50,000 Monkeys at 50,000 Typewriters Can't Be Wrong
I love this shirt so much, I am in for three, and then in for three again:
It's currently in the derby at shirt.woot, and it really needs to make it across the finish line. If you agree with me, please give it an upboat. Godsdammit, the derby is closed. Well, enjoy what could have been, anyway.
Last year Anne and I raised some money for the Pasadena Humane Society in memory of our awesome dog, Ferris. When I wrote about it here, Anne said:
Just over 8 years ago, I made a right turn instead of a left out of the Home Depot parking lot. That was a turn that would change our lives forever. In the bushes next to the bus stop sat a sad little puppy. She'd obviously been dumped there with a t-shirt as a blanket, and an empty cottage cheese container that probably served as a water dish.
For the next 8 years, we would have the best addition to our family: a dog who was dumped by someone who didn't care or appreciate what a smart, loving animal they were leaving. Ferris was like a sibling to our boys, a part of the family going on vacations and getting toys in her stocking at Christmas.
Ferris knew she was lucky. She appreciated all the love and care her new family gave her. Not every dog left on the street is so lucky. Some get hit by cars or left to starve. Fortunately, the Humane Society does everything they can to rescue these homeless or lost animals by giving them food, shelter, vaccinations and a chance to be adopted.
A month ago, we lost our awesome dog Ferris to cancer. Her happy face is one I'll always remember. Doing something positive in her honor is something we can all do together.
On Sunday September 27th, we're doing the annual Wiggle Waggle Walk in Ferris' honor. This is a fundraising effort to help the Pasadena Humane Society. Please donate through our site and help us reach our goal of $8,000; a thousand dollars for every year of Ferris' life. No donation is too small. We appreciate each donation. Thank you!
People like you made small and large donations, and within a week we blew our fundraising goal away. When everything was counted up, you guys donated over $13,000 to the Pasadena Humane Society!
Your contributions were so generous and added up so quickly, the Pasadena Humane Society asked Anne and me if we would like to walk one of their shelter dogs in the Wiggle Waggle Walk, as a way of saying thank you. We love dogs, so of course we accepted their offer. On the morning of the walk, we put on our Team Ferris T-shirts, wiped a lot of tears out of our eyes, met our friends at the Rose Bowl, and after a wiping a few more tears out of our eyes, met the shelter dog we'd be walking. He didn't have a name, because he'd only been at the PHS for a week, so I named him DOG, after the giant robot who loves everyone in Half Life 2.
Here's the girst picture I ever took of him, which I posted to TwitPic with my Blackberry:
(click to embiggen)
He was affectionate, friendly, happy, and seemed to love every person and dog we encountered. Anne leaned over to me while we were walking and said, "this dog is going to be awesome when he grows up."
Here's another picture I took with my Blackberry for Twitter:
I took some pictures during the walk, like when he got tired:
And after the walk, when he made a new friend:
Anne and I were pretty convinced that we shouldn't get another dog until at least after the holidays, but during the five hours we were at the Wiggle Waggle Walk, we completely fell in love with DOG (who eventually was named Seamus, even though I really lobbied hard to call him Batman), and we decided that we would adopt him.
(Here is the exact moment when I fell in love with Seamus.)
I have a bunch of other pictures on Flickr, if you want to fall in love with Seamus, too. In fact, go look at them, and then come back.
I know right? Isn't he the most adorable dog in the world? Pictures don't capture his personality that well, and I hope you'll trust me when I tell you how amazing he is, and how grateful I am that he is part of our family. Ferris was such an awesome dog, and though we knew we could never replace her, Seamus has been a worthy heir to her spot at the foot of our bed, by my side when I go for a walk, and under my feet when I'm working at my desk.
We never would have met Seamus if we hadn't decided to honor Ferris' memory by raising money for the Pasadena Humane Society. We wouldn't have met Seamus if you hadn't given so many donations, large and small, and pushed us into the top few fundraisers — in less than a week, even — last year. We wouldn't have met Seamus if the Pasadena Humane Society wasn't there to save dogs and other animals like him who are abandoned by their owners, and need a safe place to live until they can find a family.
I'm going to turn this over to Anne for a minute, like I did last year, because she has something she wants to say:
In August 2009, our dog Ferris died unexpectedly from cancer. We decided to turn our grief over the loss of our family member into something positive by raising money to help the Pasadena Humane Society with their annual Wiggle Waggle Walk; a fundraiser to help with the care of homeless, stray and abandoned animals.
We were overwhelmed by the emotional and financial support we received to help the Pasadena Humane Society. When we arrived at the walk last year, we were asked to walk one of their shelter dogs to bring awareness to adoption. It was both an honor and a crushing reminder that we were there because Ferris had died. We agreed to walk a dog and met Seamus.
Seamus was a 7 month old puppy, found running around the streets of Pasadena. He had been in the shelter for a week. No one claimed him and no one asked to adopt him. But thanks to the Pasadena Humane Society, he was safe, fed and protected until he found the right home. Support from people like you makes it possible for the PHS to maintain this care for all of their animals while they wait for their new family.
