The Smarmy Carny

Google is giving away $10 Million through Project 10¹⁰⁰ (pronounced as "Project 10 to the 100th"). The money will go to fund between one and five ideas that will help humanity in a great way.

The guidelines are extremely loose for this project: They would prefer submissions in one of the following eight categories: Community, Opportunity, Energy, Environment, Health, Education, Shelter, and "Everything Else" . . . So even if your idea doesn't fit into the seven extremely vague categories, they are still willing to accept it.

Sure, those very basic guidelines are great and leave it open to your own creativity, but what sort of idea are they really looking for? The example Google offers to us is the Hippo Water Roller, which essentially looks like one of those heavy rollers used to even out landscaping, but filled with healthy drinking water. This allows people who have to transport their water supply to easily roll 24 gallons of water at a time, compared with a 5 gallon bucket of water on top of the head.

You can upload an ancillary video to YouTube to help you express or display your idea, but the meat of the presentation must be filled out via the web form. Google has put out a video presentation for their project:

How many people could your idea help?

All you need to do is submit your idea via the website before October 20, 2008. The submissions are reviewed and on January 27, 2008, 100 ideas will be voted on by the general public/Webosphere. The top 20 submissions will then pass to an advisory board, who will choose between one and five ideas, which will split the $10 Million prize equally.

For those looking to get rich from their ideas, you might want to look elsewhere. As the site's FAQ says:

Q: What do I get if my idea is chosen?
A: You get good karma and the satisfaction of knowing that your idea might truly help a lot of people.

The $10 Million is not going to the people who come up with these ideas. The money is going toward the development of these ideas to help make them a reality.

If coming up with a great idea to help the world just isn't your "thing", you can always try to win the $30 Million Lunar X Prize that Google has also posted. For that prize, you'll have to do a lot more than come up with ideas, though. $30 Million goes to the first team to send a robot to the moon, have that robot travel 500 meters along the moon's surface, and receive back video, image, and data transmissions here on Earth. You might want to hurry on that offer, though: 13 of the teams have been working on this since September 13, 2007, so you've got some catch-up to do!

How can you possibly pass up Cold Stone Creamery's World's Largest Ice Cream Social?

On September 25, 2008 from 5pm until 8pm, Cold Stone Creamery is giving away free 3 oz. "Make-a-Wish"-sized creations. This free portion is about 60% the size of Cold Stone's "Like It" (small) size, which is approximately 5 oz. The stipulations are that your sample will be Emily or Jack's Creation:

• Jack's Creation — Marshmallow ice cream with OREO® Cookies, Chocolate Chips and Fudge
• Emily's Creation — Nutter Butter® ice cream with White Chocolate Chips, Kit Kat® and Yellow Cake

These are two new flavors created by two Make-a-Wish children named — you guessed it — Jack and Emily, who are 9 and 10 years old, respectively.

Why free ice cream? Cold Stone is doing this for a good cause: About 85% of all donations given during that time will go to the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

Visit these official sites for the full "scoop":

• Cold Stone Creamery's Promotions page
• Make-A-Wish Foundation's page for The World's Largest Ice Cream Social

Kahala Brands owns Cold Stone Creamery, and some of their other stores are also having giveaways during the last week of the month. If you live near Blimpie, The Great Steak & Potato Co., Samurai Sam’s Teriyaki Grill, or TacoTime you can grab some free stuff from those locations, too! Of course, don't forget to donate to a great charity while you're there!

Thanks again to all those who read my posts as I participated in Blogathon 2007, posting 49 posts in just 24 hours. Sponsorships are now closed, and I received 10 pledges for $135.00! The money I raised this year will be going to One Economy Corporation. (In 2006 I received 8 pledges for $141.00 to benefit the Make-a-Wish Foundation of America.)

Here's a little peek at the spike in blog traffic for the two weeks leading up to and through the Blogathon weekend:

How does this compare with last year? Things weren't too much different in terms of visits, but I had 17.7% more visits than last year. There are other stats that are more favorable for 2006, but I don't want to bother with those.

In case you were wondering, these pretty graphs both came from Google Analytics.

Final Blogathon totals: 10 pledges for $135.00

Blogathon may have ended, but you can still pledge!

Please, check out the Blogathon 2007 category of this site, which lists all the posts I wrote during the Blogathon this year. A list of my posts will also be available on my Blogathon page.

To sponsor me, head over to my Blogathon page and follow the directions there.

I won a trivia contest and garnered another sponsorship!

End of Blogathon totals: 9 pledges for $123.00

Blogathon has ended . . . but sponsorships will be open for at least until Tuesday morning. So please, if you can, please sponsor me and pledge to donate money to One Economy Corporation. If you need more information, read my Blogathon page, which should explain everything for you.

Thanks to everyone who has been visiting this blog during the event and keeping me motivated! I look forward to hearing from you all even now that Blogathon is over. The Smarmy Carny will always be right here!

After I've gotten a healthy amount of sleep and spent enough time away from computers, I'll return to give some sort of a post-Blogathon update.

End of Blogathon totals: 8 pledges for $120.00

Fin.

Just 30 minutes left of the 24-hour Blogathon event! The world outside is waking up again, and I'm getting ready to crash land into my bed. I did this last year, and I thought it was a fun idea, so I will impart with you fifteen things I learned over the last 24 hours.

What has Blogathon 2007 taught me?

1. An obvious winner is spelled "shoo-in", not "shoe-in". Go figure.
2. Believe it or not, people will voluntarily play Wesley Willis music if you ask them to.
3. Cats may meow, but falcons chant.
4. Domo-Kun lives in the wild.
5. During the 23rd hour, don't fully recline your chair and close your eyes and expect that good things will result.
6. Even with no sleep for over 18 hours, I still can't understand that dancing kittycat video.
7. In the original script of The Smurfs, Gargamel captured a smurf wandering alone in the forest and (using "magic clay") he transformed the male smurf into Smurfette.
8. I've been collecting a personal diary without even knowing it.
9. John O'Hurley, who played J. Peterman in Seinfeld, later helped the real J. Peterman to purchase the "J. Peterman" brand back from a company he had sold it to.
10. LOLCATS are evil!!!
11. Luka's webcam can't see the pool in the day and it can't see the moon in the night.
12. Marbles, though fun, can be excruciatingly annoying.
13. Somehow, Professor X is closely related to Blogathon.
14. Technology can make or break some low-income families.

I hope you learned something as well!

With the Simpsons Movie out now, I might as well toss in something movie-related. Here are a small assortment of some minor characters from The Simpsons:

• Barney Gumble: B Barney is the town drunk who makes Homer look sober. He has a good line now and then but rarely carries a scene. Favorite line: "Aaah! Natural light! Get it off me! Get it off me!"
• Comic Book Guy: C+ Jeff Albertson is the owner of The Android's Dungeon & Baseball Card Shop. His character is intentionally annoying, but often not to a comic effect. Favorite line: "Worst episode ever."
• Disco Stu: C It's always fun to see Disco Stu enter the frame, but in comparison to the other characters on the show, Disco Stu just doesn't shine through. Favorite line: "Disco Stu loves disco music!"
• Dr. Nick Riviera: B+ The graduate of Hollywood Upstairs Medical College always makes me laugh. Favorite line: "Hi, everybody!"
• Nelson Muntz: A- Ha ha! Need I say more? Nelson needn't, that's for sure.
• Ralph Wiggum: A Everyone embraces the lovable dumb kid. Until he turns into a prepubescent. Ralph is lucky that time stands still in the Simpsons universe. Favorite line: "Me fail English? That's unpossible!"

Please feel free to leave a comment. What do you agree or disagree with, and why? Which items do you wish were included that I didn't cover here?