• Cindy is pleased.

Last year we raised $16,000 for the Portland Women's Crisis Line. In others years, we've raised money for Sisters of the Road, Resolutions Northwest and JOIN.

So the big question is: what Portland nonprofit deserves to receive a giant box of money under their nondenominational holiday tree this year?

Pitch your favorite local charities in the comments!

And don't forget about Marjorie and I assisting with your Clone-a-Willy project! Donate and win big!

Bid… Bid… Bid… Bid… BID!

And don't forget, Marjorie and I will help you duplicate a prosthetic imitation of your very own penis if you donate here before 5 pm!

HELP OUT PORTLAND WOMEN'S CRISIS LINE! BID, BID, BID!

As you may remember from yesterday, eBay pulled our Clone-a-Willy package from their site because it's apparently too obscene. I KNOW, RIGHT? Anyway, F-bomb them. We're taking matters (and clone-a-willies) into our own hands — LITERALLY— with this Mercury Clone-a-Willy Speed Auction™! Here's what's in the package:

Here's your chance to get four different Clone-A-Willy (cloneawilly.com) kits (including soap, candle, and glow in the dark) and a Clone-A-Pussy chocolate kit! Plus two "Tongue Vibe Quickies" (that's right, tongue vibrators!) two "Finger Vibes" (that's right, finger vibrators!), and one Personal Vibrating foam sponge (rub-a-dub-dub!). The retail value of this is at least $225!

AND HERE'S HOW THE SPEED AUCTION WILL WORK:
1) Below you will see the Mercury's "DONATE NOW" Paypal button.
2) Click on that and make a donation to benefit Portland Women's Crisis Line.
3) Whoever makes the biggest donation by 5 pm today (Friday, Dec 12) wins the entire package!

"BUT I DON'T WANT TO DONATE IF I DON'T GET ANYTHING IN RETURN!" You are getting the knowledge that your donations to Portland Women's Crisis Line directly helps survivors of domestic abuse and sexual violence. With state and federal government cuts, PWCL needs our help more than ever! We CAN'T let this awesome non-profit go away. It's far too necessary.

THAT BEING SAID, LET'S UP THE ANTE! If you donate the most, and win this package, I, Mercury editor Wm. Steven Humphrey and managing editor Marjorie Skinner will come to your residence (within a one hour radius) and "ASSIST" YOU IN MAKING A CLONE-A-WILLY CLONE OF YOURSELF. (Amount of actual genital touching is negotiable.) We are completely serious, and that's how devoted we are to helping PWCL.

And just to prove how serious I am… BOOM! I just put my first and only bid for the Clone-a-Willy package. I donated $75 (it's worth it not to touch your penis). So if you want this package and help in creating a willy from myself and Marjorie Skinner, then donate now, and donate OVER $75. The largest donation wins, and "bidding" ends at 5 pm!

CLICK THE DONATION BUTTON BELOW, AND PLEASE BE GENEROUS!

Will you win your Cindy the Erotic Pleaser pillow? (Remember, you can bid on any of the ten individual pillows!) EEEEEEE!

Will you win YOUR artwork on the Mercury's cover for all to see? EEEEEEE!

Will you win a date with the Mercury girls and a year's free admission for DJ Gregarious' dance night? EEEEE!

Will you win 15 minutes of one-on-one phone time with sex expert Dan Savage? EEEEE!

Will you tune in at 3 pm today for the special SPEED AUCTION for the eBay-banned Clone-a-Willy package? EEEEEEE!

And don't forget there are over fifty more awesome packages perfectly suited for any and all tastes—but they're all gone after 5 PM TODAY! As mentioned earlier… EEEEEEEE!

UPDATE #1! Did you know that the auction will be over and all bidding will stop at 5 pm tomorrow (Friday, Dec 12)? So… BEWARE! Make sure to bid high and fast, because your competitors will be sneaking in at the last second tomorrow to steal your booty! (Plus all the proceeds goes to Portland Women's Crisis Line—another good reason to bid big!)

UPDATE #2! The problem with dealing with eBay is that they're a bunch of goddamn prudes, and deleted our CLONE-A-WILLY EXTRAVAGANZA package from their site without warning. Then, when we tried to list the package in their adult section, they were charging our bidders $5 each just to prove they were of legal age! As Gov. Blagojevich would say, "THAT'S BULLSHIT. FUCK THOSE FUCKERS."
That's why we're pulling the Clone-A-Willy package off their site, and will be holding a super special Blogtown Speed Auction tomorrow (Friday, Dec 12) at 3 pm! Tune in right here tomorrow at 3, for all the fun details! We're going to auction this package off if it kills us!!