Please help us reach our goal by making a tax-deductible donation and support a wonderful cause.
This Sunday, Anne will take Seamus back to the Rose Bowl (I can't go, because I'll be flying home from Eureka) to celebrate not only Ferris' memory, but her legacy. We hope you'll join us again, just like you did last year, so that the Pasadena Humane Society can continue to care for animals, and provide a safe place for dogs like Seamus to find people like us.
Here's Seamus one last time:
I get to see this face every day, and know that I am unconditionally loved by this little guy, because people like you helped us support the Pasadena Humane Society.
Please make whatever contribution you can via our Wiggle Waggle Walk page. If just 1% of you who read this make a $5 contribution, we'll raise five figures. That possibility just blows me away.
A long time ago, on an Internet far, far away, John Scalzi's brain unleashed the most epic and awesome and WTF image ever known in the history of all the tribes: The Unicorn Pegasus Kitten.
But a Unicorn Pegasus Kitten alone wasn't enough, and so I was placed astride it, wearing the Infamous Clown Sweater. And I, riding a Unicorn Pegasus Kitten while wearing a Clown Sweater (and short shorts), though certainly enough for some mortals, wasn't enough for us, so a Scalzorc was added. And while it would be acceptable in some worlds for a Unicorn Pegasus Kitten to be ridden by a Wheaton in an Incamous Clown Sweater while a Scalzorc looked looked askance, still more was required: a story to bring them all together, and in teh darknez, LOL them.
And, thus was born the Wheaton and Scalzi Fan Fiction contest.
Today, my dear Internets, the circle is complete. The stories have been written, the winners chosen, and the results compiled into a digital tome known for now and ever as:
(Please imagine thunder, lightning, and some dramatic music at this time, perhaps if Iron Maiden were to have scored an overture, for example.)
BEHOLD THE COVER IN ALL ITS TERRIBLE GLORY!
COWER, MORTALS, FOR IT LIVES!
(Now would be a good time to imagine more thunder, and maybe some howling of a far-off beast that yore glad isn't close enough to be seen.)
Now, here is why this is awesome: you can, right now, go get the entire digital chapbook, in multiple formats, for free.
BUT WAIT DON'T GO JUST YET!
We're asking that, if you do collect a copy for your very own, you make a donation to the Lupus Alliance of America, a non-profit and very important organization that is dear to many of us involved in this project, and our families.
Here's what John says, in his grown-up voice:
You’ll notice that we’re offering Clash of the Geeks as a free download. You don’t have to pay for it, or make a donation to fight against lupus. And if you don’t, that’s fine. But if you can – if you’ve got the suggested minimum payment of $5 to spare — we would really like it if you did. All of the money that comes to us for this is going back out the door again, into the coffers of the Michigan/Indiana affiliate of the Lupus Alliance of America. We paid our writers and our artist, but we did that out of our own pockets. Wil, Subterranean Press and I aren’t seeing a cent from this. That’s not what this is about.
We did this thing because we thought it would be fun and because we thought you would have fun reading these stories. But we also did it because people we know and love and care about are afflicted with lupus. Lupus, if you don’t know, is not an easy disease to live with: it attacks your immune system and does all sorts of damage, and those who live with it genuinely do struggle. We’re doing this for fun, but we’re also doing this to help those people living with lupus, some of whom are family. It’s a personal thing.
Which is why, again: If you can pay, we hope you will pay. Our $5 suggested payment is not a lot for you, especially when you consider the sheer amount of awesome this chapbook contains. But if each of you chip in (and tell your friends about it, and they chip in, too), those $5 payments will add up pretty quickly. And then we’ll be doing some real good, as well having fun. We’ve made it to easy to pay through PayPal, but for those of you who would enjoy a tax deduction, we’ve also set up a way for you to get one of those as well.
Okay, now you may go and get yourself a copy of CLASH OF THE GEEKS … and please, please, please, tell your friends, tell your Reddits, tell your Farks, and tell your Twitters. We're all immensely proud of this project.
When I was a teenager pretending to fly a spaceship, I got to do a lot of really cool things with a lot of really cool people. The price of admission to this wonderful world, though, was the most annoying hairdo I've ever experienced in my life. I called it Wesley's Helmet Hair, because it did not move at all once the hair department shellacked it, and I really, really hated it.
There was some decree that hair was perfect in the future, so before every take, one of the hairdressers would come over and drop a small cloud of hairspray around my head. By the end of the day, it was like there was this foreign thing sitting on top of my skull that I couldn't wait to get home and wash off (I clearly remember showering after work, and feeling a slick of
hairspray and other products run down my back, like I was living out some horrible fanfic. Ugh, I'm getting chills
just thinking about it) and when they finally retired this particular hairdo, I may have cried tears of relief.
Well, yesterday, I learned that a friend of @MartySever's loved Wesley's helmet hair as much as I hated it.
