“I wrote 63 songs this year. They’re all about Jeter.” Just kidding. The game we love, the players we hate, and more.
From Norman Mailer to Wendy Pepper — everything on film, TV, books, music, and snacks (shut up, raisins), plus the Girls’ Bike Club.
Helping public schools, winning prizes, sending a crazy lady in a tomato costume out in public.
Monologues, travelogues, fiction, and fart humor. And hens. Don’t forget the hens.
The Tomato Nation advice column addresses your questions on etiquette, grammar, romance, and pet misbehavior. Ask The Readers about books or fashion today!
Just kidding! Congratulations: the first bonus round is over. The tomato dance is on.
And for ten minutes, I couldn’t get into my own admin panel because we overloaded the CPU. Well done, folks. Well done indeed.
The 50K bonus round is now open. Remember, this 10K is matched in full by me and Claire Danes.
I’ve (re-)discovered a few things over the course of the recent Days Of Rage. Some of them are great!
I found it while researching a murder (…this is a sentence I have more frequent use for than most), the true story of a neighborhood legend from my childhood. I grew up in a leafy, …
I love that TN and TN Bonus Round 1 are the top two on the leaderboard and TN Bonus Round 2 is slowly climbing the charts. D’ya think it will go gold? ;)
I fixed some dicked-up links, so y’all should be fine now for BRII.
Don’t worry about the ballroom-dance thing until DC has a chance to straighten things out in their backend. If you’re not sure your donation for that project went through, wait until tonight and then email zach at donorschoose dot org to check. Thanks!
Awesome-rrific!
…1%! I’m going to the 212 now. Hold the fort.
4% at 11:46 central time. What is that, like 20 minutes?
I’m almost crying you guys! It’s so beautiful to see this. It took 2 days and a half to raise $40,000! How great is that?
4% now! (it was at 2% when I started writing this!)
I think you mean 4% !!!! I don’t paid until friday, I guess I’ll be part of bonus round 20…. whee!!! It restores my faith in people to see them taking part in helping the public school system, rather than bailing on it like so many do. And not their own kids either, stranger’s kids.
One thousand dollars raised. 21 minutes since you posted this item. That? Is CRAZY.
(And thanks for putting up the fabric one – I dug it so much I had to donate again!)
Yeah, I’m getting NOTHING done today. I’m watching all the hearts and flowers and rainbows coming out of the Donors Choose site!
11%
Well, since you did choose the challenge I suggested (the fabric for high-schoolers learning to design and sew clothing) the least I can do is kick in for it. Of course, at least to other people type faster than I do, so I didn’t get to kick it off like I hoped.
So, when you win the Yahoo award, you WILL wear your tomato costume TO the lunch with Mr. Yang, right? ;-)
Holy jeebus, 12% already!
Make that 12%.
Damn. This is a beautiful thing.
I was out of town for a long weekend, so I missed the beginning of all this. I got in on the tail end of the initial round yesterday, and gave all I thought I could manage for this month, but then coming back today and reading the Danes-y and Minear-y goodness, I couldn’t resist adding some more to the final round. So what? Oatmeal for dinner for the last week of October? Big deal! I hear it’s good for my cholesterol levels!
It’s a beautiful thing you’re doing, Sars, and the whole Tomato Nation shares in your awesomeness…..
17% The awesome madness just! won’t! stop!
barely an hour later – and 19%!
Wow, this is going so fast, it rocks! Right now the first round is in place 1 on the leaderboard, second round is place 3, and third round is place 11. I wonder how much of the leaderboard we can fill?
I also had to donate (again, a third time) in the fabric store one. Super cool.
I can only assume that Donors Choose is too busy accepting donations to switch over to a red color scheme right now.
When Sars gets to Manhattan and sees how much we’ve managed to raise just since she’s been gone, she is going to flip. 21%, last time I looked (and that was, like, 5 minutes ago… I’m sure it’s closer to 30% now, heh).
This rocks so hard, y’all!
I just got a thank you note from a teacher whose project I helped fund. I promptly burst into tears. We may need to form a support group before this is over!
I’m in, YAY! Just donated…love you guys for all of your hard work on this.
25% at 1:48!
The good thing about emailing your friend to suggest she donate: More $$ for the projects, obviously!
The downside: She completes funding for your pet project before you can finish typing in your credit card info. Heh. But also, Yay!
So I was going to wait for payday, but we’d be well into the millions then, and that just doesn’t have that grassroots feel. You and and all these beautiful people are effing rock stars.
I’m so dorking out over this whole thing. 28% as of the time I started writing this comment. Having seen how this went last year, and that there were three rounds this time around, I figured out how much I could afford to give and divided it between each round, so I can feel happy about contributing to each challenge.
… although if Sars sets up a Bonus Round III, I’ll take another look at my budget and see where I can find another little chunk of cash to kick in.
…aaaand in the time it took me to type that – we’re at 30%!
