MyVegas - Real Rewards - Really Worth It

Facebook games are notorious time wasters. I'm sure everybody reading this (which may be all of 2 people) has 20+ games that they are hiding on Facebook because they are tired of the spam and don't want to be bothered by it. I just checked and I have 74 hidden games. Of course this is because every single one of these games do nothing really for us other than help us waste time with the off-chance of them being a bit of fun. But there is also the chance that they could become too addictive and you not only lose time, but maybe you even lose money because you end up buying into it for some reason. In the end there are no tangible returns.

MyVegas seems to be the exception to this rule. I didn't really believe it when I first heard about it, but you really do get real life returns for it that are quite nice.

My girlfriend and I started playing the game back in late October 2012. It started out a bit slow as the game was pretty new, but it's surprisingly become easier and easier to get real prizes. Since we began playing we're already seen Cirque du Soleil: Zarkana at the Aria and Cirque du Soleil: O at the Bellagio. We currently have tickets to go see The Beatles: Love tonight and we just got tickets for Cirque du Soleil: KA for some other time in the future to our liking. After all of that, we still have plenty of Loyalty Points (I'll get to that in a minute) to purchase at least 2 more shows of that value or quite a few more of lesser value.

So, it's free. They must give us the leftovers that nobody wants. Nope, they don't give you the "cheap" seats. In fact, you aren't allowed to get the "cheap" seats, even if you want them. For all of the shows through MyVegas, you're told up front that you only get the Premium seats. So for these 4 shows that we'll be seeing, had we paid full price, we would be out close to $1500.00. Not including the tacked on fees that they have which are also waived for us.

How does it work?

I'll be honest, the game starts out pretty slow.  You don't have many chips to play with and you don't have that many ways to get them.  You start out with a few thousand chips.  The only thing these chips are used for are for playing the slot machine games within MyVegas.  But you need to play the games in order to get more experience and more loyalty points.  I'll explain more about these two items shortly.

The simple version is that you use what chips you have to play the slot machines.  In return you will get more experience and loyalty points for each spin.  Once you run out of chips you are unable to play any longer until you get more chips.

Finished Las Vegas Strip

So how do you get more chips?  Back to the Monte Carlo.  As I said before, at first you will only have one casino.  But with this one casino that you have built you are able to get more chips (or maybe loyalty points) every 2 hours.  It's not exactly ideal to have to check every 2 hours to get these chips and eventually you really won't care about it too much.  To make it more worth while you need to build more casinos.  In order to do so, you need to play the slots.  While playing the slots, one of the pictures that you can roll is the letter "V".  You collect these to build parts of the casinos until you've finished all of the parts and finally create another casino.  Each casino you create tends to give a bit more chips and every few jump the time up by 2 hours for refreshing when you can get more chips from them.  The first few are every 2 hours, then the next few are every 3, then the next 2 or 3 are every 6 hours and then the final one is every 8 hours.  The amount you get from them is somewhat random, but the Monte Carlo gives you about 100-300 normally while the MGM Grand gives 2000-5000 normally.

Great spin with great bonuses.

One of the other ways to get more chips is the daily spin.  Every day (actually about every 22 hours) you are able to do your daily spin that can give you a certain amount of chips.  Then whatever you spin is multiplied by a few different factors to increase the amount you can receive.  First you get a bonus for consecutive days you've done your spin.  Keep it up and you'll get a bonus 300%.  You also get a bonus for how many friends you have playing the game.  And then you also get a bonus % every spin just for liking the MyVegas page.

There are a few other ways to get more chips.  The more friends you have playing the game, the more you can give to them and they can give back in return.  Only once daily per friend, but it adds up.  MyVegas also posts about once a day in your feed some free chips.  Anywhere from 500 to 2000 at a time.  This is another reason to like the MyVegas page.  You can also get more chips in emails from MyVegas and also being signed up for MLife.  MLife is the card you get for all of the MGM owned casinos.  Which are all of the casinos involved with MyVegas.

Experience and Loyalty Points

Experience is something used is many many video games to show some type of progression in the game.  That's basically what it is for MyVegas too.  You gain experience every single time you bet.  You bet 60 chips, you get 60 experience.  If you bet 30,000 chips, you receive 30,000 experience.  And you definitely want experience.  Well, you want levels.  But you need more experience for each level.  Levels will open up more games for you.  This is nice so you don't get bored playing the same game forever.  Levels will allow you to build the other casinos.  Each casino has a certain level requirement to start building them.  Every level you get gives you bonus chips and bonus loyalty points.  The higher levels give even more of each of these.  I'm currently - and have been for a while now - getting 1000 loyalty points for every single level.

But in the end, what you are really working towards are Loyalty Points.  Loyalty Points (LP) are what you use to purchase the real world goods.  At first it might sound like a lot of work to get the amount of LP you need to get the item(s) you want.  To keep things simple I'm going to base this on if your spins are roughly 1000-1500 chips each.  That tends to be the nominal amount to spin any way.  But when spinning that amount, just about every 4 spins you get an additional 10 LP.  Doesn't sound like much, but when you add in all of the other ways that you can get LP, it builds up quickly.

I've already stated a few ways to get LP, but just to be thorough I will once again say what they all are.

1 - Just keep spinning.  Spinning will constantly add small amounts of LP to your total.
2 - Gain levels.  At first it's not much, but eventually every level gives you an additional 1000 LP.
3 - Check your hotels.  All hotels have a chance of receiving chips or LP each time.
4 - Share with friends.  Friends playing the game can share small amounts of chips and LP once daily.

Rewards

This is probably just easier if I show you some samples by way of screenshots.

So that should give you a good idea of what types of rewards are available and how much they cost.  There are obviously a lot more than what is just shown here, but you'll have to start playing the game if you want to see what they all are.  Not to mention that they are constantly adding (sometimes subtracting) rewards to the list.

Again, it may sound like quite a bit of work, but it really doesn't take too much time.  And if you are already playing games on Facebook, why not play one that has actual rewards that are free?

Review: The Maze Runner

The Maze Runner by James Dashner

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



The story, itself, I really liked, but James Dashner seemed to really pander to the lowest common denominator at times, which is supposedly about 12 years old. Things that were supposedly a mystery to the characters throughout the entire story were completely obvious within seconds of reading whatever it was and before even realizing it was supposed to be some big mystery. This is, to me, a very small gripe and wasn't really all too important to the entire story. There were a few other gripes along these lines that although they did detract from the story, it was still a great book to read. I would have definitely given it a 5 star rating if it wasn't for these small issues.

I look forward to reading the next story in the series (The Scorch Trials). Hopefully it doesn't die off like so many other series do after the first book.



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Review: Next

Next by Michael Crichton

My rating: 2 of 5 stars



Crichton is always amazing at his research. And all of the information that was given about genes, DNA, etc. in this book continues his quality of research. The problem with this book is that I basically felt that I was reading only his research and it lacked a real cohesive story. To say it wasn't interesting would be false and for that reason I didn't give it one star. But something that is interesting doesn't necessarily make a good story. This definitely isn't the case with Next.



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Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

It's weird to think that it took me this long to read the story that was the inspiration to one of my favorite movies of all time. And one thing that I love about it is that it's just that, the inspiration. The two stories are completely different and yet the same. Both seem to take place in a very similar world with subtle changes. The book has quite a bit more inner conflict and quite a few more future techs that you never hear about in the movie. Also, there is a much much larger emphasis placed on the tragic loss of most all animals that thrived once before on our planet and helps me understand why the story is named so completely different than the movie. It may not sound as cool as "Blade Runner" does, but it's a catchy title in how odd and original it is.

What's so great about this book, along with the movie, is that while they are so similar and different at the same time, it's their similarities that make you love the stories and it's the differences that allow you to have a completely different and great experience. Neither story tells you what is going to happen in the other before you read or see it.

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Book Review? Why Not?

Treasure Of Khan by Clive Cussler
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I figured it was time to try reading a Clive Cussler novel. I knew the character of Dirk Pitt from watching the movie version of Sahara with Matthew Mcconaughey. Not the best movie, but a good enjoyable no brainer type movie. I wish I could say the same about this book.

I found myself skipping large parts of paragraphs because it was just too much pointless information that wasn't needed. Too much explaining about the surroundings for most every scene. Maybe this is what Cussler fans have come to enjoy, but it's not for me.

The other thing that just totally got to me was the amount of pure coincidence through this book. Dirk and his companion Al Giordino miraculously just happen to come across all of these random findings. They aren't looking for them, but of course, it turns out to be exactly what they needed to find in order to progress the story. And to make it worse, Dirk's children, who have absolutely no knowledge as to what Dirk is up to, just happen to come across a wreck off the coast of the big island of Hawaii that directly relates to the same things that Dirk and Giordino are investigating in Mongolia. Five and a half thousand miles away, no knowledge of what the other is doing and they both happen to accidentally investigate the same mystery at the same time. And there are quite a few other coincidences that happen throughout the book that just take away from the believability of the story.

All of the negativity aside, the main reason I still give it 2 stars is that I enjoyed the history behind it all. Cussler, if anything, does a great job at researching and thus teaching the reader what he has found out. I learned more about the times of Genghis and Kublai Khan by reading this book than what I was ever taught in school. And it was all interesting.

