For awhile, I ran contests among the readership, with various little “games” to play.
For the first contest, the competition was to convince a panel of esteemed judges why the entrant should win. The judges were unanimous on the first winner: Tim of Arlington, TX, who wrote as his reason why he should be the winner of Contest #1:
Sitting with my dying mother, I kept sane by reading TRUE. The folks at the hospital wondered why there was loud laughter coming from the room with a dying patient. Each time a nurse came in, I read her a story. They kept coming back, so mother was VERY well taken care of. But I need another book! Dad is dying… and my brother… and my sister….
Tim’s a sick pup — I like that in a guy. He won an autographed True book.
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Yet contests were discontinued — on the advice of legal counsel (sigh). It seems every state in the U.S. has different laws on “contests and games” and it would be nearly impo$$ible to comply with them all, even for a fun little game like this. So no more contests.
I certainly understand the need to protect people against contest scammers, but the reality is that it costs huge money to do a legitimate and legal nationwide (let alone worldwide) contest — which I suppose means the only ones doing contests are huge corporations …and scammers.
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Ain’t it sad? I had a great laugh about the winner of the contest, but then the LAW stepped in. Sounds like the IRS clamping down on kids’ lemonade stands which, you know, have been contributing to the billions of tax dollars lost in the massive Underground Economy. Or spending millions to investigate & correcting the runaway problem of single moms struggling as waitresses in greasy spoon diners, raking in millions of dollars in unreported tips.
And, let’s not forget BMG’s big lawsuit against Campfire Girls for singing songs around the campfire without first obtaining written permission from the copyright holders.
Hell, we’re impotent against the raging crime waves so we’ll stomp on some idiot under Strict Interpretation so it looks like we’re actually competent and doing something. Gee, I wonder why people have so little respect for Authority….