Just wondering if anyone on the board ever won anything cool in a contest, lottery, drawing, armed robbery, etc ? The only thing I ever won was $30 off a Coke bottle. Odds were 1 in 100,000, so I felt pretty special.
That’s pretty mundane, though. Anybody got anything better ?
In the manned space program’s early days, NASA spent $1 million
to develop a pen that wrote upside down. The Russians used a pencil.
Remember when the movie “Dick Tracey” came out ? (Warren Beatty, Madonna) Well McDonalds had a contest where you got a game piece with a meal. You had to open the little thing and match the “mugshot” to their “wanted” board to see if you won anything. My friend got a free BigMac. I opened mine and it matched the guy next to “$1000”. I figured it was just like one piece of many or something . . . nope, it was legit. I instantly won a grand. The workers got all excited, needless to say my friend was pretty pissed. (Hehheh.) I bought him another BigMac. My parents let me blow $200 on cds and the rest went to pay for my first semester at college (after Unca Sam took his share OF COURSE).
“A single lifetime, even though entirely devoted to the sky, would not be enough for the investigation of so vast a subject.” - Seneca
At a sports bar in Columbus, Ohio, about 1 1/2 years ago, I won a Schwinn Frontier 21-speed mountain bike.
…a pair of tickets to see the Golden Palominos. Probably having a hard time filling up the club.
John Rush: How’s that Frontier holding up?
I just gave my wife one for Christmas.
I won a trip to anywhere in the eastern US. It was a travel company that our company used to book flights and travel plans. The irony of it was that my name was only in the drawing one time…and it was a trip I booked for my boss for Disney World…it wasn’t even company related. It was four days and three nights with $300 for spending money for two people. I took a girlfriend and we had a blast.
“Do or do not, there is no try” - Yoda
Senior Intern to
El Presidente
Self-Righteous Clique *
I used it quite a bit in Columbus. The rear tire went flat, and the front brakes got out of alignment. The bike shop took care of both problems, plus added a kickstand, for about $10. They said it should be taken in about once per year for a “tune-up”. How do you tune up a bicycle?
I haven’t used it that much since moving back here. The tires still need to be aired up frequently.
The only thing I don’t like about it is that the handlebars are too low. Maybe I just miss the butterfly handlebars of my youth.
Otherwise, it’s a nice bike. And the price can’t be beat.
I won a cake once when I was in elementary school.
Last year, when I was doing research for Blockbuster’s website, I entered a contest at a record company’s site. Later, I got a package from them. Turns out I’d won a CD and a t-shirt from their Red, White, and Blue series. The CD was great, but the t-shirt wouldn’t have fit a five-year-old kid.
I think I’ve used up my random luck for the rest of my life.
I was elected “Miss Big Broadcast” two years in a row.
Yes, folks, I won a Radio Beauty Contest! I always knew I had the looks to make it in radio . . .
I once won a Major Award! It was marked fra-gee-lee.
I noticed once that a flight attendant had changed earrings (American Airlines)to a Christmas themed earring. I won a nice bottle of wine.
Enright3
I won a '94 convertible Mustang from Coke and the local radio station in the summer of '94.
Of course, when I tried to get financial aid for the '96 school year, it looked like I made $27,000 for that year. So the car had to go, that I could better myself with education.
Right.
We interrupt this thread to increase
dramatic tension.
Thanks, JohnRush.
I don’t know if this qualifies, but here goes:
On the way back East from Colorado Springs, at Christmastime '98, Delta asked for volunteers to take a later flight as that plane was overbooked. Da wife & I ponied up and got a pair of RT tickets, $20. in meal vouchers and a FC upgrade on a flight 3 hours later.
Waiting at that gate, Delta again was oversold and called for volunteers. We looked at each other, said “What the hell!” and got another pair of RT tickets, $60. in meal vouchers and an overnight stay in a riverfront hotel near Cincinatti. We went to this fabulous restored brewery nearby (Well, I thought it was anyway!).
Cut to the cool part. Those RT tickets were valid for the continental US, Caribbean and Canada. Looking at a map, we tried to pick two destinations as far apart as made sense. So, to where did we fly free? St. John, US Virgin Islands and Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
Pretty cool, huh?
You can easily judge the character of others by how they treat those who can do nothing for them or to them. – Malcolm Forbes
[list][li]Free memberships to health clubs.[/li][li]Free weekends at timeshares[/li][li]Two years in a row, I won door prizes at my sister’s high school talent show. I was 9 or 10, and I had been chewing on the ticket (don’t know why). Both times. The MC was not pleased handling my winning ticket. :)[/li]
Oh, the prizes were a pair of cheap yellow sunglasses and a selection of posters from a local record store. Their choice of posters. Three of the 4 were: a long forest scene, a French racecar in a Gran Prix, and a lifesized poster of Bobby Sherman.
Wrong thinking is punished, right thinking is just as swiftly rewarded. You’ll find it an effective combination.