Every year Dark Horse Comics puts together one hell of a package for the Mercury's charity auction, but this year they went all out—donating so much kickass, valuable, and rare stuff that we couldn't even list it all in the paper. The package is currently going for $152.50, which isn't too bad, but... FUCKING A, have you guys not realized how much amazing stuff is in this package? It's worth like $500!

The whole list is here, but one of the coolest things in this package—in my humble opinion—is the first issue of Umbrella Academy: Apocalypse Suite, signed by writer Gerard Way (who also happens to be in a somewhat popular band you might've heard of). The fantastic Umbrella Academy is one of my favorite comics at the moment—I mean, look at that panel I posted above! it's little kids! fighting the Eiffel Tower!—which is great, 'cause there are a slew of trade collections in the package too, headed up by Umbrella Academy but also including three excellent Buffy the Vampire Slayer collections, collections of Fray, Serenity, and Hellboy, hardcover editions of Wondermark and Achewood, and more. Plus: toys, figures, candles, buttons, a DVD, a t-shirt, and even a goddamn Buffy the Vampire Slayer Ouija board. NOW YOU CAN FINALLY ASK ANYA HOW SHE'S BEEN DOING SINCE SHE UNCEREMONIOUSLY GOT CHOPPED IN HALF IN THE SERIES FINALE.

Anyway, bid away, Blogtown readers. Selfish admission: Every year I bid on the Dark Horse package, and while I'm inevitably disappointed when the bidding rises above the balance in my checking account, it's still a pretty kickass feeling to realize how much money is going to charity because of it. It'd be great to win this thing, but it'd make me feel even better if I got outbid, if that makes any sense.

However, I know there are still folks out there whose lives will be unfulfilled if they don't get a chance to hear Matt's crooning. So here's my second offer:

Make a bid on any item, or make a direct donation to the Portland Women's Crisis Line, and send me the proof (a screenshot of your eBay bid confirmation, a forward of the emailed bid confirmation, a receipt from PayPal for a direct donation). I'll keep your info confidential, and I'll promptly email you the two and a half minute mp3 of Davis' performance.

There are still 31 items going for less than $100. And I bet most of the items have a high bidder that's willing to pay far more than the current going price--so you may be outbid. But you'll still get your limited edition Davis mp3. (Full disclosure: it's not the highest quality, obviously, as it was recorded in a karaoke booth. But it's Matt Davis! Singing!)

Your new deadline: Noon on Tuesday. Bid. And email me.

Plus, there are tons of great deals left. Check out these beauties!

LEANNE MARSHALL'S PROJECT RUNWAY DRESS! Currently bidding at $51, this super cute dress not only looks good in the picture, in real life it looks GORGE. Buy it for your sweetie, and she'll have bragging rights all year!

Another great deal is DAN SAVAGE SOLVES YOUR PROBLEMS, in which you get 15 unfettered minutes of one-on-one telephone talk time to the master of advice himself! Get your most pressing problem solved quick! Ask him personal questions! Argue with him about same-sex marriage! WE DON'T CARE! It's for charity! And gulp! As of right now, it's only $9.50!

And if you have a friend who's even vaguely interested in comics, please get 'em to check out our DARKHORSE NERDGASM PACKAGE! Currently going for a measly $56, this truly awe-inspiring package would ordinarily be worth $500 easy. Are you freaking kidding me? Even if you hate comics, you'd make a killing reselling this stuff on eBay! What do I care? As long as the Crisis Line gets its dough, I'm happy.

So we've got a super limited edition of "CINDY THE EROTIC PLEASER" PILLOWS (only ten, individually listed -- click on "Browse by Title" to find 'em all quick), and one of them is still going for only $1.99! WTF?? Snap one of these suckers up for a present that will never, ever, NEVER be forgotten!

So what are you waiting for? Start snatching up the gifts of a lifetime, and feel like a goddamn saint while you're doing it! AUCTION ENDS A WEEK FROM TODAY AT 5 PM.

You know you want to hear it.

I'll make you all a deal that's making Davis squirm: The online charity auction has raised, as of right now, $5,600.

If it hits $7,000 by 5 pm today--that's in three hours--I'll post all two and a half minutes of Davis' crooning.

Bid on any item, here. Or, chip in a donation directly to the Portland Women's Crisis Line here--and I'll count it towards our $7K goal.

Because nobody does it beeeeettttterrrrrrr than Blogtown readers...