I doubt I'll be reading anymore Cussler after this one. If I do, it will be a long time until I even think of trying out any of his other works.

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Temporarily Free iPhone and iPad Apps

You own an iPhone or an iPad or even an iPod Touch.  Which means you paid a lot of money already for one or both of these devices.  Then there is a good chance you paid even more money for an accessory or 12 to go with your new device.  So now it's time to get some cool and fun apps to play with.  But for some reason, even though you've already spent hundreds and hundreds of dollars on your new idevice, spending an additional 99 cents or even $1.99 just seems completely unreasonable.

From time to time some of these companies that create some of these amazing (or at least time wasting) apps decide they want to give out their app for free to get more people using it and then use that as advertising.  This usually is only available for the weekend or sometimes only for a few hours.

What I will try to do is post here from now one whenever I hear about any of these new offers.  Below are the ones that I know of that are currently available for the weekend.  I'm not entirely sure when the deals end, so make sure and grab them as soon as you can.  You don't even need to install them on your phone or iPad now.  But by getting it now while it's free, it will always be free for download to you on the account you make the "purchase" on.

Slam Dunk King - Are you a good enough baller to become the Slam Dunk King?! Show your skills with trick dunks and smooth moves, harness unique mascot powerups, earn those coins and improve your rank! Master and chain together over a dozen tricks to prove you are the best and become the King.

Reflekt - The new addictive puzzle game that will keep you playing for hours.

Curvebot Evolved - A unique 3D cutting game inspired by Qix but so *SO* much more....

Dragon's Rage - Dragons Rage is an addictive medieval action-arcade game with simple controls, attractive graphics and intense game play. You’re the angry dragon and you must fight to defend yourself against a swarm of enemies coming at you from all sides! Defeat your enemies with a roaring wall of fire, pick up bonus items & weapons along the way and maximize your score as you tear through this fun action-arcade game!

Super Dynamite Fishing - Action-packed fishing fun with explosive bait!

EnsenaSoft actually has their entire collection of games up for free for the entire weekend.  Here are some of the highlights (imo).

Ultimate Hangman - Ultimate Hangman is a must have hangman game with 4 awesome themes (Doodle Hangman, Chillin' Chalk, Christmas Snowman and Flower Power), 11 great songs and 73 word categories including 7 random modes.

Mahjong Deluxe - Mahjong Deluxe is a solitaire game based on the classic Chinese game where you are challenged to eliminate all the tiles from the board. It includes 12 lovely backgrounds and 84 different puzzle layouts along with relaxing background music. Relax and enjoy this beautiful game today!

Smooth Solitaire - If you like Solitaire then this is the game for you! Both Klondike 1 and Klondike 3 are included and you can move by tap and drag, tap and then tap or double tap to move up to top. Our natural movement system lets you play the way you like. Now with multiple backgrounds and card backs including special Christmas theme!

Sudoku Supremo - Sudoku is a fun number placement brain game that is sweeping the world. The objective is to fill a 9×9 grid with digits so that each column, each row, and each of the nine 3×3 regions contains all of the digits from 1 to 9.

Ultimate Word Search - Ultimate Word Search has 63 English, Spanish, Portuguese, German and French word categories filled with fun word search puzzles. If you like Word Search puzzles, then this is the game for you! With great background music and 6 different themes including Newspaper, Christmas and Letter Soup to choose from, you can enjoy it the way you like.

Master Minesweeper - Master Minesweeper is an exciting new version of this classic game with 2 original themes (Desert Sands and Christmas Gifts), 3 levels of difficulty, great music and sound effects.

There are just way too many to list them all here.  Including some educational and holiday titles.

Something All iPhone and iPad Users Should Know About

Apple makes a free app called Find My iPhone - Apple. Make sure to install this asap.

If your iPhone or iPad are lost or stolen, either use the Find My iPhone app on another iPhone or iPad that are on the same Apple ID account, or go to http://me.com/find from any computer and put in your apple ID and password (the email and password you use for downloading any apps) and you'll be able to see where on a map any of your iPhones or iPads are that have the app installed using that ID.

At this point, you have 3 options.

- If you just lost it around the house or somewhere nearby, you can tell your phone to make a loud radar sound (even if you had the volume muted) so that you can easily find it and also send a message for anybody that finds it.

Hopefully someone nice finds it.

- Remotely lock your iPhone/iPad so that nobody can easily access your information.

- Wipe the contents of your phone in case you have any information on there that you don't want anybody else seeing. If you decide to do the wipe, hopefully you have been regularly syncing your info to your computer so that when you get your phone back or a new one, you can easily transfer all of your saved information back to your recovered/new iPhone.

Simple instructions on setting this up: http://www.apple.com/iphone/find-my-iphone-setup/