I won my computer system in a chinese auction in November of 1995. Great system (at least for back then) - Pentium-90, 16 MB Ram, 1GB Hard Drive, color inkject printer, 28.8bps modem, CD-ROM Drive and Soundblaster.
It came at an amazing time as well. I had previously had a second job that kept me out until 10:30 PM. I sort of let it slip away from me because the late nights were really annoying my wife. But around that time, I was getting more and more annoyed with the lack of access to a decent computer. We were probably on the verge of springing for the money or me trying to get that job back. And suddenly, I won!
I know that some of you guys laugh off “Divine Providence” stories as coincidence, but as a religious believer, I certainly felt it was G-d telling me that I did the right thing to give up the old job.
Chaim Mattis Keller
ckeller@kozmo.com
“Sherlock Holmes once said that once you have eliminated the
impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be
the answer. I, however, do not like to eliminate the impossible.
The impossible often has a kind of integrity to it that the merely improbable lacks.”
– Douglas Adams’s Dirk Gently, Holistic Detective
At a sports bar in Columbus, Ohio (funny how these tend to start out like that), I won a game of NTN trivia, and got 2 tickets to see Ani DiFranco. I’ve also won tickets to see Aerosmith. Would have gone backstage, but the radio promotions guy was late, so they gave me tickets to another concert to make up for it.
Coolest thing I won, though, was $500 in a scavenger hunt back in December. Great timing, too, because due to our long Christmas break, I went without working for 3 weeks, which normally would have really bankrupted me. As is, I was flat broke, but without that $500 I would have been sunk.
Several years ago, I hit on a slot machine for 5,000 quarters ($1,250).
Went back to the same casino the following weekend and hit on a dollar slot machine for $1,199. (And overall, I’m probably * still * in the hole at the casino. Think about ** that **.)
Last year I won a first place award from the Michigan Press Association for the best human interest feature in the state for small daily newspapers.
Looks good on a resume.
“You should tell the truth, expose the lies and live in the moment.” - Bill Hicks
I’ve won several prizes. The first was a color TV during college. An appliance store in town had remodeled, and was having a drawing. I’d noticed people putting in multiple entries, so I did too. About 600 over a week or so. Not like I was going to study anyway. Surprise! I won. Also did the same thing with a bank drawing. Put in about 2,000 in a statewide contest, got some large teddy bears.
Had lots of luck at malls - shoes, jacket, minor league baseball tickets, perm for my wife, circus tickets, concert tickets, etc. Just enter everything you come across, and you’ll eventually win something.
My late father-in-law was the luckiest though. His daughter’s (my wife’s) senior class had a raffle for two $100 prizes to raise money for their senior trip. The one who sold the most tickets got to go on the trip free. Her dad sold lots to the folks at his work, so she got the free trip. At the drawing at a basketball game, a little kid reached in the barrel and pulled out one of his tickets. He’d only bought $5 worth. The kid reached in for the second prize, and came out with another of his tickets! So he wound up with a free trip for his daughter, plus $200!
$2,250 from one day’s blackjack playing.
At the time, my modus operandi was to take $250 to the tables with me. And whatever I walked away with was fine; if I lost it all I stopped. Undoutedbly I lost more than I won (else why would the casinos stay in business?) but I love playing, and so far as I’m concerned it’s entertainment, with the added advantage that sometimes I get paid.
So one Saturday, I sit down at The Sands in Atlantic City… and had an amazing run of luck. By the time my buddies were ready to break for dinner, I was up to $775. I asked the dealer to color me up (gambling lingo meaning I wanted to trade in all my low-value chips for a few higher value ones, so I wouldn’t have to carry a huge stack around). She did. I started to walk away… and I looked at what I had in my hands… a $500 chip, two $100 chips, and three $25. I thought, “You know… here’s the $250 I came with… here’s a $25 profit… and here is an extra $500. Found money. Windfall… I have always wanted to do this…”
And without any more thought, I put the $500 chip on the table.
I got a blackjack.
The rest of the day went eqaully well… even after buying dinner for my friends, and making a few ill-advised craps wagers, I walked out with $2,500 in my pocket.
i once guessed the number of M&M’s in a jar!
yay! 823 M&M’s just for me…hee hee hee
and last week i got three $25 gift certificates at blockbuster video
My kids went thru 75 dollars in about four seconds flat! last time i saw anything like that was when i saw a shark feeding frenzy on the discovery channel
I’m pink therefore I’m Spam
Won a whole bunch of money and a color TV in a superbowl pool a couple of years ago…back in the days when O’Dells was still open…sigh
I won a Leatherman Wave tool (kind of a really fancy swiss army knife) a T-shirt, hat and some other baubles in a little write incontest. http://www.leatherman.com/default_frame.html
And I also won a transistor radio in a cub scout raffle that immiedatly caught fire (almost posted that one in the “Almost burned my house down thread”).