Good morning, everyone. This has been a rather interesting week to say the least, but instead of talking about the tragedy of Anne Heche, or Salman Rushdie getting attacked in New York, or cartel violence in Mexico, or a rather big thing that happened at Mar-a-Lago, I thought I would give my thoughts on something some of you may have experienced on your mobile devices; these gaming apps where you can supposedly win cash.
As someone whose main source of income is now SSDI at the age of 48, I feel the need to make a side hustle, not to make ends meet, but to give myself a little extra spending money for...reasons. Anyway, I found one app so far that actually does pay, it's called "Just Play," and I've been able to make a little coin from the app. All you do is download and play certain games, complete a certain goal of said game, and you can win some money; in most cases something to the tune of $1 or $2. Talk about striking it rich. It adds up after a while, and over the course of a month, I'd say I've earned about $20, which is barely enough to buy a bottle of my favorite liquor (which I'm not supposed to have anymore). Thank you, diabetes.
That isn't the crux of what I want to talk about though. What I was wanting to talk about was the stupid, over-the-top commercials that exist for other games/gaming apps that are in existence as well. Some of these games are pulling out celebrities from the past to promote their app, like Solitaire Harvest is doing with Jane Seymour. Others are using celebrities to promote apps like similar to the one I use to try to earn a couple of extra bucks (I even saw Lindsay Lohan on one such ad 😍). But there are other ads for other apps that is so obvious that they're fake, there are certain red flags to look for when seeing these ads.
The first such red flag is the commercials with less than D-list actors/actresses. They usually have a conversation with someone (usually themselves in different clothing), talking about how they don't have to worry about paying one particular bill or gas money since playing a certain game. Then some gullible schmo (*cough* me *cough*) downloads said app to see if it's really legit or just a bunch of hot air. Well, the app starts off well, until you realize you have an unrealistic threshold to cash out in, and in order to possibly reach said threshold, you have to play for hours upon hours on end and watch numerous amounts of the same ads I'[m writing about currently.
One such example is "Word Cash," which is a word search where you're supposed to find words either up, down, forwards, or backwards. After the first couple of levels, you're thinking to yourself, "gee, I'll cash out at $150 in NO time. Except you don't. The rewards keep getting smaller and smaller the further along you go. The best way to describe it is, say you're playing football and you have a goal to go situation. You need ten yards to reach the goal line, but in this instance, you have unlimited downs. The first snap, you gain five yards, then half that on the next snap, then half that...and so on. Sooner or later, you find yourself on the brink of insanity because the goal line is so close, yet you're now moving in micrometers instead of yards.
The picture below is a screenshot I took last night of said app and how much I need to "cash out." As you can see, I'm a mere $3.19 away (which is now $2 as of this morning), and that's after two and a half days of game play (not nonstop mind you). As you can see, so tantalizingly close:
Here's the thing though, if I DO reach the goal, I'll probably get some lame excuse as to why I can't cash out, such as "due to the COVID-19 pandemic, allow six to ten business days to get your order processed." Really? I can cash out with my current gaming app almost instantly and you're giving me this bullshit? FOH, youbunnywrote (trust me, it's a Russian cuss word).
Another red flag commercial that I've seen from these gaming apps are I have to be careful how I say it, because it MAY come off as racist. They're the ads that obviously was created from the country of origin of said app (usually China or Taiwan). They promise that you can win major moolah by playing said game...but you don't. Sounds like a blatant act of deception is I ever seen one. Oh, and the part that says "you have to make sure you download the app from this advertisment." Huh? You mean if I type in the name of the game in the app store it might not be the "right one?" Good grief!!
This however may be my favorite one. It's a commercial for an app called Lucktastic, which is a scratch of game where you probably won't, but possibly may win some cash prizes. A couple of years back, they showed an ad where a family was brought on some stage where it was announced to them that they won a grand prize of like $100,000. The family reacted by collapsing in sync with each other, falling to the floor. Here's the kicker, the man leading the family was blind. What. The. Hell?
So, you mean to tell me that a visually impaired man won a grand prize on an app THAT YOU HAVE TO SEE WHAT YOU'RE DOING to scratch off the potential winning ticket. Something just isn't adding up. Kinda like the 2016 Presidential Election, or the year I'm having this year, but that's a whole other story.
There's another set of ads too that I've been seeing too much of playing these gaming apps; these ads for those magical weight loss gummies. I've seen these ads for a while now, and I already don't believe they work because that suspected quack Dr. Oz is seen promoting the product. Not only that, but the "experts" that claim that these gummies actually work are the frigging panelists from the TV show "Shark Tank." Like Mark Cuban and Barbara Corcoran are now gastrointestinal experts and not money people. Reminds me of a similar ad campaign some two decades ago involving what is now iHeart Radio. Most if not all of their stations did heavy promotion on this product called "Body Solutions" which was supposed to act in the same way that these so-called gummies do. Take one pill a day and the fat magically disappears. Well, if memory serves me correct, NBC News did an expose on this product, and it really wasn't all it was cracked up to be. Within a week, some big wig at Clear Channel (as it was then called) made a prerecorded voice over disputing NBC's claims, but the advertisements suddenly disappeared. Seems like someone was caught on their BS.
Anyway, those are some of the red flags/misadventures I personally have seen from these gaming apps. In reality, the BEST way to earn money, in the words of Britney Spears, is too work, bitch.
Some Odds And Ends...
I know I said earlier I wasn't going to talk about Anne Heche, but the following raises my suspicion. Yesterday was the first time I saw the video of Heche attempting to crawl from the gurney she was transported on after her accident, my question is:
do we have an actual conspiracy?
Saw the Bucs game last night, and save for three, maybe four plays, Kyle Trask looked pretty solid laast night. The game winning field goal attempt gave me flashbacks to Roberto Aguyao though.
Speaking of the Bucs game, there were two commercials for Ron DeSatan DeSantis that looked cringeworthy at best. There were also two commercials for Charlie Crist, but no ads for the other Democratic nominee Nikki Fried (unless they aired one while I was in the bathroom or grabbing a Pepsi Zero Sugar. My disdain for DeSantis is why one of the better friends I had ghosted me altogether. Oh well, her loss.
Speaking of friends, I had to block one on Facebook last week because she happened to drink the Fox News Kool-Aid. However, I did UNblock a couple of other people yesterday. Let's just say that to the two I unblocked (who I won't name), let's just say I'm letting bygones be bygones, and it's now water under the bridge. Does that mean I suddenly like the two? Probably not, at least for the time being. But the opportunity is there to bury whatever hatchets there may be, and that's all I have to say about that.
Well, that's my spiel for this weekend. I hope to be back sometime later in the week if I feel mentally good enough to get on the keyborad. And as always you can find me at the following sites:
Twitter: bonyscribe
Instagram: bonyscribe
Snapchat: bonyscribe
TikTok: bonyscribe1
Until next time, have an excellent Sunday.
UPDATE: to hell with letting bygones be bygones...🤬
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