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Good morning all, and welcome to Radio Free Monday! It's a glorious day outside, so let's get started!

Ways To Give:

fairestcat linked me to a a facebook fundrazr for Shayla Dunn, who has had a whole heap of impressively serious medical problems and is now in pretty dire dire financial straits.

Swordage linked me to sl_walker, who is offering mood themes, icons, and other design-related stuff in return for donations to their moving fund to get out of a bad situation.

bodlon is halfway to his goal for top surgery! He's accepting donations, selling cool stuff on ebay, and fundraising through Scentsy. Check out his post about all of it here.

onebrightroad wants everyone to know about the Cyborg Kitty Project, where people are offering goods and services at auction to raise money to pay off vet bills for a young kitty who broke her leg. You can check out all the offerings at kittycyborg and check out Mark's offering of a one hour massage here.

introductory linked to Kelly and Geena, who are paying off medical bills and in desperate need of financial help to find new housing after their Social Security and Disability benefits failed to appear. You can read more and find a paypal donation email address here.

priscellie runs a program called Books For Boobs (omg, that title, I love) which raises money for breast cancer research. She just posted a whole bunch of auctions for SFF books and autographed bears, and also linked to a sister project that supports the same cause, project teddy bear.

Fans Helping Fans:

brilligspoons is looking for two female roommates in Boston. She's fannish, and the place looks awesome -- check out photos and specifics here.

Help For Free:

regonym let me know about Portugal. The Man, a band who had all of their gear including their van and trailer stolen after they played at Lollapalooza last weekend. They're asking people to keep an eye out online/calling pawn stores/etc if any of their stuff starts to show up for sale. Some of it has fortunately been recovered, but they're hoping to keep spreading the word.

OrigamiUSA is running a program to hand out paper cranes at the WTC Tribute Center, to commemorate the 10th anniversary of 9/11. You can find out more and get the address for where to send your cranes at Origami Spirit.

News To Know:

bluejeans07 linked me to an important post about boxes you may want to uncheck on linkedin so they don't use you in their ad campaigns.

rm has a novella out in "Bitten by Moonlight", a lesbian werewolf anthology. (LESBIAN WEREWOLF ANTHOLOGY. Roll around in that awesome for a while.)

Just For Fun:

Dana linked me to Sophie Canade's Sock Monkey Project. I'm baffled and enchanted by it.

A gang of hoodlums led by dreamwaffles got drunk and watched most of season six of SPN. And they recorded their thoughts for posterity.

I don't generally go in for tumblrs but Sad Guys On Trading Floors makes me LOL.

kallaneboi linked me to an article about a Giant Fucking Diamond being auctioned off in Cleveland next month. It's got a fascinating story. So who wants to pull a heist? :D

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. 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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So I finished The Informers, another Bret Easton Ellis book from Coworker Crush. Man, that was a slog.

( The Informers )

Final Verdict: The Informers actually is what a lot of people think Ellis's work as a whole is. As with most of his writing there's a lot of violence, misogyny, racism, drug abuse, and social and interpersonal apathy. The difference is that his other books use these things to make a statement; this one doesn't seem to have a statement to make. There are a few good stories, but the book as a whole is not his most readable.

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I just realised that Radio Free Monday's one year anniversary BLEW RIGHT PAST ME last month. Hooray! We're a year old!

Radio Free Monday began as a way for me to fulfill signal-boost requests without constantly pelting you guys with links. It all goes into one post, once a week, and that way you can compare causes to support and not have to constantly hear about them, which I think is a good way to go. It has also become a way to celebrate Cafe members' achievements, like books being published, and clear out the spurious links I collect during the week.

In the past year, we have helped people get food to eat, medical care, housing, legal counsel, and jobs; we've raised awareness about causes from organ donation to animal rescue, and in a sort of subtextual way we've explored what we as a community value in a philanthropic sense. It's not really a secret that while I see you all as equals I also view the collective Cafe with a paternal eye, so I thought I'd tell you kids that I'm proud of you and what you do for others.

Also I was just reminiscing about that wank in 2004 which most of you probably weren't around for, where I did a charity fundraiser and got snotted at by someone over the definition of a drabble. I've been trying to think of her username for a good half hour so I can check in and see how Princess is doing, but I can't even find the fandom_wank entry with which to jog my memory. Good times, though. Oh, impulsive youth!

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I don't think I will ever be tired of A Cheaper World.

( Life...with coupons. )