’s kindergarten class that I reached out to after 26 years on Facebook), I placed second behind Jessica Ice-Bergmann Lettuce’s: Michigan IceSkapades photo.  It was a tight race all day, but some how La Lettuce harvested an additional 50 votes right at the end.  Final score  Jazzhands:274  IceSkapades: 316. We both get $50 gift cards, but La Lettuce gets the green and the glurry. 

Today’s 2 contests:

World Winner.com “Wheel of Fortune”

American Express' Season of Surprises Sweepstakes (I like saying that phrase with a lot of swishy syllabant s’s)

Prizes: 

Wheel of Fortune: $631.80 jackpot

Am Ex:  $100,000

Rules:  Both involved entering standard personal info and then getting the chance to play an interactive game.  I reeeeally got into this. 

Wheel of Fotune had me spin a virtual wheel for $$$.   And the Am Ex game had me pull a slot machine lever for a chance at an instant win (which I instantly lost) but also included me in the running for a $100,000 prize.

Winnings:  On the Wheel of Fortune game I got to spin 3 times for free.  I actually won $5.50, though I am a little suspish if I’ll ever see it.

WorldWinner.com hosts Wheel of Fortune and a number of other online Game Show contests.  They getcha hooked on one for free the first time and then they make you pay for the rest….like someone who deals coke…blow, snow, yay-yo, Bolivian marching powder, the white horse, Aunt Nora (whuuut?) Stardust, CC (my playmaaate come out and play with meeee, climb up my apple treeeee, la la la la LA lahhhhh)....

 Playing the games online was super fun and super satisfying.  It made the contests interactive and worthwhile.  I love a good game/gameshow/board game.  I got hooked when I was a kid. Between $25,000 Pyramid, Press Your Luck, and Let’s Make a Deal, I would fake strep throat all the time in order to stay home to watch.

We also played a lot of games as a family.  I became a master at Boggle when I was little, by playing with a mother who crushed us by finding words like roe and tern.  She didn’t let her children win just so they could feel good about themselves. She was a competitive former English Major and didn’t care that you were just 11.   “You didn’t get “ire”?...Really?  Oh, ok…well that’s a point for me.”

A typical game looked like this:

Hmmmm.....

If you waaaaaant, we could actually do a kinda online contest and play a round of Bogs right now.  You game?  You can use this uber-dramatically underscored 3 minute Weakest Link timer:

I’m really actually going to play.  If you want to get a pen & paper totally do it, I’ll put my words at the bottom, and we can compare. And trust and believe that my mom will too and she'll post her words, cuz she reads this blog, and she is armed with pen and paper as. we. speak. You can check back against mine and hers (she'll beat us both…belieeeeeve…).  The words have to be at least 3 letters.

(my words will be below under the totally random orange square)

Ready?  Set ? Bogs!

My words:

Tar Tart Nab Slab

Slate Stare Dare

Date Rate Tab

Band Glare Slant Tan

Bats Tale Rant Gland

Bar Brat List  

Set Dart Rad Tad  

Dab Silt  List Shear Set Sister 

“Oh mom, you didn’t get sister?  Really?  Hmmmm…well I guess that’s a point for me.”