We ran out on a little family Santa errand a while ago, and when we checked our email over a slice of pizza on Trendy-third Ave., lo and behold, a reader had pushed us up and over -- way over -- our $500 afternoon match for the Oregon Food Bank. Then another reader shot a thousand bucks to Ronald McDonald House. Amazing stuff, people, thank you.

We are now within striking distance of our reader donation goal for the day, but we're still 2,500 hits short of our 5,500-hit goal. Please pull out whatever stops you can to get us some more visitors. Tweet it, Facebook it, shout it from the rooftops. Would you be cheating if you logged in again from another IP address? We'll never tell.