I'm Holding an iMac G3 Hostage For Relay FM's Annual St. Jude Fundraiser
Every year, Relay FM and its surrounding community raises money to support St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in their mission to cure childhood cancer all while charging patients and their families zero dollars for their care. This year, Relay and the St. Jude folks have deployed what I refer to as "sub-campaigns" for the overarching Relay/St. Jude fundraiser — individuals can set their own goals, milestones, and incentives all while contributing their funds raised to the amount Relay has collectively raised as a community. You can find out more about creating your own sub-campaign at stjude.org/relay, but first I want to tell you about the chaos I've prepared for my sub-campaign: MVO Woodworks for St. Jude.
I Hope You're Happy, Stephen
A few weeks ago on an episode of Spotlight (a members-only Q&A show), Stephen Hackett refused to answer which Macintosh in his collection he would choose if forced to destroy one (like he did a IBM PC Junior during last year's Podcastathon). I could not abide this act of cowardice, and so that day I decided to make that choice for him and find out what Macs were available at my local Goodwill for me to smash. And as luck would have it, there was one Mac in stock: a Flower Power iMac G3 in working condition.
I decided to acquire that iMac and exact my revenge on Stephen by...raising money for the charity closest to his heart. I've spent the intervening week and a half preparing what I think is a truly chaotic bounty of fundraising milestones, donor incentives, and a campaign-long donation poll to determine the fate of the Flower Power iMac G3. Throughout the month of September, I will be streaming from my garage woodshop at mvo.live doing shop infrastructure projects, making cutting boards, and effecting unspeakable horrors on Apple products spanning decades. I've gathered old tech from my own drawers and from various friends and acquaintances to create a menu of mutilation milestones so troubling that some may wish to avert there eyes:
| Milestone | Amount Raised |
|---|---|
| Turning a 1st Gen Apple Pencil into a 2nd Gen | $500 |
| Mouse Dissection | $1,000 |
| Making a Foldable iPhone SE | $1,500 |
| Adding a Hole Punch Display to an iPhone 7 | $2,000 |
| 50% Speedrun of Zelda II: Adventures of Link | $2,500 |
| Stream of Adding an SSD to an Old All-in-One | $3,000 |
| Permanently Uninstalling Flappy Bird off iPhone 4 | $3,500 |
| Apple M0110A Keyboard 100% > 75% > 67% > 40% mod | $4,000 |
| The Fate of the iMac G3 is Determined | $5,000 |
Milestones are likely to change or be added throughout the month, and not all of them will involve technological violence. That said, I'm looking forward to destroying some devices on stream for your enjoyment and for the kids (though, if you are aghast at the idea of one of these devices coming to harm, read on to learn about the "Spare n' Save" donor incentive below!).
Donor "Incentives"
The iMac isn't the only purchase I made for my sub-campaign — I also order 600 stickers featuring the wonderful Justin Hamilton's parody fair-use artist rendition of the cuboid image and likeness of Jony Ive (henceforth referred to as the Jonycube). What am I going to do with 600 of these extremely cursed stickers, you ask? Easy: for every cumulative $10 donated to my sub-campaign, I will be affixing one (1) Jonycube sticker to my jointer — a woodworking tool that exists solely to create exact right angles...or cubes, if you will. Soon, my jointer will look all too similar to Myke Hurley's desk or Stephen Hackett's Kallax shelves. If I hit my goal of $5,000 raised for St. Jude, that will be 500 Jonycubes on my jointer for the rest of its useful life. And the remaining 100 stickers? Well, one of those rectilinear horrors can be yours, dear reader, for a donation of at least $25 to my sub-campaign! That incentive and more are listed below:
- $1 — Your name in a "Thank you" blog post on Peer Reviewed at the end of the campaign
- $25 — One (1) Jonycube sticker, shipped directly to you (or a recipient of your choice) [Limit 100]
- $300 — You may choose one of the items I plan to destroy (Except the iMac!) and it will instead be spared and shipped to you. [Limit subject to change]
- $500 — You will receive one one (1) bespoke MVO Woodworks cutting board in return for your extreme generosity. [Limit five (5)]
Do note that the incentives for my campaign are cumulative; meaning, a $500 donation makes you eligible for all other incentives in my sub-campaign. You can also opt to claim the delightful Relay FM cause incentives instead, but unfortunately you'll need to make two separate donations to get both my incentives and theirs. Make sure you select your desired incentive when you make your donation (and don't forget to vote on the fate of the iMac G3!).
Sawdust and Chicanery, for the Kids
This September is going to be full of wild and wacky activities hosted both by Relay FM itself and by members of its community — all to raise money for the admirable mission of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. I hope you tune in to one of my woodshop streams this month (I don't have a schedule, consider following me on Twitch — I'll be working on a lot of shop infrastructure projects since we only recently moved into this house! Also, please kick in a donation to my sub-campaign and maybe get a delightfully devilish incentive — and make sure to vote with your dollar to determine the fate of the Flower Power iMac G3.
Oh, and of course: mark your calendars for Friday, September 16th from 11a-7p Central for Relay's annual Podcastathon live stream over on their Twitch channel.