I am always surprised when I hear this as today people were telling me how their friends make so much money to the point that they have no idea what to do with it and so they simply blow it in a casino. The funny thing is that the topic came up because people were trying to come up with a fair rate to bill them for a service and the response was that the figure was too cheap since these are people that easily blow thousands of dollars on trivial things each day.

I have always wondered myself where if you are truly bored and have no idea what to spend your money on isn’t it more fun and potentially rewarding to just say randomly go to a site like Kickstarter and start investing on some projects to see how they go? Unless you are trying to train yourself to be like the next poker champion I think this would be a good way too to keep yourself in the loop in terms of the things that people are trying nowadays as it may even give yourself some ideas on things to to do and create.

There was this person I was talking to the other day who mentioned that he had to go to work to make some money in order to pay the bills. I guess like most people he wasn’t too excited about it. Interestingly enough, I found out that what he called “work” was playing online poker. Just for the record, he does work a more conventional job too.

I just thought times must have changed pretty quickly for a person to consider online gambling as a job of sort and to be that confident that they can consistently win. I’ve heard the arguments before too such as how some people don’t see this as being too different compared to say people who rely on investment dividends. Because like with that I guess you can say it is a gamble too.

I personally treat these types of things like a lottery. Basically, if you gain something financially then great it will be more money in your pocket. Seems a bit too risky to heavily rely on it as a source of income. Unless like with the dividends example you are getting thousands monthly from making a really good investments.

One of the topics that came up during the celebrity apprentice show was how a lot of the money being raised by Annie Duke came from gamblers as that is essentially what most people see things like poker as. She then mentions that it isn’t gambling as it takes skill and is like a form of investment like the stock market. Kind of an interesting take on it I thought.

I personally don’t agree with that sentiment as I could then essentially say that betting on a horse race is not gambling as it takes skill to figure out the odds of a specific horse winning. For myself, the main differentiating factor between gambling and an investment is the amount of reliant you have when it comes to luck and guessing.

When it comes to investments you are usually putting money or effort into a resource where you are expected to foster it to specifically grow into something better. With a gamble you don’t as you are simply just throwing something out there and waiting to see what happens as you have no real control over the matter.

So with that in mind I would say gambling isn’t necessarily just say playing casino games. Rather, just the way you approach/treat even say a business opportunity can be gambling. I think that’s why it is important too that if you ever intend to spend money on a gamble you should only do it if you are fully content in possibly losing it all. With an investment, that is where I’d say you have to be prepared to be in it for the long haul.

So this was the final episode of the Celebrity Apprentice 2 and it was an entertaining and controversial one I’d say. Just like all the other finales, past candidates returned and the last two contestants were able to choose three people to help them complete the final task.

Annie Duke chose the following:

-Brande Roderick
-Dennis Rodman
-Tom Green

Joan Rivers chose the following:

-Herschel Walker
-Clint Black
-Melissa Rivers

There was apparently some strategy between Melissa and Joan Rivers ahead of time too where they decided that Joan should not choose Melissa first as to not waste an important pick. As a result, Joan Rivers chose Herschel Walker first.

The finale task was that the two of them had to create and host a VIP party event and as well hold a silent auction by finding celebrity items to auction off. As well, the teams had to sell Cirque du Soleil tickets and promote Kodak as part of the event. For Kodak they would have to find a way to integrate the company’s product into the event as well as creating a limited edition celebrity Kodak picture frame. Overall, the task will be judged by the following:

1) Amount of Money Raised
2) Kodak Product Integration
3) Charity Awareness Integration
4) Celebrities In Attendance
5) Overall Guest Experience

For Annie Duke she assigned Dennis Rodman and Tom Green to sell the tickets to the event. For the most part they simply went out to the streets to try and sell them. Joan Rivers sent Hershel Walker and Melissa Rivers to do the ticket selling. Hershel had a great idea where he thought it would be more efficient if he simply called one of his friend, who has always wanted to help a charity, to buy all the tickets and then simply give them away for free to the public to help speed things up. Sure enough, that’s what happened.

There was one roadblock that happened during the task. Both teams were to conduct the event in the same building except the space would be divided. They were also given event planners to help decorate the room. Joan Rivers wasn’t happy with the event planner as the verbal description the person was giving her of the room design was not amazing her and he was mentioning that it was a small time frame too. Because of that she asked a friend to help monitor the work.

Apparently the owner of the company found that offensive which was a factor in the event planner company quitting. Not only that, but since Annie Duke was given the same event planning company they quitted on her too as they didn’t want to have anything to do with the celebrity apprentice. This was either a very unexpected circumstance or fixed outcome out I’d say.

Both Joan Rivers and Annie Duke then scrambled to by phoning all their contacts for help. One great moment of that part I thought was that for Joan Rivers, people from her charity, God’s Love We Deliver, actually arrived to help her setup the event. That was cool to see people from an actual charity coming together which shows the passion in wanting to help others.

For both teams it seemed like the celebrity attendance was rather dismissal overall. Herschel Walker had an idea to use impersonators which was kind of funny. It worked to a certain extent it seemed to build up the atmosphere as he even made an interesting comment how he has met a lot of celebrities. For the most part, he finds them as boring people whereas impersonators are livelier usually.

In the end, Joan Rivers raised $150,830 and Annie Duke raised $465,725. A pretty lopsided victory for Annie Duke when it comes to the money that’s for sure. However, that was not the only criteria and Joan Rivers actually defeated Annie Duke when it came to the Kodak product integration, celebrity attendance and overall guest experience. That made Joan Rivers the winner of the final task.

Then it was onto the live audience boardroom deliberation. I should note that thought this episode you were able to hear the live audience reactions which made the episode sound like something right out of a sitcom. Trace Adkins and Piers Morgan also attended to give their thoughts on who the winner should be and they both chose Joan Rivers.

Piers Morgan’s reason was pretty simple as Joan Rivers won the final task and so she should be the winner. Trace Adkins’ reason was a little more open to interpretation as his last few words were that while Annie Duke played a good game he thought Joan Rivers “had that charitable thing”.

My personal interpretation of that comment is that while Annie Duke had that aggressiveness and determination to win, it seemed like she was too much for herself and trying to win the game. On the other hand, it seemed that Joan Rivers was more genuine and was playing it mainly for charity. That’s my interpretation anyways and I know other people had different takes on it.

In the final moments where both candidates mentioned why they should be the winner emotions started to burst. Here is a clip of that segment:

You can see the night and day personalities of both of the contestants there I’d say. Joan Rivers seemed like such an emotional person where it sometimes gets the best of her when it comes to rational thinking and Annie Duke just seems like the type of person that knows how to try and work a system in a politically correct way.

In the end, Joan Rivers was chosen as the winner. While Annie Duke did better in the overall show, essentially Joan Rivers won the final task and was admired for her energy and enthusiasm at her old age. I guess that is where the controversy comes in.

I personally wanted Joan Rivers to win. However, to be honest if this was a real world setting the Annie Duke’s of the world are usually the ones that come out on top. I know Joan Rivers made a comment on how her style is the new way of doing business, but usually in real life you don’t have cameras following you where people can nit pick one’s personality in a more thorough light.

Annie Duke’s one comment on how all her friends came through for her and that she never attacked Joan Rivers personally was a great example I thought. You see, in real life she would probably be sitting the boardroom and saying that in a persuasive way on how she is being attacked and that Joan Rivers is just a nut ball where you see she is just attacking her.

However, as you know she was caught on camera saying how she thought Joan Rivers should die and all that stuff. When confronted, she tried to minimize that by implying it was the heat of the moment type of thing. Kind of contradicting as you could say Joan Rivers had the same train of thought for her comment. So in reality, you wouldn’t get to see that side of a person like Annie Duke.

Nothing wrong with having a tough personality or her trying to game the system for her own benefit, but I have personally seen it way too much and it’s a nice fresh air to see the more raw emotion yet genuine person make it out ahead. Of course, I’m inclined to say that Joan Rivers won more due to Donald Trump and the show’s TV direction as oppose to being purely a business decision in choosing a person to hire. Even I would say most people would hire an Annie Duke over a Joan Rivers any day.

Entertaining season finale overall. This episode also gave me a lot of ideas to write about too. Especially that interesting comment about gambling and the type of people you associate with and where their money comes from. I saw this ad for Ultimate Bet a lot during the commercials.

Guess by the looks of it Annie Duke is affiliated with it which is a big reason for it. I did find it funny how it said that it wasn’t a gambling site though as I guess technically on that page it is a free for fun version of playing poker online which means it isn’t gambling.

In the end, I guess both charities really were the real winners as even Trace Adkins and Piers Morgan commented on how both of their charities benefited tremendously.