The Uncool Truth

Thursday July 8, 2010 by Kevin; reposted with permission.

Pepsi Refresh Proving Me Wrong

While I'll tell you that I am a realist, I know what I really am.

I am a pessimist. I am a cynic. Sometimes that makes me, plainly put, an a-hole of the nth degree.

When My Love told me Cure JM Foundation was applying to be in the running for $250,000 grant through the Pepsi Refresh Project, I told her not to hold her breath. A million other organizations would be applying as well.

When word came July 1 that the application was accepted and that the world would be voting on Cure JM's proposal online, I told her not to get too excited. Only the top two vote-getters out of 278 finalists would win the quarter of a million dollars. Cure JM is a tiny, all-volunteer organization created around a disease that only 3 in a million kids are diagnosed with every year in the United States. While its base is passionate, it's minuscule, I told her.

The odds of Cure JM winning, like the odds of your child actually developing juvenile myositis, are exceptionally and astronomically poor.

Seven days into the voting, the Make Juvenile Myositis a Memory application is ranked 13th in popularity.

Thirteenth.

Out of 278 applicants for $250,000.

Holy shiitake.

I need you good folk of the Internet to do me a favor.

I need you to prove me wrong.

You need to do nothing more than go every day this month to the Make Juvenile Myositis a Memory application page, click the "Vote for this Idea" then either vote by using your Facebook sign-in or creating a unique sign-in based on a valid e-mail address. Takes less than a minute a day to do and costs you not a cent.

If Cure JM wins, every bit of that $250,000, which represents about half of the money Cure JM normally raises in an entire year, goes either to fund research studies or to support the doctors and scientists who help children with juvenile myositis at JM Centers of Excellence" the foundation has help set up in Chicago and Washington, D.C.

Please lend a hand—vote daily, Tweet, Facebook, grab a widget (like the one I have at the top right of my home page)—every little bit helps.

If not to prove me wrong, then to prove there's hope for kids like:

Parker, diagnosed at age 4;

Gracie, diagnosed at age 10;

Mason, diagnosed at age 17 months;

and, of course, Thing 1, diagnosed age 2.5.

* * *

This is the video I put together for the application. You can spot me lurking in the background of one of the last slides.

{This is what Kevin's widget looks like. Thing 1 is Kevin's daughter.}

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As you may know, I'm upping the ante. Here's how it works. Register and vote for Make Juvenile Myositis a Memory. (The easiest way to do that is to push my button or Kevin's if you prefer. It opens a window and you're still on this page. Magical internet!) Leave a comment here or my original post letting me know. Violà. Like magic you'll be in the running to win a $60 or £60 CSN gift certificate.

I'm thinking of getting one of these just because of the race car design. Yep, it's a cat scratching and lounging thing. No, we don't own a cat, but it will probably work really well as something else for me to trip over. Blog fodder, people. I'm always thinking about you and am willing to buy crap I don't need just to amuse you.

Send an email or leave a comment every day that you vote. You're entered again! Wowzer! Right? You betcha!

So go on out there and prove Kevin wrong! His wife deserves the last laugh with all the crap she must put up with living with a guy who's so uncool. And no, that's not his real picture up there. He's even more uncool looking than that. Another burder for her to bear.

Sigh.

Peace.

The certificate can be used in any of CSN's 200+ online stores. They carry everything you need to live a happy discounted life—except electronics and software.

Linking up with Half-Past Kissin' Time's Saturday Sampling because I just want you to know how much this matters.