Desperate Plea For Help: SummeRun Edition

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I was thinking (not really) the other day (no) about how sad it is (true) that I haven't leveraged the most important blog in the history of time into giant piles of cash to sleep on instead of my nest of leaves and wadded-up newspaper (half true). But then I was visited by the Spirits of Giving last night, dressed in matching 16oz Rainier beer costumes, who took me on a Dicken's Christmas Carol-esque time-travel adventure to inspire me to use my awe-inspiring blogging power for the greater good instead of just free bedding. They also tried to explain that I probably shouldn't have laughed so much at the kid who bit it on his bike while trying to do a victory wheelie after yelling at his sister the other day, but there are some things you just can't change about people.

ANYWAY, next month I will be running a 5K for the 2008 Swedish SummeRun which benefits the Marsha Rivkin Center for Ovarian Cancer Research. My team, the Hand State Warriors, are trying to raise $150 each for this cause. The SummeRun people are really on top of this whole fundraising thing, and they provide participants with the means to passive-aggressively hit their friends up for money via a personalized website. (Mine is available here HINT HINT). I was a little disappointed that I didn't have more customization opportunity on the web page, because I thought an animated dancing bacon background would be pretty sweet on a health-related charity run website, but sometimes you just have to take what life gives you.

After I set up my website, I realized that THIS was the perfect opportunity to finally tap the amazing dollar potential of the Bac-Log! money machine- to create bloodthirsty hordes of cash to mercilessly burn and pillage my $150 SummeRun goal! But how? I aggregated a quick mental profile of all 2 Bac-Log! readers (hi Mom!) and quickly determined the obvious course of action: Bribery. (Blackmail was a close 2nd, followed distantly by shameless pandering).

Bac-Log! is no stranger to bribery, although I find it vaguely disconcerting that the Final Four round of our Babe Rally Team Name CHALLENGE was stocked solely with my own contributions. (At this very moment, a crack team of Bac-Log! lawyers is trying to determine if this means Jason is legally obligated to wash my car). I guess I'm just that good. THIS time, however, I promise I'll give you all a chance by not participating myself.

Most (all) of you have been reading this post as "blah blah blah BRIBERY blah blah", but it is time to pay attention again, for BEHOLD: brace yourself for X-TREME HAIKU CHARITY CHALLENGE 2008™!!

Here's how it works:

• Go to my donation website [here].
• Donate whatever amount you feel comfortable with. Even $1 helps. You will not be judged (except by myself, everyone else who visits the site after you, and whoever they might tell. Also, God).
• Sign my guestbook with an awesome haiku!
• The best haiku, determined by a selection process which I haven't come up with yet, will win fabulous prizes.

And here are your required bribe payments:

The first person to leave a haiku, regardless of quality, will win THEIR CHOICE of the following fabulous prizes:

• Ice cream
• A broken solar-powered garden light that I dug out of a river
• Endless glory
• Uncomfortably frank and unqualified opinions about your clothing

The ULTIMATE WINNER of BESTEST HAIKU award will win THEIR CHOICE of the following fabulous prizes:

• A backstage pass to the [spoiler alert] forthcoming unveiling of Baco 2.0, where you will be showered in fame and nitrates. In the future, when you tell people you were actually there, they will worship you.
• A mixed CD of early-90s Midwestern Emo music.
• A digital picture of yourself pasted onto a fantasy background of my choice using Microsoft Paint.
• Pet naming advice [disclaimer: Pet name will be "Dr. Archibald Peanut Catbutt Worthington Turtlepants, Esquire", regardless of species]
• Election as the Patron Saint of Bac-Log! [must provide classy headshot, preferably with chin resting on fist]

You are probably stunned by the quality of prizes so I will give you a moment to recover.

[pause]

Now GET HAIKUING! And think; not only will you be in the running for the aforementioned fabulous prizes, you will also be supporting valuable cancer research! Resisting the tag-team bribing power of Bac-Log AND Karma? Impossible!!

SPECIAL OFFER: Oh, and for ADDITIONAL KARMA BRIBES, available for no extra charge, tell all of your friends and financially solvent hyper-intelligent pet monkeys about X-TREME HAIKU CHARITY CHALLENGE 2008™!!

Go go go!