Got a hot story that you'd like us to dig into? Name your topic, and the Mercury's crack team of news reporters will pull up records, pin down experts, investigate every angle, and report our findings in an upcoming news section. We'll pull out all the stops to get to the truth (no refunds, however, if it's not quite the answer you were hoping for). Certain journalistic ethics and all libel standards apply.

Currently going at the bargain price of $47.98. So get to it. All proceeds benefit the Portland Women's Crisis Line.

Buying a gift for an audiophile isn't always as easy as getting them a Sam Goody gift card. So that is why we have assembled the ultimate package of musical awesomeness for our annual charity auction. This package towers above anything else we have ever attempted, and to be honest, it's pretty ridiculous.

1. You'll get a pair of badges to SXSW (a $1,390 value). Not wristbands, but badges. The real, front of the damn line, deal. It's the greatest week of music on the planet, and now you can see it all like some fancy-pants VIP. Lines? What lines? Those are for suckers without badges. You'll have to get yourself to Austin, but sites like this make that very possible for very cheap.
2. You and your special someone can get all smoochy-smoochy with dinner for two at the Doug Fir Restaurant and a pair of passes to a show of your choice.
3. Head on over to The Fix (every Thursday at the Someday Lounge), because Lifesavas' turntable wizard DJ Rev Shines is going to give you an hour-long DJ lesson behind the decks.
4. Now that you have mastered the turntable, time to stock up with a $75 gift certificate to Music Millennium.
5. Reward yourself with a freakin' huge mountain of music. This seriously ginormous collection--with over 30 CDs and a dozen LPs--is listed after the jump, and includes the My Morning Jacket LP boxset, signed goodies from Mudhoney, and tons more.

Total estimated cost of this package: $40 billion dollars. Okay, maybe I'm a little off (it's probably around $2000), but it's a bargain and you better pry open your wallet and bid now, and bid often.

Like the package featuring a new bike from River City Cycles, a bike ride with BikePortland's Jonathan Maus, and lunch with Mayor-elect Sam Adams at the Little Red Bike Cafe? It's at $632 as of this posting.

That's fantastic. Want to know why? Because the Portland Women's Crisis Line gets all that cash.

With $500, they can fund 40 hours of response to their crisis line. $1000 "funds two long distance Danger to Safety" transportation vouchers. In smaller terms, $7 is the cost to fund a single crisis line call. (If you aren't the bidding type, why not give $7 right now directly to PWCL? Or how about $50, which provides 15 hours of on-call sexual assault advocacy--i.e., people ready to meet survivors at the hospital or police station, any time of the day or night. Plus, you'll get a Mercury tiger t-shirt.)

If we can raise $10,000--and I think we can, if past years' generosity is any indication--PWCL can provide "200 nights of emergency housing when local domestic violence shelters are full." And those shelters are often full, PWCL's executive director Rebecca Nickels tells me. They've seen a jump in how often the shelters are full, since July 2007.

Bonus: Up to $10,000 in donations via the auction will be matched by the Collins Foundation Empowerment Challenge. And there are still tons of deals to be had, like Steve's favorite Cindy the Erotic Pleaser pillows, and the Narcissist package ("your name or face on every single page of an issue of the Mercury! An entire issue! Your name or face! Every stinking page!")--both just $1.99 at the moment.

But now you can be generous and have fun with our Mercury Online Charity Auction, which features over 50 jam-packed packages of absolute awesomeness. You can win free advice from Dan Savage, a chit-chat and drinks with Storm Large, a trip to Seattle, SXSW passes and music out the wazoo, an amazing package of comics and swag from Dark Horse, and so much more!
But here's my absolute fave auction item...

THE "CINDY THE EROTIC PLEASER" PILLOW!

Everybody in Portland knows Cindy! (If not, you'll see her picture in the back pages of the Mercury every week.) Now you can be the envy of practically everyone with this limited-edition "Cindy the Erotic Pleaser" pillow. This ready-to-cuddle-with pillow is embossed with the lovely reclining image of Cindy as taken by professional photographer Scott Jackson. BUT HERE'S THE THING: There are only 10 of these puppies in existence, and we're auctioning off each of them individually. Once they're gone? THEY'RE GONE FOREVER. Don't miss the collectible (or perfect gift) of a lifetime!

Remember, you only have until FRIDAY, DECEMBER 12 at 5 PM to make your bids! So bid early and check back often. Remember: 'TIS THE SEASON TO BE GENEROUS! So please bid big, have fun, and excuse me while I take a little nappy. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ....