Freebies and free stuff

Ok, I’ve got bad news and then crazy awesome news.

The bad news is that I’m not going to be giving away all $400 in prizes over the next few days. Wait, put down the rotten vegetables!

The crazy awesome news is that I’m going to instead be giving away even more in prizes over the next few weeks! I was contacted by a few amazing companies last night that wanted to help sponsor some prizes, so I’m going to be stretching things out in terms of making the contests open to a lot of people. I’ll be holding a contest per week from now until at least March! Throw in the March Madness Contest and it’s hard for me to even fathom how much I’m going to be giving away over the next few weeks!

Of course, I said I’d give away something today and darn if I don’t keep my word! So for today, all you have to do is make a post on your blog about HIF while linking back to us with the anchor text “freebies” and then leave a comment here with a link to your post. Just write something cool about HIF and make sure you include the proper link back. Here’s an quick example:

Hey, It’s Free! is one of the leading sites on the internet for freebies. They filter out all the spammy freebie offers and the guy who runs it, Goob, is pretty legendary to boot! He’s even giving away a $50 giftcard to Walmart this week! So check out HIF and start getting some freebies in your mail!

Or something similar. See how the word “freebies” is linking back to HIF? That’s known as anchor text in nerdy, Internet lingo. You learn something new every day!

It doesn’t matter if your blog is on your own site, Blogger, Myspace, or wherever else you may write on the net. Just make sure you write a little something about HIF and link back to us with the anchor text “freebies.” If you don’t have a blog, then don’t fret! Posting this on a message board you frequent counts as well, as is any other place you can think of. Be creative and chances are I’ll accept your submission. Make sure you don’t forget to leave a comment here with a link to where you made the post so that I can verify it. Then, at the end of the week I’ll pick a winner!

As for what some of the future contests will be, well I will say that one of the upcoming ones rhymes with “scavenger hunt.” Wait a minute, I think I did that wrong… Oh well, if you’re not already a member of the forums, you might want to join up!

The next few weeks are going to be freaking awesome, if I do say so myself!

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EDIT: Goob’s Guide To Gambling – for those of you who are having trouble understanding the “spread” concept. Don’t worry, you’re not alone!

So far we’ve had 20 people sign up for the NFL Pickems Contest and 11 people sign up for the College Pickems Contest. There’s still plenty of time to sign up and be competitive in both contest, even if you miss this weekend’s games! So go sign up now!

Here’s a link to the NFL Pickems join page, our Group ID (63704), and our password (freebies).

Here’s a link to the College Pickems, our Group ID (31153), and our password (freebies).

I’ve got good news, awesome news, and crazy awesome news.

For starters, the winner for the free $25 gift certificate has been selected. Hey, I’m a man of my word, I’m just not too punctual. Anyway, Random.org gave me comment #12, which was Bellesouth. So congrats to her and thanks again to everybody who chimed in with a thought or suggestion as well as Free Samples Direct for sponsoring this giveaway!

Next, I don’t like to brag, but I’m immensely thrilled to announce that HIF has been accepted into 9rules, a highly respected directory of cool and awesome sites. This won’t change anything here on the site, but I wanted to thank all of the loyal Hiffers who constantly read HIF, interact with me on the forums, and take the time to e-mail me with their (both good and bad!) opinions. HIF wouldn’t be what it is without y’all.

And finally, it’s time for not just one contest, but two! I mentioned back during the March Madness Contest that I’d like to do something similar for football and then promptly forgot all about that until today. Opps No worries though, as I’ve set up two leagues (one for NFL and one for NCAA) and we’re ready to go!

We’re holding the contests on Yahoo again, so if you don’t already have a free Yahoo account, you can get one here. After signing in, go to both pages and join our groups on the right side of the page!

Here’s a link to the NFL Pickems join page, our Group ID (63704), and our password (freebies).

Here’s a link to the College Pickems, our Group ID (31153), and our password (freebies).

And for the record, even if you’re reading this a few days or even a week later, you can still join and have a chance at winning! For more info, click below or go here on the forums.

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If you participated or are interested in the results of the May 2008 contest, please click the “more” link below and read all about it. Thanks to everybody who participated and I hope everybody had fun!

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Apparently I’m not finished learning my lessons in regards to contests, as all my planning, tests, and retests were thrown out of the window tonight. I’ve been alerted to the fact that Wordpress is randomly eating some people’s submissions, something I never encountered in any of my tests and for reasons far beyond my limited knowledge of computers.

So screw this, forget registering and messing with Wordpress. I’m sorry for ever making people do that in the first place.

I’ve uploaded a text document with all the items on it that you can download by right clicking and hitting “save as.” Then copy all the links you find into that text file and send it to me as an attachment by June 3rd. My e-mail is heyitsfree(AT)gmail(DOT)com without the parenthesis.

Remember, even if you don’t find everything, you can still win a cash prize, so submit whatever links you DO find!

Also, if you already saved some links into wordpress, you can either copy them over into the text document or not. I’ll check and make sure all your links are counted as an “I’m sorry for not knowing how to properly operate a halfway decent contest.”

In the future, I’m not going to bother with registrations and complex plugins and websites. From now on, it’s the path of least resistance and most basic.

Also, 100 trillion thanks go out to PB and Froggie on the forums for helping me discover and troubleshoot the problem. You girls rock.

The May 2008 Contest is now officially open with 50 items to find. If you still want to play, no worries! Just download the list of items you need to find and have at it. Be sure to save all the links you find to that document before e-mailing it back to me as an attachment.

The deadline for submissions is June 3rd!

I’ve been asked a few times what happens if somebody sends in their list and a few items are wrong. If the link is broken, I’ll give you a chance or two to re-find the item. But if you link to something that clearly isn’t correct, you can’t resubmit that link!

A few of the items are vague (ie, “Something you’d like as a freebie” or “the biggest house” etc.) and that’s intentional. It lets people get a little creative. There are also a few randomly hard items, which again is intentional. If anybody can find everything, more power to ya! Remember, we’re using Google Maps. Simply go there, click the “street view” button, and start hunting for the items. Still having trouble? Maybe this photo will help.

Oh yeah, the prizes!

1st place – $50
2nd place – $25
Random winner – $25

The winners will be determined as follows: The two people who find the most items will get first and second. If only two people find every item, then whoever completed the hunt first will win first. If three or more people find every item, we’ll have a short “playoff” style hunt that I’ll explain later on.

And finally, there’s one hunt item that’s secretly marked as the “random winner” item. Everybody who finds it will be entered into a drawing for the random winner prize.

So good hunting, folks, and have fun! At the least, come over to the forums and chat with us about the hunt

So now that Kansas pulled off an awesome victory last night, it’s time to take a look at the standing and see who won the HIF March Contest. I’m happy to say that with a score of 145, the winner is…

CoffinDweller!

Congrats to the sweller of coffins and thanks to everybody out there who participated. I’ll be doing this every March, so if you didn’t get in on the action this time around be sure to next year!

EDIT 4: The first games have started, so entry to the contest is now closed. Good luck, everybody!

EDIT 3: I’ve removed the password requirement and added help info in the comments for anybody who might need it in signing up.

EDIT 2: In order to join the group, you need to have a free Yahoo account. Signing up for one is as easy as signing up for a freebie, just put a bunch of random info in. I picked Yahoo over ESPN, Facebook, etc. because it’s really user friendly, especially to people who don’t know anything about college basketball!

EDIT: It’s 3:00 and only three people have signed up? Man, somebody has some good odds to win the cash prize

It’s been a while since we’ve had contest here at HIF and the one I’m currently working on won’t be ready for a week or two at the least. But I really want to have one now (I sound like a whiny kid, haha), so I thought why not have a March Madness contest?! I’ve created a group on Yahoo that any Hiffer can join and the winner will get $25! It’s not a lot of money, but I promise you your odds of winning are great since none of us know what the heck we’re doing when it comes to correctly picking college basketball games

Entry is obviously free and if you’ve never followed the NCAA tournament before, this could be your perfect excuse to watch and follow along this year! If you’re interested, click the link below and use the password to join the group, then just click the teams until you’ve filed out your whole bracket, and you’re all set!

Group: http://tournament.fantasysports.yahoo.com/t1/group/157337/

As far as scoring, it’s super easy. You get points for making correct picks, incorrect picks don’t penalize you, and the person with the most points at end wins.

First Round 1 point
Second Round 2 points
Third Round 4 points
Fourth Round 8 points
Semis 16 points
Championship 32 points

Don’t be shy, people! Join our group, have a little fun with fellow Hiffers who have no idea what they’re doing, and follow along in the conversation over on the forums! You have until around noon tomorrow to sign up and play.

I just realized that I never posted the answer to the September Contest for those of you who participated early on but then got stuck as the scavenger hunt got harder. If you’re interested in finding out who won and what the answers are, click the link below. Otherwise, nothing to see here, folks

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Just a reminder folks, the HIF September Contest ends tonight at 11:59 EST. So if you haven’t finished it already, or haven’t even started, what are you waiting for? There are cash prizes waiting to be won, people!

The September Contest is now ready to go!

Be sure to read the rules/tips I posted in the Stage 1 section. And remember, you need at least 5 posts on the forums in order to get into the contest. But making 5 posts on the forums is easy and fun, so what are you waiting for?!

Good luck everybody!

Hey everybody, I hope y’all are in the mood for another contest, because tomorrow morning at 10AM EST, I’ll be opening up a section on the forums called the September Contest! This one is going to be another scavenger hunt, since that went over well last time. Plus I’m horrible at thinking of different types of contests, so every future one I hold has the chance to be yet another scavenger hunt

But how about the prizes? Well, I’ve decided to go with a grand prize, a second place prize, and then an at large third place prize. The first person to complete the quest and post in the victory lounge will win a $30 gift certificate to any on-line store or Paypal money, whichever they prefer. PLUS, they will win the $10 Amazon gift card I recently won from Blingo! All in all, a $40 prize value! (I sound like an infomercial.)

But wait! If you call within the next 10 minutes, you’ll get…oh. Sorry. Um, the second person to make it into the lounge will win a $15 GC/Paypal prize. And to make things interesting and give everybody a reason to keep playing, I’ll award the third prize randomly to anybody else who manages to complete the contest before the deadline. The third place prize will also be a $15 GC/PayPal option.

One small rule change from the previous contests to this one. All I ask is that you make at least 5 posts on the forums before you participate. If you’ve already signed up for a free account and made at least 5 posts, then you’ve already qualified. But in order to get into the contest area, you’ll have to have five measly posts. So go ahead and register now for free! It’s takes just seconds to make a post and then you’ll be all set for the contest tomorrow morning! Oh, and just in case you’re reading this after the contest has started, you can register at any time, make your five posts, and then participate. The only cutoff date is when the contest actually ends.

And speaking of that, I’ve decided this contest will end at 11:59PM on October 4th, so you’ll have 10 days to participate and compete! The previous two contests ran a little long, so I want this one to be short and sweet.

Good luck everybody!

And that’s it! We’ve finished the March Contest and the results are now in:

• First: Pru with 48 points
• Second: Adam with 56 points
• Third: Jenny131 with 66 points

Congratulations to the three winners and thanks to everybody for playing and participating! We had a ton of new people sign up and start playing in the forums over the past month, so I hope many of you stick around and continue to hang out with us there. I’d also like to thank Jenny131 for overtaking and pushing me into 4th place…I didn’t want to have to go through all the scores and see if it would have made a difference if I deleted myself from the contest and now I don’t have to!

To all the winners, hit me up on the forums and let me know what kind of gift certificate you want (Amazon, Paypal money, etc.) And to everybody else, please read the post below and help me come up with some ideas for contests!

You’ve got just under 22 hours left to get in on the March Contest! It ends “tonight” at the stroke of midnight, so be sure to check out the current scores and see where you stand!

With regard to the April Contest, I think it’s official. After a grand total of two contests, I’m out of ideas. I was going to do another scavenger hunt this month, but I ran into complications early on (WHAT A F*&#KING SURPRISE!!) and thus I’ve shelved the idea until May. So with that, I come to you for help. Who has some good ideas for a contest?! I mean, even if we don’t do one in April, then the Scavenger Hunt II in May, what will we do in June? July? I really want to keep doing these, but I need some inspiration!

It’s now April 1, but don’t let that fool (haha, get it? I’m so clever…) you into thinking the March Contest is over! Since I didn’t get things started until mid-March, I’m going to leave the March Contest open until April 14th. That means you still have two weeks left to play and try to get into the top 3 slots!

Also, the April Contest will launch sometime this week. No more of me waiting until the middle of the month to start a contest