charity

Hey everyone!

Fall is upon us, and the 2012-13 Snowball race will be starting up soon, I’m sure. In the mean time, I thought I’d take the time to mention an event I will be participating in this Saturday, October 20th: Extra Life.

Extra Life benefits the Children’s Miracle Network Hospital of each participant’s choosing. Since I am from Syracuse, the Upstate Golisano Children’s Hospital was the obvious choice for me.

As an Extra Lifer, I will be participating in a 24 hour video game marathon, starting at 8AM ET on Saturday. I would greatly appreciate any contributions the Golden Snowball readers could give.

Online donations are secure, and those from my page go directly to the Upstate Golisano Children’s Hospital. I do not see any of the online contributions, and there aren’t any fees. 100% of the funds go to helping kids in need.

My donation page is here: http://extra-life.org/participant/PSUSyr5

Thank you all! 🙂

Over on Golden Snow Globe, I mentioned that I would explain why I wanted to forecast for Indiana, regardless of what conditions they’d have, this weekend. So I figured I might as well hit both sites with it.

In 15 weeks, Mario Marathon begins their 4th edition. The idea is simple, a few guys play games from the Super Mario series. The more people donate, the longer they play. All of the proceeds go to a charity called Child’s Play, which gives toys, games, and such to various children’s hospitals. Last year, Mario Marathon raised over $80,000.

Last year was the first year that I started watching the event. When I first heard about it, I thought it was pretty silly. And, I was right, but not for the right reasons. It simply is a lot of fun, and for a good cause. Obviously, you don’t have to watch the whole thing, as it goes on for a few days straight, but I’m sure if you like to play and watch others play video games, any time you spend there will be worth your while.

I mentioned that the event does not start for another 15 weeks. There are a few reasons why I wanted to mention the event now. First off, since this is a site that is really focused on the winter months (we better not get snow in June!!!!), I wanted to at least mention it when we’d get more people here. The second reason is that the Mario Marathon crew will be holding a sort of mini event this Saturday afternoon. They don’t have an official start time yet, as they will be testing their equipment before going live. The website is and you can follow them on Twitter as well.

Have a great weekend everyone!