I bought Take 5 magazine and the That's Life! Puzzler on the Go mini-book to relax this long weekend with some puzzle perfection...
Between them, these magazines offer over $120,000 in cash and prizes for the discerning competition connoisseur. Apart from the pleasantly large prize pool, I was impressed with the quality of the prizes themselves. Take 5 is offering: a Toyota Yaris car, four cooking sets, nine DVD packs, three irons, ten spice racks, two Nintendo Wii gaming packs, two video cameras, three board game sets, seven toy packs, 38 family bowling passes, $5,000, 28 alarm clocks, 150 cookbook sets, ten cutlery sets, two mantle clocks, 295 scarf and beanie sets, various cash prizes of $50-$1,000 and a partridge in a pear tree. Okay, I might be lying about that last one! There are other prizes on offer too, including a Vanuatu family holiday, which are not on the coupon and you need to ring in to win. Although spanning the spectrum from ho-hum to holy cow, overall I'm sure you'll agree this is an impressive bounty indeed.
I was dazzled by the prizes, but I was also delighted at how enjoyable the puzzles were, just for their own sake. You may know I'm a Scrabble junkie and nine-letter-word puzzle fan. I'm not much for crosswords and sudoku, however, and I'd feared they'd be wall-to-wall in these books. I was rapt then to discover the games range from the classic crossword to battleships, logic puzzles, anagrams, crack the code and trivia. What they lacked in difficulty, they made up for with variety and freedom from frustration. Great for the tedious train/bus ride to work, doctor's surgery waiting room or lazy afternoon in the backyard hammock.
So how do you actually win? Puzzles are listed on one big entry coupon next to corresponding prizes. For each puzzle, solve it to reveal a mystery word, which you write on the coupon. Ideally, you write the answer to every prize puzzle before posting away your entry, but you can enter as many or as few contests as you like. I'm entering every single one and posting my coupons off today. Keep your fingers crossed for me! I will definitely be partaking in these again, probably with Puzzler on the Go. Being purely puzzles, you are able to select from such a lovely buffet of brainteasers.
So now, it's your turn. If you're not eager to try this type of competition, I am truly puzzled!
I bought That's Life for the first 3 1/2 - 4 years of my heavy comping...haven't won one thing from them. Not even a minor prize. Have won a couple of small things from Take 5, mostly poor quality. Don't buy them regularly anymore, maybe just now and then. Have however won a toaster and kettle; electric blanket and book and DVD from Woman's Day Superpuzzler. I think I read once that Take 5 and That's Life get about 85,000 entries a week! could be wrong, but that's a lot of people to be up against.
ReplyDeleteWhoa, that is a huge amount of entries!
ReplyDeleteI am surprised there are that many considering there is some skill involved -- people must love their puzzles.
I'll switch to the Woman's Day version next time. Thanks for the tip, Jodi_C. : )