After 90 minutes, the meter is at 30%. That’s $3000 in 90 minutes.
I love us.
Thank you, Sars, for taking on the DonorsChoose challenge. I’m proud to have donated (to a school not even 2 miles from me — how awesome is _that_? South Side of Chicago, represent!), and I linked to both TN and DC on my blog in hopes of fishing some of my friends in as well. It feels great to see that project have become all the way funded, already.
30% at 2pm Eastern!
Just a reminder to everyone who donated – many companies will match donations at varying levels, so contact your HR rep and find out if your donation can be matched by your employer. The larger your employer, the more likely they have this type of program. The matching gift may not make it in time for the challenges, but the kids still get more $$. For more info on matching, see http://www.donorschoose.org/help/donor_faq.html?q=50&zone=0 .
I can’t say enough times how proud I am to be a TN reader.
Dang. I’d already donated 3 times, but I was reading through the BRII proposals, and I had to dig out my CC a fourth time for “Learning from the Wall.” My history minor in college focused on the Vietnam War, and it’s something I’ve been studying for about 17 years. How could I not donate to a project to teach kids about the draft, Watergate, and war propeganda, especially in our current political climate?
32% in 2 hours???
I think I’m beyond Amazed and I’m now into Agog with wonder at everyone’s awesomeness.
I’m restraining myself from any more donations until after friday- not because I am being stingy, but because I don’t want to take away any of this cool “We’re making life more awesome for kids who need it” experience from any who are waiting until their paycheques come in. And I am sure Sars (and my wishful vision of her cats in tomato garb) will come up with more projects to fund.
If you haven’t looked, a couple of the BRII projects expire soon, so let’s hit those, huh?
“Dig This! Archaeologists Do” expires in 4 days.
“Learning from the Wall” expires in 10 days.
“A Series of Fortunate Events” expires in 16 days.
Should I be worried if I haven’t received my email receipt – or does it take a while?
Claire Danes, really? She’s donating?
Two hours in: $3,620. 36% funded!
Haha, I was just coming here to post about how good it felt to donate to my neighborhood school on the North Side!
This is awesome, I cant’ believe it.
Round II is now in the #3 spot, behind the first two challenges!
39% funded now, too.
This is making my heart go all fluttery and giddy.
39%! That’s what I’M talking about. I want to give a shout out to the people who funded the project from my home town — the reference books for Armstrong Middle School (Starkville represent!). :) Because that one was already funded I picked a project in my adopted home, Los Angeles. TN readers = philanthropic rock stars.
42%! And I just got the nicest email from the teacher taking the kiddos to see The Lion King and now I’m crying. Darn you.
I’m thinking maybe I should make a second donation to a school in Chicago..maybe it will send some good karma to the Cubs???
Katie, for some strange reason, my receipt e-mail went to my junk mail folder. Might want to check any junk filters you have enabled to see that it didn’t get filtered/deleted.
43%! Woooo!
I forgot to note that Zach called me earlier, and said that, apparently, people with Hotmail accounts are particularly prone to having problems — like, it’s not even getting as far as the spam filters for Hotmail users — so they’re working on the problem but it’s something to keep in mind.
Yay, Stephanie! I’m glad to know who else contributed to “The Wall”! I started that one off as my “additional” donation, and I’ve been watching anxiously to make sure others pitch in. That one made me weep.
43% at 3 PM Eastern! This is MIND-BLOWING.
Oh, so that’s why my receipt hasn’t come through… because of my ancient hotmail account. Hee.
And y’all rock. Woohoo!
I have hotmail. Should I email Zach or just wait? I don’t want to overwhelm him!
Is anyone else seeing the Tomato Nation homepage and comments in plain ol’ HTML (white screen, Times New Roman font, etc)? Have we so overloaded the server that it’s choked and can’t even manage the pretty red background? Or is my laptop having some sort of anti-Tomato-Nation hissyfit?
45 % at 2:10 CST.
This is scary. In a good way.
Wow – I’m torn. My mother actually testified in front of Congress during the Watergate hearings, so I grew up hearing those stories – I love that that era is being taught thoughtfully – especially with today’s political climate.
But, I also have a younger brother serving in Baghdad, so the “Soldiers Need TLC” is calling my name as well.
Guess I’ll have to do a little for both.
I’m in stunned amazement at the combined awesomeness of y’all. 45%!!!
People! I cannot donate until I get home because my coworkers will ask me why I have my wallet out on my desk while I type in my info and so forth.
45%. I think we broke the website, though. Any guesses as to why “Kindergarten Authors and Illustrators” is expired?
Thanks for the suggestion about checking the junk mail. That’s where mine went. Hope you find it, Katie.
Go Zebra Tales. Whee!
46%!
I had to donate to the hula hoops. Perhaps some child in LA will learn the secret to mastering them; I sure as hell never did.
48%
@Katie, might want to wait. I think they’re doing something on their end that will fix this across the board.
@mrs f, looks okay to me.