And the winner is...

We would like to thank all of you who have participated in the Toast to the Red Carpet – LIVE, presented by I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter! giveaway. It's our first time hosting a giveaway and we are really psyched about it! We wrote out all the names on pieces of paper, placed them all in a hat and Kevin randomly picked out one. The winner of the Toast to the Red Carpet – LIVE, presented by I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter! giveaway is...

Jessica T!!!

Congratulations Jessica!! Please email us your mailing address so that we can send you your prize! To the rest of the participants, I'm sorry that you didn't win this time around but stay tuned for more giveaways that will be coming to this blog soon!

More gifts from Marlboro!!!

I must say that Marlboro is simply the best when it comes to giving out awesome prizes for their contest/sweeps. Over the years, we have won countless stuff from Marlboro - from small things like keychains, cookbooks, t shirts to bigger stuff like a HD video cam as well as invites to various event. I guess the biggest prize so far was the fully paid 4 days 3 nights trip for 2 to the Marlboro Ranch in Montana! A few months ago, Marlboro ran their Outwit The West contest over a period of 10 weeks. This would be the third Outwit The West contest organized by Marlboro but the first time ever to be fully online (the previous two was solely via snail mail). How it worked was that Marlboro would release 5 questions regarding the West each week and there would be 10 sets of questions in total. After each week, we would get points for each correct answer. Mind you, the questions were not simple questions whereby you could just google the answers. They were rather tricky and came in various forms, ie: poems, videos, pictures, sound clips. After the end of 10 weeks, we could exchange the points that we collected for various gifts.
The 'biggest' prize that we could win was a Samsung Netbook but unfortunately, both Kevin and I fell short by a few points :( Oh well, the prizes that we got ain't shabby either. A few weeks after the contest ended, we found this two really nice ashtrays in the mail. That's the bonus gift that we got, for some of the leftover points from the game. They were kinda small but really nice and heavy. We have won many ashtrays over the years from Marlboro but I think that this is one of the nicer ones. We actually have a whole bunch of Marlboro ashtrays, kept in mint condition. From what I hear, Marlboro memorabilia is rather hot and those ashtrays might be worth quite a lot one day (since each design is only produced in limited quantities).
This is the main prize that I won. Isn't it sweet? A Canon PowerShot SX130 IS digital camera! I believe the estimated retail price of this camera is around $230. Not too bad at all. 12.1MP, 12x wide angle optical zoom, image stabilizer as well as some new scene modes like Miniature Effect for movies and Fisheye Effect. From reviews that I read, it's one of the best cameras in it's class. I have yet to really play around with it but I believe that it's a fun second camera to have. Nice!
Kevin chose a Fuji Nevada 4.0 Mountain Bike (estimate retail value $430) as his main prize. From the reviews that we read online, it's supposed to be a pretty decent bike. I guess many people like this bike as well, cos up til now, we still haven't gotten it yet. Marlboro was really apologetic about it though. They said that they didn't expect that many people to choose this bike and now, the orders are backlogged til June. They promised that they will get it to him by June, at the latest. We are not really bothered about it though, cos he is not really planning to go out cycling in the snow anyways :P So, June is fine. I guess Marlboro must have felt really bad for not sending out the bikes earlier, cos Kevin received this Leatherman MICRA Multi Tool (estimated retail prize - $30) in the mail with a letter saying that they are sorry about this in the mail not too long ago. Wow, Marlboro is really tops when it comes to customer service!
As soon as one contest is over, Marlboro started another a month later. This time, it's the Marlboro Snus Challenge. This is way way wayyyyy easier then Outwit The West. It goes on for a period of 6 weeks and they give out different prizes each week. We are now into "Week 4" and the prize this week is a $100 gift card. Both Kevin and I won the "Week 1" prize, which are a pair of premium earbuds from Sentry. Maybe we might win more prizes from this contest, who knows :P Oh, I nearly forgot. We were playing the "Rope Slinger" game on the Marlboro website and we made it all the way to the final level. For 'mastering' the game, Marlboro will be sending us a black cowboy bandanna and a western belt buckle! This is just crazy, one gift after another. Feels like Marlboro is just giving away gifts like its your birthday, everyday! Thanks to all the smokers out there, Kevin and I can now strut around in our new bandannas and matching his and hers belt buckle! LOL! :P

Our Free Steaks from Marlboro are here!!

Remember me blogging about receiving two Omaha Steaks gift certificates from Marlboro last week? Yeah, both Kevin and I chose the steaks as our Level 3 reward from the "Marlboro Country Rewards" contest/giveaway. Anyways, we received our gift certificates in the mail last week and we ordered our steaks online. Omaha Steaks sent us an email yesterday telling us that they have shipped our steaks and that we should expect it to arrive today. True enough, our friendly UPS guy brought two huge coolers to our door early this evening! Woohoo! Our steaks are here! :D

I love the Omaha Steaks cooler. They always do such a great job in keeping the steaks frozen. We would also reuse the cooler whenever we go on picnics and stuff, they are just great. Check out the shipping label. "Prepare to smile...". Oh, don't you worry. Just thinking about those yummy steaks kept me smiling all day! :P
Here's what it looks like inside the cooler. A whole big slab of dry ice at the bottom and a big box of steaks on top of it. They also included a very nice cookbook filled with various recipes. All the steaks were nice and frozen when it got here. I guess the dry ice really works wonders. We had a whole lot of fun playing with the dry ice later in the evening. Made our own volcanoes and stuff. Yes yes, I know. Two 30 something year olds playing with dry ice...how juvenile. Don't judge us, I bet you would do it too if you had two big slabs of dry ice, just sitting around. LOL! :P
Mmmm mmmm mmmmmm, check out the yummy steaks. There are six boneless strips in each box. Just look at the marbling. It looks so so so good. Each steak is approx 10 oz and about 1" thick. Boy, I can't wait to grill em up! The retail price for each box is $163.99!
Ahhhh 12 pieces of yummy steaks, all lined up in a row. Just looking at them makes my mouth water. I can't believe we now have like over $300 worth of steaks, just sitting in our freezer. Looks like we will be having uber delicious steak dinners for the coming weeks (maybe months) ahead. Thanks Marlboro for the steaks, we love them!!!

Free Steaks from Marlboro!

I have always been amazed at all the awesome gifts/prizes that Marlboro gives out for their contest and sweepstakes. If you are a regular here, you would have noticed that we have won quite a lot of stuff from Marlboro. Stuff ranging from sunglasses, a HD camcorder to a 4 days 3 nights all expense paid thip to the Marlboro Ranch in Montana. This summer, Marlboro has been running their "Marlboro Country Rewards" giveaway since July. What makes this giveaway/contest different from the rest is....everybody is a winner! Everybody wins something at the end of the day.
We received this two envelopes in the mail yesterday. Woohoo! Our gifts are finally here! Wait, hang on. You must be wondering, what do you mean by 'everybody is a winner'?. Well, here's how the giveaway works. This giveaway started in July. Everyday, Marlboro will feature a new destination (interesting places located all over America) on their website. All we need to do is log on and read about it. Then, we can collect three 'chips' by performing various stuff like rating the write up or viewing the pictures. There are three levels you can unlock, depending on the amount of chips you collected at the end of the contest period. We managed to collect enough chips to unlock the highest level, so YAY!
Wanna see what's inside the envelopes? Another envelope! LOL! Well, another envelope and a card thanking us for participating in this summer's giveaway. There are actually quite a number of prizes to choose from. The level 1 prizes are small prizes, stuff like personalized key tags or luggage tags, ashtrays, coffee and mug combos....things like that. The level 2 prizes get a little better. Among some of the nicer prizes are personalized Zippo lighters, engraved flask, a very nice looking poker set and even a harmonica! Now, we qualified for the level 3 prizes. We had six prizes to choose from. A Duluth utility pack, Lucchese cowboy boots, Weber grill, Sheplers Authentic Steer Horns, a RCA mini camcorder or Omaha Steaks gift certs. We have already gotten cowboy boots and a HD camcorder (way better than the one here) from Marlboro, so that's out. We do no need another bag or grill, so that's out too. Kevin really wanted the steer horns initially but decided against it in the end. Like seriously, what are you going to do with steer horns? Hang it in front of your Honda Civic and drive around town? :P Anyways, we both ended up getting the steaks!
Here it is! We received two gifts certificates from Omaha Steaks. Each certificate is worth 163.99 and is for 6 pieces of 10 oz Boneless Strips. There are four ways to redeem the steaks. We could either fill in our particulars and mail back the certificate to Omaha Steaks, fax in the certificate, call their 1-800 number to place our order or just redeem it online. Of course we just redeemed it online. Simple and hassle free.
Here's how it works. We just need to log into the dedicated URL that leads us directly to the offer page. Then, we just need to key in our gift certificate number and fill up our particulars. After we did that and hit "submit", an email was sent to our mailbox, saying that our steaks are on the way! Wooohoo! We should be getting our steaks by Tuesday, latest. Boy, I can't wait for our 12 pieces of yummy and juicy Omaha Steaks to arrive. Thanks Marlboro for yet another awesome gift!!!

Woohoo! It's raining gifts!

Boy, what a great week it has been. We've been getting all kinds of stuff being sent to us. From small tubs of yogurt (part of a taste test for a survey I am participating in) to an early birthday present! The UPS guy has been delivering stuff to my door almost everyday, if this continues, I bet we will be best friends! :P

Remember me blogging about winning some cool gifts from Marlboro? Well, Kevin's headphones came the other day. Check it out. It's Sony's MDR-NC40 Lightweight Noise Cancelling Headphones. They are pretty cool actually. It even comes with a travelling case and an adapter jack to use in the plane. Really lightweight too...not too bad at all. Hmmm, wonder when my gift will be arriving.

A couple of days after that, the UPS guy brought this to my door! Yay! Looks like my gift from Marlboro is here at last.

A Samsung HMX-U10 Compact Full HD Camcorder! It's even in my favorite color, red! Well, what am I thinking, of course it's gonna be in red. It's from Marlboro...most of the stuff that I get from Marlboro is in red. I haven't really had a chance to read through the manual to see what all it can do but I'm pretty sure we'll be using it lots in the near future. Maybe we'll pretend that we work for the Travel Channel or Food Network and make our own documentaries!

Out of all the stuff that we received this past week, this is by far the best! I have been using the same computer monitor since I first came to America a little over eight years ago. It has moved with me from my dorm room in IUP to my off campus apartments in Indiana, PA. It was then in storage for a bit in Kevin's parents house in Pittsburgh while we were in Malaysia. From there, it has travelled with us all the way to NJ. So yeah, I have been using it for quite a while now. Anyways, it started to get all grainy and dark not too long ago and I needed a new monitor pretty bad. Look what the UPS guy brought me a few days ago!

My parents got me a new LCD monitor as an early birthday present!! Woohooo! I used to think that my eyes were failing me whenever I used the computer for too long. Now I know that it's not my eyes that's giving me problems but it's just that my old monitor suxs big time. It feels so good to have a brand new monitor that's bright with a crisp and clear display. Thanks mom and dad for the birthday present. I love it lots! :D

Look what we won!

Man, you have to admit it. Marlboro has some of the best contests around! They run all kinds of sweepstakes all year around, always with totally awesome prizes. As many of you know, I won an awesome pair of sunglasses (worth over $100) early last year. Then came the big win! A fully paid 4 days 3 nights trip for two to the Marlboro Ranch. When they say fully paid, they mean fully paid. Everything was included, the airfare, accommodation, free food, free booze...I even got a check for $1,250! After we got back, Kevin was invited to their NYC Roadhouse Nights @ SoHo party where we enjoyed a steady flow of free food, drinks and music all night long. In between then and now, we won a few 'small' prizes in the various contest/sweeps by Marlboro. Among the prizes were ashtrays, wall mounted bottle openers, a money clip, wallet size bottle openers, zippo lighters, playing cards and some coffee beans.

The latest ongoing contest by Marlboro is the Flavor Break Sweeps. It started sometime mid March and it will go on til the end of this week. It's really simple actually. All we need to do is enter our emails daily at the Marlboro website. At the end of every week, there will be a drawing for various prizes. Week 1 was for a Viper Dartboard (worth $129), Week 2 was for a Weber Smokey Joe Grill (worth $39.70), Week 3 was for a Sony Noise Cancelling Headphone (worth $99.99), Week 4's prize was a Viper Pool Cue (worth $139.99) and Week 5 was for a Samsung HD Camcorder (worth $179).

A couple of weeks ago, Kevin received an email from Marlboro saying "You've Won A Sony® Lightweight Noise Cancelling Headphones‏"! Woohoo! How exciting. Looks like he was one of the Week 3 winners. We have never owned 100 bucks headphones before, so that will be pretty cool. From the reviews that we read online, those are a pretty decent pair of headphones :D

Think that is cool? Well, check this out! I woke up this morning only to find an email from Marlboro. Guess what it said? You've Won A Samsung® U10 Full HD Camcorder!! Wow! How awesome is that?? Out of all the prizes, this is what I wanted the most. We have been looking at HD Camcorders for quite a while now but we cannot justify spending money on one, so we just let the idea slip. Yay! Looks like we will be getting one for free now! The grand prize for this sweeps is a trip to Vegas for 4 people. The drawing ends this weekend. Let's keep our fingers crossed, who knows...maybe we might win that too..lol! :P

We Got Our Ranch Dates!

I found out a while ago that you can track packages coming out from D.L Blair (the company handling all the logistics for the Marlboro Ranch) on the FedEx website. I was on the site yesterday and I saw a package in transit to Newark. From what I know, I am the only person in Newark going to the Ranch this summer. I wasn't really expecting anything from them, since I only sent back my paperwork for the background check two weeks ago. They said that it will take at least 4 - 6 weeks before we know anything. I called D.L. Blair early this morning to check if there are any updates about my background check and if they have the dates for my trip yet. The lady said it will take another 2-4 weeks since I only submitted my documents 2 weeks ago. So I guess that package isn't for me then. I somehow had a feeling that it was for me though, but I left it at that. True enough, this is what I found outside my door later that day.

A door tag from FedEx saying that they tried to deliver the package but I wasn't in!! I knew it! I knew there was a package/envelope coming from D.L Blair coming for me. I wonder why the lady said otherwise? Why didn't I hear the delivery guy? Well, there is something wrong with my doorbell (it rings too soft) and I have to make an effort to watch out for the delivery guy whenever I am expecting something. That's why I called D.L Blair..if I knew that I was expecting something, I would have kept watch and waited for the guy. Anyways, we had to go to the maximum security prison FedEx facility in Elizabeth to pick it up. It wasn't so bad today, maybe cause we arrived early, before the crowd.

Here is the letter that D.L. Blair sent me. It basically said that we passed all the background checks and we are officially going to the Ranch! We will be leaving on the 19th of August and returning on the 22nd. It also says in the letter that we will be receiving our activity sign up sheet on sometime around July 16th. This is when we get to pick which activities we would be interested in joining at the Ranch. Our plane tickets, check for $1,250.00, luggage, luggage tags and ranch caps would arrive sometime around August 10th. Woohoo!! I'm so excited. I can't wait to go to Montana! :D

* Click here to be directed back to the Crazy Mountain Ranch Homepage. You can check out other ranch related posts as well as look at photos from the ranch during our Summer 2009 trip!

Invite to the Marlboro Ranch in Montana!

Remember my post about our FedEx experience yesterday? Well, this is what's inside the large envelope!

We actually received an email from the Guest Relations people from Marlboro about one and a half weeks ago saying that I won a trip for two to the Marlboro Ranch in Montana this summer! I was supposed to call them back to book my space for the trip. Marlboro randomly picks winners from sweepstakes that they run through out the year, selecting 50 winners (each winner is allowed to bring a guest) for a 4 days 3 nights fully paid adventure of a lifetime. This includes return air tickets, accommodation at the Ranch, food and drinks, a check for $1,250 and a host of other freebies (I saw online from people who went for the trip last year that they got free travelling luggage, cowboy hats, jackets, watches, digital cameras...a whole lot of stuff). Boy! we are so excited. Anyway, after calling them back, they said that they will send us a pack containing our pre trip documents and that we should complete the paperwork and send it back to them within 7 days.

In the Pre-Trip Documents pack that we received yesterday, there was a cover note congratulating us and telling us about the activities available at the ranch. Looks like we would have an opportunity to take part in activities such as horseback riding, zip lining, fly fishing, mountain biking, off roading, hiking, hay rides, hot stone massages, cattle drives, clay shooting, ranch back country tours and a whole lot more. They even have day trips to Yellowstone National Park if we choose to go! Night activities includes bonfires, live entertainment, karaoke and lots of line and square dancing! Wow! Looks like it's a cowboy style Club Med :P How cool is that?

Before the fun begins, there are tons of paperwork to go through. We read carefully through everything to make sure that there is no catch. Looks like everything is under control. We are supposed to complete the paperwork, send it back to them and they will run a background check on us. I guess they have to run background checks to make sure that we are not stuck in the middle of the mountains with some wanted murderer! Once they are done with the background checks, they will send us our trip dates and travel arrangements.

Inside the pack also contained two envelopes, one for me (the invitee) and another for Kevin (the guest). We needed to complete this whole bunch of forms, stuff like the publicity release forms, release and waiver of liability forms, medical release and information forms, photocopies of our drivers license/state id and a whole other lot. We also had to bring the affidavit of eligibility/prize acceptance form as well as the motor vehicle record authorization form to the public notary to get it notarized. Phewww, so many forms!

We managed to get them all done early this morning and here are the two envelopes ready for mailing!

Marlboro also enclosed a pre-paid, pre-addressed FedEx airbill and envelope for us in the pack. All we needed to do was put everything back into the envelope, complete the airbill, seal and call FedEx for pick up. I called around 9:30am in the morning and the FedEx guy showed up at around 3pm to collect the envelope. Not too bad, everything was completed and done in less than 24 hours. In fact, the last time I tracked the envelope online, it was already in transit and will be delivered before 3pm tomorrow! Well, I guess now I'll just have to sit back and wait for them to send us our travel dates and travel arrangements. Ohhhh, this is so exciting, I can't wait!

* Click here to be directed back to the Crazy Mountain Ranch Homepage. You can check out other ranch related posts as well as look at photos from the ranch during our Summer 2009 trip!

Look what we won!

I have been meaning to blog about this a while back but just never got around to it. I found this on my front door about a month ago. I was like "ohhhh...a package! wonder who it's from?". I wasn't expecting anything in the mail, so it was pretty exciting :P

I ripped open the package to find this and a small card from Marlboro saying thanks for joining their sweepstakes and this is a gift for me! Marlboro?? Why should Marlboro suddenly send me a gift? Then I remembered, Kevin and I signed up for this Marlboro sweepstakes (just in case you are wondering, both Kevin and I don't smoke. It was a no purchase necessary sweepstakes) a while back, hoping to win a vacation at their ranch in Montana. I totally forgot about it.

I guess I didn't win the grand prize but got this consolation prize instead. What's in the box anyway? Well, it's a pair of sunglasses from Arnette. Okay, I'll have to admit. I really didn't know at that time that Arnette was a pretty cool brand, especially for younger surfer guys. I am more of the "aunty big sunglasses' type of person..so yeah :P I went to google the seriel number of the sunglasses and found out that it was the new Arnette Rage XL sunglasses. It came with a hard zipper case, lens cloth, soft fabric drawstring bag and two Arnette decals. The retail price for this is $109.95! Wow! Looks like they are pretty good sunglasses!

Since it's a guys model (well, actually I do not know if it's for guys or unisex but it looks like sunglasses for guys), I gave it to Kevin :P Looks like somebody is gonna look all cool and Mr Surfboarderish this summer..hahaha! Anyway, that was a pleasant suprise and even though I didn't win the grand prize, the thought of actually wining something is cool enough, be it sunglasses or anything else. Thank you Marlboro!!