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Good morning all, and welcome to Radio Free Monday! An hour earlier, except not. Is anyone else's body clock totally messed up?

Anyway, here we go...

Ways To Give:

help_japan and help_japan are two separate auction sites on LJ and DW to raise funds to support relief efforts to quake/tsunami affected areas. The LJ auction has offers and bids on offers starting today; the DW auction has had offers open since the 12th and bidding should be open by the time you read this.

momebie has let me know about a fundraiser blamebrampton is running for the Linwood College Orchestra of Christchurch, NZ. The Orchestra has been working for the past two years to raise money for a performance tour of Europe, culminating in a concert at Westminster Abbey on ANZAC Day. Prior to the quake, these predominantly working-class kids earned $150k of the $200k cost of the trip, but then the earthquake hit and there are no more funds to make up the last of what they need. This is an amazing opportunity for these young musicians, and I hope like hell they make it. There's an informational post here where you can read more about the Orchestra, with links to where you can donate as well.

Last week I spotlighted supercrook's post asking for help for Megan and Teja. They're still having troubles, but I wanted to pass along that Megan has a job interview the end of this month that would help her out a lot -- keep her in your thoughts!

piratewilde is doing the American Brain Tumor Association 2011 Path to Progress 5K Run/Walk on May 14th at Soldier Field in Chicago, and encourages people to donate or walk if they can.

ambersweet let me know about Tom Smith, a filker who is in a financial jam. He's asking for help and offering, in return for donations, access to a folder of all of his albums and live shows. There's already been an outpouring of support, but every little bit helps!

Help For Free:

aliannesecunda is working on a glossary of common fan terms for use in a class she's taking. Check out the glossary post and contribute your thoughts! (Fandom is, I know, contentious about definition, so do try to remain well-behaved. :) )

Ken and Catt, two very good friends of mine, are looking for gallery software. They've been using Coppermine, but would like to find something more secure and less clunky. They'd prefer a program for a Windows platform, and would love to have your suggestions in comments to this post.

ursula_bear is looking for gluten-free recipes of all kinds and any information people can offer on living with Celiac Disease, for her housemate. Feel free to leave them in comments -- I know we have a ton of GF/Celiac folks on the Cafe and it'd be a good resource for all concerned.

jonaht reminded me about FreeRice, a free site where, for every question you answer (about a variety of subjects) FreeRice's sponsors donate funding to the UN's World Food Programme, which works to end hunger. I found FreeRice a few years ago but was always a little wary of it, because so little information was provided at that time; now they have a blog and a FAQ and all kinds of good stuff, so I'm less leery about endorsing it.

myemmie let me know about the Doctor Who Book, an assemblage of memories about Doctor Who by celebrities, high-profile fans, or those who work in the television industry or have worked on the show. Proceeds go to ARUK, an Alzheimer's charity, so you might keep an eye out for when it goes on sale too!

Stuff to Buy:

Tomorrow, Candlemark & Gleam is releasing a new YA humor/fantasy Web Serial novel, Hickey Of The Beast. The idea of the "web serial" is that the first two chapters are free, and if you like what you see you can buy each new chapter as it's released, or buy a subscription to all chapters. (The book is complete, it's a solid bet; I have a reader's copy in my hot little hands and will be reading it as soon as I'm done with my latest Pratchett acquisition). As a bonus, C&G is running a...unique photo contest :D where the lottery-selected winner will get a free subscription and some goodies to go with.

Knowing Is Half The Battle:

adsartha has an eyewitness update on the goings-on in Wisconsin.

Interested in eBook media and the legal controversy surrounding DRM? There's tons of informative stuff at The Reader's Bill Of Rights.

Fun Stuff To Explore:

I am addicted to LIFE photo galleries. Try this one on for size -- the construction of the Empire State Building.

This Metafilter post is a list of links to Youtube videos of computer animation and how it has progressed, year by year, since 1989. It's a little overwhelming to look at each link, but it's especially fascinating to watch 1989 and then go straight to 2009 -- the 2010 vid is uselessly dark and the 2011 is low quality.

And this has been Radio Free Monday! Thank you for your time. You can always post items for my attention in comments here (or on any post) or email me at copperbadge at gmail dot com (PMs are kind of a bad way to reach me). If you're not sure how to proceed, here is a little more about what I do and how you can help. Remember, non-embedded links are love.

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Ad for investment firm, ad for airline, ad for airline, ad for oil company, ad for investment firm, and then, on page seventeen, GIANT THREE PAGE SPREAD for Viagra.

Wow. I can't tell anything about Fortune Magazine's demographic.

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I have conquered Trader Joe's groceries, and brought home tandoori naan, garlic aioli mustard, maple syrup, and brie. Well, I had to keep my mustard collection up to date, and I use a lot of maple syrup.

I've been thinking all day about this dream I had last night, though I haven't had a whole lot of time to write it down in a way that makes sense. Dreams normally don't, but I usually try to force them into some kind of narrative anyway.

Birds are often framed as companions of Death or as psychopomps, creatures that escort the souls of the dead to [insert your version of afterlife here]. Stephen King made use of them in The Darker Half, which was a pretty influential book on me as a teenager; in January I edited a story in part about birds and death for Hold Something. So I'm aware that my subconscious was messing around with a more archetypal symbolism than is usually common for me.

The idea of the dream was that I couldn't see Death, but I could see the birds that were sent on ahead of Death, and it was my job to catch them and make sure nobody bothered them before setting them free with the soul they'd been sent to collect. The upside of being the bird-catcher was that I got to say something to the dying person before they died, which sounds creepy on paper but was pretty nice in the dream. They were quite lovely birds, too, and I have a vivid image of holding what on research appears to have been a Brown Thrasher, actually feeling its heartbeat against my fingers.

Anyway, it was quite an interesting dream and sort of pleasant, really, even if it was basically about me meeting* a lot of people who were going to die. So there's that.

* Briefly.