Contest Lifestyle!

Sometime last month, I was looking for movie showtimes on Cinema Online (which is a cool site by the way. Instead of going to either the TGV or GSC sites for movie times, here you can go to one site and access cinema info for both the big local chains). I think I wanted to watch Batman Begins, or War of the Worlds, or National Lampoon and Your Mother... the name of the movie escapes me, but whatever. I was distracted by one of those flashing contest buttons on the side.

In my opinion, I'm not a fully fledged Internet user. I just stay as non-participatory as I possibly can. Yes, I'm on Friendster and Flickr. Yes, I use ICQ, AOL InstantMessenger, Yahoo Messenger, and MSN Messenger ("though not all at the same time. That'd be a record or something" - Kenny Mayne)... but I don't BUY anything online. I don't participate in the e-commerce aspect of it all. I don't shop E-bay or Amazon. I can't become a Pro member on Flickr. The only website that I have an honest subscription to is paid by my office. So this means that everytime I see certain buzzwords on the net, like "contest" or "enjoy" or "join" or "browse" etc. I just don't. I shrug and if I can, download it illegally. Unless it is Malaysian. Always buy original Malaysian stuff. Pastikan Ori. For everyone who is going to complain, my conscience and I really couldn't care less, so don't.

Anyway, distractiing flashing contest button. What really got my attention was "Win a Digital Camera", because hey, I need a digital camera. I can use it for work. I can use it for play. I can use it for all sorts of combinations between work and play. I can buy a large memory card for it. I can buy a 12 in 1 memory card reader and plug it into my laptop that I'm going to buy and then upload it through WiFi onto my pro Flickr account, blog it all at one go, and then Photoshop the pictures and send them out all over the world. One of the pictures will get the attention of a particularly powerful friend in the creative department of an international advertising agency who is facing a mental block who will then use it in a presentation to his clients and completely win them over. The picture will then be used on billboards and t-shirts and coffee mugs and can be downloaded as a desktop wallpaper in many different sizes. Someone will make an animation based on the picture. Someone will appropriate the symbolism into graffiti.. and I will collect royalties and try to work on making one hit song which will then essentially go through the same process and I can collect even more royalties. Who needs to read "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" when you have a digital camera and a dream?

The contest was simple. So simple it was stupid. The most number of correct entries (read: text messages) would win and each entry costs RM0.50. The contest was called "Wau Word Crazy June 2005!" and let me just explain to you the basic stupidity of the questions...

First you send them your registration information in the following format:

WAU WC KOOBZ

and then they send you the question:

PE_PER

And all you have to do... seriously... is fill in the one letter blank. Now, this might be complicated to some, but I think my ego is big enough for me to say that this was damn easy. There is no way that PE_PER becomes PEMPER, PEZPER or PEBPER. PE_PER becomes PEPPER. No arguments.

So then you reply:

WAU WC PEPPER

and if you get the answer correct, they send you the following question. Something along the lines of:

CA_SICUM

CAHSICUM? CATSICUM? CABSICUM? No. CAPSICUM. Please do not argue.

So off I went. I decided I'd send in 20 entries (for a total of RM10), check my ranking (WAU WC RANK) and if I was close to winning one of the consolation prizes of 5 movie tickets, I'd be golden. The contest was ending within 24 hours and I was sure that the SMS crazy residents of Malaysia would be well ahead of me... but they weren't. For a mere 20 entries, I was ranked #24. So then I figured I'd send in another 10 entries and check my rank and it couldn't be much higher, but it was. #15. The Grand Prize of the Sony 4.1 Megapixel camera was still on the screen in front of me and taking into calculation the retail price of the camera, the cost per SMS, the number of hours left in the contest, and my steep climb up the Wau Word
Crazy rankings, I stood a good chance.

So I bloody went for it. 3 hours of rapid fire SMS later, I was ranked #3. I'd like to think it was because I was a genius, but it wasn't. I was just a hardworking idiot. I kept going though. I wanted the camera, not the 10 free movie tickets (which by now, was not free... it was merely RM10 less).

AMBUL_NCE, DO_TOR, S_RGERY, ACCIDE_T, WA_CH

1 hour later, I was #1. I didn't do anything in the office that day except stare at my phone. Just for posterity, I sent another 40 messages while I was on top so I could increase the distance between myself and the impending losers. Co-workers would ask me to do something and I would say "No, I'm busy winning a digital camera... ask me tomorrow". Answers like this don't usually go down well @ work, but sometimes you just have to be a dickhead about things. I didn't even know what camera it was. All I knew was that it was a Sony 4.1 Megapixel Digital Camera... and that it was MINE.

I stopped messaging and just hung back for a while. Hogs was my advisor and biggest cheerleader. He gave me advice on how to just chill and let the competition come to me and then take them on, rather than me exerting too much energy taking the game to them. Like a boxer. Hogs used to be a boxer. Not like a guy who works at docks or at TV factories, but more like Mike Tyson. Except that if Hogs is Mike Tyson, I am Mel Gibson as Christ.

A few hours later. 2200hrs. 2 hours to the deadline. I went for a meeting and to the gym, comfortable with the thought that as I headed in to my 3 hour contest blackout, I was still in the lead. As El Stormo Guapo cruised over the Penchala Link, I sighed with content and reached for my big handphone. Expertly I sent in the rank request with my left hand and steered the Maroon Monster with my right. Sayang was waiting for me @ her place. My abs were burning. Life was good, but I WAS SECOND! I dropped the phone and turned off the air-conditioner as I proverbially stepped on the gas (turning off the AC gives you better mileage, especially when you are speeding).

As Sayang opened the door for me, I calmly announced that I couldn't have much conversation or good hang out time with her until midnight as I had some digital camera winning to do. Her family were laughing at me (but I think that is normal, so ok) but I didn't mind. Sayang was laughing at me. If the people at work could've seen me, they would have been laughing me. I didn't let me family know at all because they would have laughed at me first and then berated me for wasting so much money... but all that would have been moot if I didn't start moving faster. 30 minutes to the deadline and I was still second. The thought of winning a DVD player crossed my mind and I shrugged and slowly began to ferment my sour grapes. I mean, a
DVD player is cool too... you can... play DVDs on them... but I don't want a DVD player. I wanted a digital camera. I wanted to be irritating and see every one of my pictures right after I had taken them. Realising my clunky, color screen very gadgetarial handphone was actually slowing me down, I switched sim cards with Sayang for her more older generation Nokia with more stream-lined software that was more efficient at, go figure, communicating.

Actually can someone from Nokia answer me that? Why is it harder and more cumbersome and SLOWER to send SMS, type in your keypad, or even connect calls with the new generation of hardcore phones? Bloody shits.

With Sayang's phone, I was able to send up to 4 messages per minute and I got on my speedy, kinda expensive horse and for the next 15 minutes, just went absolutely Maxis Speedmaster on the contest's ass. I don't remember much about that night apart from staring down at the phone in my lap. Sayang was watching some show and I was grunting answers to her questions and small talk. She took the hint after awhile and left me alone.

2345hrs! I checked my rank and JASON LO AND BEHOLD I WAS BACK AT NUMBER ONE but damnit, I knew that if I didn't keep on going for the next 15 minutes that there was some cobra hiding in cellular space waiting to steal my digital camera from me. Before I could even follow through on my no retreat, no surrender, no mercy because you will get none yourself plans, it was 2355hrs and the contest just stopped.... Huh. Just like that. Based on 10 minutes ago, I was number one, but that was 10 minutes ago and many millions of things have happened in much less time (hmm... at this point I was going to list out a large number of disasters, tragedies, and other things of utmost and severe important to the human race but I've decided to leave it out and just mention the concept instead. I think it would be really rude to compare
my quest for a digital camera to those events in such detail. Speaking in general is fine, just don't think of anything really evil and bad. Think about something happier). I wasn't really sure what the hell happened but I thought I had won. Sayang gave me a kiss on the cheek and I relaxed into her couch. I think we were watching CSI. I was watching nothing.

One week later, I went by Cinema Online's contest winner's page and found this:

Wau Word Crazy
June 2005

1st Prize = Sony 4.1 MP Digital Camera
Kubhaer Thakurdas Jethwani

2nd Prize = XV-N312S DVD Video Player
6012XXX9203

3rd = 10 Movie Passes
Foong Pui Fan

4th = 6 Movie Passes
Damayanti a/p Ramachenderan

5th = 4 Movie Passes
6012XXX8689

Special Prize (7,14,21,28,35) = 2 Movie passes
Gerald Lian
Yap Chui Lay
Mohd. Radhee Ramdhan b Yusoff
Pua Ying Li
6012XXX6899

and as it turns out, I had won this: