Monthly Archives: April 2006

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SaveChristine.com

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Back in February I wrote about my friend Jake’s girlfriend Christine. A lot of bloggers and readers helped out by signing up on the registry, donating money, spreading the word, and sending well wishes to Jake and Christine. We were very surprised at and grateful for the response. It’s really remarkable how much people are willing to help complete strangers.

It’s been a while since that post, and I owe it to everyone to let people know how thing’s are coming along. Unfortunately, things haven’t really gotten better. Here’s the latest news from Christine, posted to her site forum yesterday:

Well, I got my scan results this afternoon and they were not good. There’s no other way to put this. The cancer is progressing. My doctors even wanted to admit me to the hospital today but the soonest they could schedule me for surgery (to implant a hickman catheter) is next Wednesday. I will be admitted and administered chemotherapy 24 hours a day for several days on a different and very potent anti-cancer cocktail twice over the next few weeks. They want to give me a marrow transplant as soon as possible. But we don’t have a perfect match. The closest we have found is only a partial match with high-risks/low-survival potential… and we’re not even sure if this partial match is willing to donate. Unless a miracle happens and my perfect match signs up on the national marrow registry in the next two to four weeks, my doctors say that all I have left is hope.

Continue reading Scan results.

For more information on Christine, including the latest news and upcoming events, check out SaveChristine.com. If you are of Filipino descent and are considering a marrow donation, please go to www.marrow.com or call 1(800) MARROW2 to find the closest location to take the test and register for the national bone marrow registry. Even if you are not a match for Christine, you might be able to help someone else. There’s really no commitment at any step of the process, so if at some point you change your mind and decide to withdraw, that’s perfectly fine.

Thanks for reading.

Poker

Free money is free money…

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…even if you have to play 10x the bonus amount in raked hands. Another Party affiliate bites the dust:

Dear player,

We’re pleased to announce that PokerNOW.com has joined forces with PartyPoker.com, the world’s largest poker room.

To celebrate, we’re offering existing PokerNOW.com players a great ‘merger’ bonus to say thank you for your loyalty.

Now, this merger means that PokerNOW.com services will no longer be available. However, you will now have access to all the exciting games and services at PartyPoker.com. To make the transition as straightforward as possible, click here to follow the easy steps that will help you get your PartyPoker.com account up and running in no time.

For me, this meant a chance to move 80 whole cents over from PokerNow to Party. They’d just been sitting there, mocking me, safe behind withdrawal restrictions that didn’t allow for anything under a dollar to be transferred to a place where I could get myself a newspaper and a pack of cheap gum. The demise of PokerNow meant that I could finally zero out that column in my bankroll spreadsheet and go on doing whatever obsessive-compulsive thing I had next on my agenda. To my great amazement, Party actually gave me the $25 bonus. Woo hoo! And just when I was considering adding a few more bucks to my Party account to take advantage of the 20% reload bonus.