2017 Free Crap Thread

[pbj]

Yep, sketchy as ---fudgesicle---.  The actual inside of the gas station was fine, but I hauled ass out of that parking lot.  Looks like I'm avoiding UPS for a few years again.

I got a soundbar with HDMI ARC under the impression it would eliminate the need for a second remote.  Thus far no luck on that front.

Anyway, Best Buy flash sale combined with ebay coupon got it down to $115 shipped.  Not too bad.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/lg-2-1-channel-soundbar-system-with-wireless-subwoofer-black/4899104.p?skuId=4899104

[Howard_Casto]

Heh.  I used to be leery about bad neighborhoods, but then I remembered what I look like.  For whatever reason a portion of the population is terrified of me.  Maybe it's my sunny disposition.

What brand sound bar?

So I'm getting what I can from coke rewards.  A bunch of random sized gift cards thus far.... not really enough to get anything, but enough to give a discount anyway.  I'm also looking at the shutter fly stuff. Does anyone have any experience on their policy with copyrighted images?   I think it'd be cool to get some game flyer canvas art or make a tapestry out of their photo blankets, ect.  I mean we still have a ton of points and with the wait period between gift cards my guess is we'll have a ton left over.   

Oh and heads up.... my Walmart's at least, are starting to heavily discount the Wii U stuff to make room for the Switch.  I got a pro controller for 12 bucks, sensor bars are practically free and most of the amiibo are discounted, with some characters as low as three bucks.  I should have picked some of the better ones up (3 dollar Ryu for instance), but I'm terrified that once I start I'll go full pokemon and start collecting the damn things. 

[nukie]

Shutterfly has a policy of not printing known copyrighted material.  With that said, while I've never printed anything that large, I've had pretty good success with prints of box art and game maps.  I imagine if you tried to print something widely known you might have an issue.

[pbj]

Sound bar is LG.  I woke up early this morning to dick around with it.  With a different HDMI cable, the TV speakers would shut off, but no sound from the bar.  Using the TV remote appeared to be doing something to the sound bar, the volume bar was a different color and moving up and down on the TV screen, and the bar turned off and on with the TV. 

So I also plugged in the optical cable.... theoretically completely unnecessary.... and it works.

So, for whatever reason, the Philips TV and LG sound bar aren't passing audio information back and forth across HDMI, but everything else is fine.

Stuff like this is why I detest anything related to home theaters.  Did a lot of researching and price monitoring and it's still some "shouldn't fix it but it does" situation.

 

[dkersten]

On some TV's you have to disable the internal speakers to get it to pass audio through HDMI.  A lot of older equipment, and some new equipment, will not process 5.1 and stereo at the same time either.  So if the signal is 5.1 and the TV is processing it as stereo, it won't pass the 5.1 to the soundbar (and vice versa) through HDMI.

[pbj]

Yeah, with "EasyLink" which is what Philips calls HDMI-ARC, it disables the TV speakers automatically once the soundbar boots up. 

Anyway, with both cables connected everything behaves as it should.

[Howard_Casto]

Shutterfly has a policy of not printing known copyrighted material.  With that said, while I've never printed anything that large, I've had pretty good success with prints of box art and game maps.  I imagine if you tried to print something widely known you might have an issue.

I was thinking maybe the nes Castlevania box art.  For the blankets maybe something Zelda related?  I could probably make a design myself on that one and dodge the copyright issue.

[pbj]

Got my second $5 gift card from Coke.  They updated the app and pulsing the machines didn't seem to work anymore, I had to push the "pour" button until the screen said Enjoy!  Seemed about 5 seconds.


Probably a more discreet way of doing it would have been to photograph the QR code, sit within bluetooth range of the machine, and scan the photo during peak times.  I don't think anyone would notice anything that way.  Oh well, I had no qualms about walking into cafeterias, scanning, and walking out so your mileage may vary.

 

[pbj]

Went to Walmart in search of Amiibos, wandered the parking lot gathering receipts and scanning into their app.

I made a whopping 4 cents!

Also, people buy weird ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- at Walmart.  One receipt was 15 bottles of chocolate syrup, ten bottles of bbq sauce. That was one hell of a party I didn't attend.

 

[Howard_Casto]

Sorry you came up empty.  I would offer to ship you some, but with shipping costs as they are it probably wouldn't be worth it.  I'm going again Wednesday.  Hopefully those 6-8 dollar amiibos have been marked down some more. 

[yotsuya]

Also, people buy weird ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- at Walmart.  One receipt was 15 bottles of chocolate syrup, ten bottles of bbq sauce. That was one hell of a party I didn't attend.

 

Someone's getting ready for ZapCon....

[Howard_Casto]

That chocolate syrup better be for sundaes. 

So more coke rewards clean up.  With amazon cards and a 15 dollar mail in rebate card plus the remaining cash back from my credit card I snagged a Super Everdrive for 14 bucks. 

Still got more points to claim.  This will be a summer of oddball 10-20 dollar freebies. 

[yotsuya]

That chocolate syrup better be for sundaes. 

Walking into PBJ, DeL, and Nephasth's hotel room...

[pbj]

I donated my remaining coke points to Special Olympics.  I'm still waiting on those Fiesta Texas tickets I won six months ago.

No need to mail me Amiibos, if the cloning to key chains actually works I'll kick a few Howard's direction.

[Howard_Casto]

Yeah I know there's no way I can spend em' all so I'll eventually donate the rest, but me and mom have been saving this stupid things for so long I'm going to get what I can out of them.  We had 3 buckets of caps nobody managed to input in time. 

I'm hopelessly addicted to useless little statues now.  R.O.B.  really sold me.... a heck of a lot of detail for such a little figure. 

[pbj]

Groupon settlement has been awarded.  I have $12.98 in my account.  Might be worth a look if you still have a Groupon login.

 

[pbj]

So, Humble Bundle people are doing PS4 games for the next couple of weeks...

https://www.humblebundle.com/thq-nordic-playstation-bundle

$1 gets you a copy of Arcania.  You can use Amazon Payments.  Grinding surveys on mturk can fund Amazon payments, and it should only take 10-15 minutes to make a dollar. 

 

[HaRuMaN]

I know a lot of you (including me) shop at Harbor Freight from time to time... 

If you have receipts or debit / credit card statements you might be eligible for cash or harbor freight credit.

Story here:

http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2017/03/harbor_freight_tools_settlemen.html

Claim site here:

http://www.nationalsalepricesettlement.com/

 

[pbj]

You can also get a $10 gift card without any receipts.  That's how I'm filing.

EDIT - meh, nevermind.  You have to mail the form in without statements, no online filing.  I pulled up some old Harbor Freight charges, most of them were $20... lot of work for $2 a pop.

[Howard_Casto]

So as noted in the heads up thread, I got Ryse, Evolve and Darksiders for free.  Also I believe I timed the activation right to where I'll get part of next month's games as well.  If they keep giving away the better tier games like they have the last couple of months I might have to actually start paying for gold.  I wouldn't use it for online play though, which is why I canceled my subscription all the way back in the 360 days.

[pbj]

67 surveys later, I own the $15 bundle with all the PS4 games.  Not worth it.

 

[pbj]

The bundle is actually quite fun.  There's a rough but enjoyable point and click adventure called Deponia I had never heard about before.  Darksiders seems like some God of War ripoff for people that are obsessed with satanic imagery.  Super Dungeon Bros is garbage.

The Coke dispenser Amazon gift card promotion is back on, so time to start pouring samples at the fountains again.

 

[Howard_Casto]

Darksiders is a GOW ripoff for people that have an xbox.  Doesn't matter anyway as all of those mechanics were stolen from ubisoft games. 

I've got think that the people at that food court think you are special needs or something at this point.  "Yeah I don't know what that guy's deal is but something bad must have happened.  Every day he comes up and taps all the dispensers like 10 times.  He must have a compulsive disorder or something."

[yotsuya]

Darksiders is a GOW ripoff for people that have an xbox.  Doesn't matter anyway as all of those mechanics were stolen from ubisoft games. 

I've got think that the people at that food court think you are special needs or something at this point.  "Yeah I don't know what that guy's deal is but something bad must have happened.  Every day he comes up and taps all the dispensers like 10 times.  He must have a compulsive disorder or something."

Just mumble "What is the frequency, Kenneth?" as you push the buttons, and they'll leave you alone.

[Howard_Casto]

[Nephasth]

A friend won concert tickets last week to Kreator/Obituary/Midnight/others. There was another contest sign up when we picked up the tickets. Thought "what the hell"... And won 'em!

[pbj]

Aol.com?   

I've heard a few of their tracks.  They've come through Houston before, and again this Sunday.

But I'm already tryng to shove three concerts on my long suffering wife.. Com Truise, Set to Stun, and Corey Feldman.  My friend is opening for Corey.   Gonna take a lot of conversations about feelings to pay those debts off.  . Then it's Front 242 in September but she doesn't know that yet.  Shhh.

[Slippyblade]

Darksiders was a great game, I loved it.  Replayed it a few times, even.  I found the lore and the story very enjoyable, and the combat, while combo based, didn't feel like GoW to me at all.

[Nephasth]

Aol.com?

16 years...

[pbj]

Pfft.. I've got a Hotmail account that is now 20 years old.  Pre-Microsoft.     It can vote and star in pornos now.

[thomas_surles]

A friend won concert tickets last week to Kreator/Obituary/Midnight/others. There was another contest sign up when we picked up the tickets. Thought "what the hell"... And won 'em!

Hell yeah. Im going to Testament, Sepultura, Prong this saturday

[Mike A]

My yahoo email account is only 14. Hands off.

[pbj]

Scanning the QR codes at the Coke machines is working again.  Another $5!  Turns out you can simply scan the code and walk away during busy times.  I got something like 6 alerts telling me I can only get credit for 1 each day.

Also, free PS4 game here if you have a Power Up Rewards number:

https://www.powerupbonus.com/DigitalCode

(I managed to get 2 PS4 codes....)

 

[pbj]

Round 2

[Howard_Casto]

Can't see your pic man.

[pbj]

 . Wrong thread.

[harveybirdman]

---fudgesicle--- yeah salted meat ftw.  I wish you were comimy to Zapcon pbj... ---smurfin--- everyone is pusing out and I'd lime to buy you a beer

[pbj]

Coke -> Amazon gift card thing has been working well.  Got my second $5 gift card instantly today.

 

[Howard_Casto]

Yeah after I got a bunch of small denominations over the course of the last few weeks they open the flood gates.  I probably could have gotten twice as much eCash.  I've got some points left over... not sure what I'll do with them, maybe donate it.   

[pbj]

First of two Famicom Minis arrived today.  One will be passed through at cost to a friend, the other is for me.

10 minutes after opening it, it was flashed to English and every NES game ever was put on it.