This is...weird.

The weirdest thing is happening. I don't understand it at all.

Could it be that my husband is becoming a successful blogger?

I know, millions of people across the world spend hours in front of the computer screen, pouring their hearts out or documenting the results of an odd new hobby. But rarely are the blog writings of unknown people ever read by a large volume of strangers.

Here's the thing: Tom's been writing song lyrics for years and years. He doesn't write music, but in the past he's teamed up with musicians to create and record songs together. It's just been a hobby for him.

A few months ago he set up a blog as a place to keep a collection of the pieces of his work he likes best. Whenever he writes something he especially likes he posts it on his blog, and then he posts the link as his facebook status. As is the case with the blogs of nearly every unknown person in the world, he rarely got views. Months went by and his counter remained low. He had around 30 total hits. Until just a couple of weeks ago.

Suddenly, BAM! His hits are going up and up and up, and now he's got 137, just over a short period of time. His facebook friends jumped from, like, 60 or so to 517! Which, I'll point out, is a lot more facebook friends than I have, and I spend a lot of time using facebook.

What happened? Well, I do have an explanation. His blog was read buy some guy named Bernie Taupin who, for years, was Elton John's lyricist (Apparently he's written for current people as well, like Gaga.) It snowballed from there.

Every time he logs into facebook he gets PM's from some crazy woman who thinks he's a celebrity. It's very...odd.

Anyway, check out the blog that's making Tom a facebook sensation. (And leave him a comment. He likes to have his ego stroked. ;-)

http://lyricwiz.blogspot.com/

Thanks!

I'm excited. And exhausted.

For the past month the HPA has been competing in the Chase Community Giving contest, AKA HPAFTW. The entire staff, plus a temp staff of, like, a bagilion people, worked every day to get votes from friends and family. This past week a team of us worked insanely long hours to get the attention of fansites, celebrities with twitter accounts, Youtubers, anyone and everyone we could think of.

The contest ended this morning at midnight. I practically flew my vehicle back from Uxbridge in order to be here for the end. WE WON!

This wasn't luck. We won this contest, against 500 other Non Profits, because of great planning, management, and the support of LOTS of amazing people.

If you voted for us, thank you. And, although I'm sure they won't read this, thanks to everyone who posted on their websites.

And to the team of awesome, fun, full of DOUBLE RAINBOWS people I've worked closely with this past week.

Now I'm on to my next project. I'm going to be doing the play "Noises Off" in Uxbridge this fall. I'm playing Brooke, and yes, I will be going blonde and appearing onstage very scantily dressed. If you know the play, I'm sure you can imagine that it'll be challenging. Looking forward to doing elaborate stunts dressed in next to nothing.

Do it! I Know You Want To!

Hello Hello!

OK, show of hands. Who here is familiar with Chase Community Giving? Nobody? Well, neither was I until a couple of days ago. I think it's an American thing.

The HP Alliance is in the running for a HUGE grant from them. $250,000US.

What?

Oh, you didn't hear me? I'll speak louder.

$250,000US.

But Cheryl, what will the Harry Potter Alliance do with so much money?

I'm so glad you asked!

Well, you know all of the awesome and amazing things we've already done? Like the Accio Books campaign, which provided much needed reading materials to children and adults in the Mississippi Delta? And Helping Haiti Heal, which raised $123,000US, enough to send five planes full of life saving supplies to Haiti? Well, with $250,000US, we could do things like that and a WHOLE LOT more!

So, if you're my friend at all, you'll click the link below and vote for the Harry Potter Alliance. It's what all the cool kids are doing. :-)

http://bit.ly/hpaFTW

I wanted to post a picture of my Patronus, also known as Pit-Pat, just because she's so cute and I love her so much. Yay Pit-Pat!

Artistic Thoughts on the LOST Finale

I'm recovering from the ending of LOST.

The reason I'm writing about this is not to talk about my feelings about the last episode, but I'll start by getting that out of the way. I really liked the last episode. It was epic, moving, and everything we've come to expect from the show.

But I'm more interested in talking about the artistic and storytelling choices made by the writers.

**Spoiler Alert**


I don't have a direct quote, but Stephen King once said that it's really difficult to spend 500 pages making people care about a character only to kill him in the end.

I gotta say, the LOST ending was risky. The emotional moment between Jack and his father, and the reveal that the whole lot of them are dead made the impact on my that I'm sure the creators were hoping for. But what really sticks with me is the final series of shots. Of Jack laying on the same jungle floor where he first regained consciousness after the crash of Oceanic 815. The pan shot of the wreckage. The implication that there were no survivors. Ever.

The artistic style there was incredible, and heartbreaking.

The writers have always been incredible storytellers, and to choose a 6th Sense style ending took guts.

I'm not going to pretend that I understand everything. I don't know whether the events on the island happened and they all died at a later time, or if there truly were no survivors of Oceanic 815, and the events on the island all happened between the opening and closing of Jacks eye (as I believe the symbolism implies). But I do know that after six seasons, it'll be hard going back and watching this show knowing that the ending is so grim.

But I'll take comfort in the knowledge that, even though they're all dead, John Locke did walk again. Ben Linus found forgiveness. Sayid Jarrah found Shannon again. Claire Littleton was reunited with baby Aaron. Richard Alpert was finally set free. And Jack Shepherd made peace with his dad.

A Satirical Monologue, By Cheryl

Here's a satirical monologue I wrote recently. I decided to post it here, because isn't the idea of a blog to spread the word about what you're doing? I'm going to start posting my work here often.

So, read it. If you like it, please send the link to a friend! Love you all!

****

Something that annoys me more than almost anything in the world is when grocery store cashiers ask for money for charity.

