For those of you without your McCalendars handy, we are in Week 3 of the 2008 McDonald’s Monopoly game. (If you don’t know what this is about, you can educate yourself on the topic on your own time using the greatest reference known to man, wikipedia.org, then come back here and read the rest.)

For many of us Die-Hard monopoly fans (I use the 1st person plural, here) this is an exciting annual event where a classic American board game involving fake money and dumb luck is paired with the international icon of American sloth and gluttony. And big macs.

The biggest difference in McOpoly this year (that’s mine, by the way, I just made it up but I am registering it as soon as I finish typing this) is that you can not only play it with the old-school paper tear-off “game pieces” tabby-things, you can also play online! Well, that and the grand prize is reduced from $5 million to a $1 million annuity paid out over 20 years, which, using the present value of an annuity formula:

We can determine to be, approximately, something much less than $1 million dollars. (Do your own math, I’m busy.)

All that being said, I am on my 24th consecutive day of eating only McDonald’s food -but not just any food- you see, they’ve tied the tear-off paper pieces ONLY to what he wants you to buy, Big Mac, Large Fries, Large Coke, that kind of stuff. “He” being the clown, of course.

At any rate, I did a little searching to see why I haven’t won yet, and I learned this bit of interesting knowledge: my odds of winning are actually “approximately 1 in 184,698,474,” To give that any sort of comparison, the oft-quoted odds of getting struck by lightning are 1 in 244,000. So, I am actually 75 and a half times MORE likely to get struck by lightning than to win the million dollar McOpoly® prize.

You see, the little paper bits are rigged. There’s nothing random about it. They’re all distributed “randomly” except for 1 piece of each set, the most famous being Boardwalk, of which there are 3. In the world. And don’t fool yourself by thinking, Well, I can still win the online prize. That’s rigged, too!

The same properties you can’t win in “Real Life,” namely the last property in each set listed alphabetically and Boardwalk, you can’t win online. The code you put in on each paper bit to roll the virtual dice determines where you can land. The Clown has successfully taken all of the fun out of the fake money and dumb luck game that so many Americans have cherished.

In summary, with the 2008 McOpoly® Game, the only Real Winners are the people that did not realize the Game was happening, Collected no game pieces, did not pass Go, and did not endure the ultimate price of contest entry- 1 month of eating reheated burgers and greasy fries.
–Shawn Butler

Oh, and the attribution for the awesome McSticker above is that superhero of the blogosphere, Steve Sneeds. The equally awesome McJoker image is from a post on HALOLZ.com.

UPDATE: Just read the “interview” responses of Steve Jobs to Walt Mossberg in the WSJ. Ummm… the answer to 3 of the 7 Qs was “[Apple] doesn’t talk about future products.” All Mossberg was trying to find out was

1. if iPhone was going to be stuck on the same slow EDGE network offered by AT&T,
2. if there would be less expensive models of iPhone released, a la the Shuffle for iPod, and
3. will you be fixing the issues with the iPhone that we didn’t like, such as video, IM, and GPS (See article)?

The answer to all Three Questions: “We don’t talk about future products.” Oh yeah, Steve Jobs? What do you call the last 7 months since your stunt at the MacWorld Conference? The one where you talked all about your future product?

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xXNoB3t8vM]

The Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) iPhone will hit stores on Friday, June 29th. The media and tech worlds wait like eager dogs at the foot of Steve Jobs’ dinner table. But all may not be well in the iWorld– At $499 and $599 for the 4 and 8 Gig units respectively, some call it overpriced, overhyped and overloaded with unnecessary features.

iPhone may also be overpromising. Recent releases say it will now deliver eight hours of talk time, compared with the five hours it originally promised and the four hours available on current Über-PDA competitors Blackberry Curve and Palm Treo 750. Other small print reveals that ownership of the unit will require a two-year contract with AT&T(NYSE: T). Hmmm… that is a fact that should be printed in Super Bold.

Lastly, serious corporate America is not jumping on the Apple Bandwagon. The technology that allowed Research In Motion Ltd.’s (NASDAQ: RIMM) Blackberry to meld easily was created by an early partnership with business-friendly Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT). IT experts report that the Apple app IMAP is a security risk. That’s enough to keep most businesses from sync-ing the piece with their internal email systems. That leaves iPhone die-hards with the extra hastle of Re-Forwarding everything from the office through POP servers… something BENEATH most Mac Addicts that I know.

Ad Age Editor Jonah Bloom, says “Rational thinking has nothing to do with it. Consumers will lust after the iPhone and thus ignore both necessity, price and service contracts.”
Ah, but will they also ignore the near uselessness of its internet, corporate email, and battery-draining irrelevant features? I vote there’ll be a big “no” from the world’s business professionals. But what’s Apple doing trying to get into business anyways? Stick to Consumer Electronics and your iLife… ipod-toting teens and megalopolitan hipsters will line up for miles awaiting Steve’s future table scraps. –Shawn Butler

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4VieMjZYfI]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7ReS_ur4Kc]

Although hailed as a new tier of clever competitor-specific comparative advertising, the “iconic” [sic] Mac vs. PC Ads are nothing new to consumers. For decades, we have watched the world’s Super Brands go head-to-head in the beverage industry. We’ve enjoyed ring-side seats between The Choice of a New Generation and Always Coca-Cola (NYSE: KO), as well as Budweiser (NYSE:BUD), undisputed King of Beers battling the “President of Beers,” Miller Brewing Co., now SABMiller (NYSE: MO).

In these instances, it is nothing more than Madison Avenue’s take on a tactic we’ve all used since grade school– make fun of anyone doing better than us! Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) controls a 90% marketshare in the computer/software ind. Mac (NASDAQ: AAPL) is by far the underdog, and in retaliation, they are not going after the usual mix: price, prod. quality, availability, instead they post ads saying, “90% marketshare and undisputed dominance in business? Well, atleast I’m cool!” For all the lauds of “cleverness” and subtle “jabbing” TBWA\ is receiving for the Mac vs. PC ads, let’s take an honest look at what Steve Jobs is really saying:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHO8l-Bd1O4]Personally, I prefer Alltel’s Chad campaign. It’s the exact same concept– Alltel, (NYSE: AT) the smallest of the 5 major wireless carriers, poses their spokesman, Chad, as the suave, popular, cool guy who is competing against the huge established companies, characterized as geeks and nerds. Basically, aren’t these all just new iterations of the playground joke “Sure you get better grades, but atleast I’m not a dork!” –Shawn Butler
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZCWUIgWe3g]