It's not that I'm opposed to charity; I dedicate much of my life to activism, and charity is no small part of the work I do. How many times have I driven my seventeen-year-old daughter to the Petro Canada to participate in her soccer team's fund raising car wash weekends? Just last week, I drove her. It was the hottest day of the summer so far, and the air conditioning in my car has been on the fritz. I thought I would die from the heat, but I still drove her, didn't I? And while we're on the topic of my own personal contributions to the betterment of the world, I think my strongly worded letter to the town officials, who cut back on park funding resulting in the cancellation of the plans for the goldfish pond installation in Heritage Park, is also worth noting. So, of course I support worthwhile causes. I just believe that there is a time and a place for charity.

Grocery store cashiers asking for money is a different issue entirely. by asking each and every customer who comes through their store for money to support a charity, the store is assuming that everyone can afford to make the donation. Right now the world is struggling to recover from a massive recession. Unemployment statistics are still alarmingly high. Some people have had to sell things of value. My own brother, who was laid off from the Honda factory a few months back, was forced to sell his entire collection of Fraggle Rock toys from McDonalds, and he's been collecting them since 1982. So, as you can see, while a two dollar donation to the Heart and Stroke Foundation might seem like a small sacrifice to most of us, there are many people in our communities who are struggling to feed their families, and even a small donation is just not possible for them.

Think about how much money two dollars actually is. For two dollars, one could buy a two litre bottle of Coke Zero. Or a Snickers bar. Or a box of those great low calorie Crystal Light flavour mixes to add to bottled water. Or, in a really desperate situation, one could stand on the curb outside the store and use the toonie to bum a cigarette from a kind passer-by. Two dollars is a ton of money.

And now that I've pointed these issues out, it's clear to see that it takes nerve for cashiers to ask customers, many of whom are unemployed, for money for charity. So, what's the result? Unintentionally, those who can't afford to give are made to feel uncomfortable, or even embarrassed, while their crime is nothing more than trying to shop for food in peace. To just scoot into the store, buy their orange cranberry muffins and Perrier, and return to the safety of their own homes, away from the prying, judgmental eyes of the public.

In addition, not everyone manages to buy everything they need for the coming week in a single shopping trip. One person might visit a store many times during a single campaign, and be asked for a donation each time.

I'm a busy person. My job, at the risk of sounding slightly immodest, is incredibly important. If I weren't there to greet the Wal-Mart customers and hand out carts to people in need...well, disaster could follow. I spend all day working hard, and I rarely think to make a shopping list before going to the grocery store. The result, sadly, is repeat trips to Sobeys. When a checkout campaign is happening, I am often asked for donations several times. And while the donations are often only two or three dollars, how many times should I be expected to donate to Easter Seals before it becomes too much to ask? Am I an awful person for not wanting to spend two extra dollars each time I forget the Oreos and have to return to the store? To look at this logically, a two dollar bag of Oreos cost four dollars to someone who is forced into a charitable donation as a result of the purchase.

Don't even get me started talking about Girl Guides, hockey teams, and Cadets. They congregate in front of the stores, selling eight dollar boxes of cookies, or hot dogs, or apples. Saying no to these kids makes a person look like a world class jerk, but for an unemployed person, eight dollars would likely be considered too much to spend on a box of cookies. No to mention that kids are spoiled rotten nowadays. The last Girl Guide who tried to sell me a box of cookies told me that they were fund raising to subsidize a trip to Europe. When I was a Girl Guide we went camping in my friend's back yard. And we didn't need to sell cookies in order to afford it. Needless to say, I didn't buy any cookies from the jet setting Girl Guides.

Cadets aren't as difficult to avoid as the other beggars. They give out those cardboard tags that you're supposed to carry around to show that you've already given, so that the next group of Cadets won't ask the same people to give again. I keep one of those tags in my glove compartment, and take it out when I see the Cadets standing outside the stores ready to pounce.

The problem is, aside from Cadets, money grubbers in stores are much more difficult to avoid than homeless people who ask for money on the street, or squeegee kids who come to your car window. At least with homeless people I can cross the street and walk on the other side. With Squeegee Kids, I can rev my engine and pretend I'm going to try to run them down (and let me tell you, the little buggers can move pretty quick given the proper motivation!) . Girl Guides are surprisingly aggressive little bitches. They'll get in a person's face.

Undoubtedly, the overall intention of charity is good. As I've said, I work hard to support charity. But there's a time and a place for it, and I refuse to give to charities that try to force people to give at grocery stores. By singling people out this way, in many cases these organizations may be doing just as much harm in a community as good.

I have a super quick thing to blog about. I'll keep it short. I promise!

The non profit organization I work for is in the process of redistributing everyone into teams, so that we can each become experts in a certain field. I'm the Team Leader for Fandom Research, and tonight we had our first team meeting.

It was stressful, because we're at the very beginning of setting up a brand new area of work. It's hard to know where to start, right fresh with no existing goals. Everybody with their own expectations, but no real idea of what we're doing.

I was responsible for running the meeting, because I'm the leader. At the time, I felt like I was struggling through. I had made a list of things to talk about, of course, but I was trying to find a starting point for the group. You know? When you're about to take on a massive project, it's hard to know where to start. I felt...weird about it. Like, I wasn't sure whether or not it was going well.

After the meeting, the lovely team member who volunteered to take notes sent me the meeting minutes. As I read them, I felt WAY better about the whole situation. Looking back, the meeting was actually well organized, and we even managed to end it with a short term goal in place, as well as a slightly longer term goal! What more could I ask for?

My moment of insecurity is over. I'm back to feeling awesome again. :-)