HEY! None of that attitude! 
Pledging anything at all is fantastic - $5 to $500! Don’t feel shy anyone, to put in $5 if that’s all you have free.
Yes, the current running total is indeed $1280.
Looking good folks! Maybe I will have to provide a talent show of some sort, to keep the telethon rolling along…?
Nah, just offer tote bags, mugs and Steely Dan videos.
Robin
Talent show, eh? Well, okay - if it’ll help bring in those pledges.
I would like to do for you now my impression of Mr. Tommy Tune!
TippityTapTippityTapTippityTapTipTapTipTap…… Hey! Where’d that big hook come from?
I really wish I could help more, but put me down for $20.
Total: $1300
(I think)
make that $1350
Heck, I suppose I could squirrel away an extra $20 for right now and who knows–maybe more later.
That gives us $1370.
I can give $50, so that brings us up to $1420.
I’m in for $20.
Now we’re at $1440.
How high are we trying to shoot this rocket?
You can make that an even $1500.
I’ll kick in 50 samoleans
we’re up to $1550
I’ll kick in $50.
$1600!
$20 from me.
$1620 total pledges.
Oh, and on Thanksgiving Day. How serendipitious (or some word like that).
$30.00
make s it $1650.00
Keep on truckin’
I spend way too much time here, but I’d never get a chance to talk to someone like Anthracite in real life. I’ll kick it up to…
$1700
I’ll toss in a $20, which to me is something like $50,000 Canadian.
Now it’s
$1720
Make that $1,740 – if I don’t have any unexpected car repairs or anything.
I can kick in 20 US greenbacks.
$1740 + 20 = $1760
$1760!!! You guys are all the best!
Now, as to the question of how much do we need: IMO, that is in dispute. The number given in the past was $40,000 for a new server that would be the “King Kong” of servers. However, myself and others feel that this number might be too high, and we have asked that someone who knows tell us exactly what sort of server, hardware, and software we would need to buy.
This is important to note - I’m not questioning the sincerity of the estimate, or of the persons making the estimate. And if they know me at all, they should know I wouldn’t do that. All I am asking is for the details of exactly what we currently have, and exactly what we need.
I am personally going on a figure of $20,000 as being the target number. Why? Because the company I work for does buy and install pretty large and powerful enterprise servers, that cost about that much minus software (hopefully software licenses for the current server can be transferred). Now, I could be way off-base here, but until I get some sort of detailed, official word that’s the number I feel ought to be the target. Even if it is a $40,000 thing, well, being able to come up with half of it via donations would still make a very big impact.
There is another issue - we are told that the Chicago Reader operates the SDMB at a loss. I am assuming that this is due to internet charges, maintenance, equipment rental, and so forth. Perhaps if we only get $10,000, we can cover a great deal of the maintenance and internet charges for a year or so. I don’t know. At the time I type this, we are at $1760, which is a pretty damn good start I feel. So let’s see what happens y’all? Let’s see if we can get this thing to even $10,000? E-mail friends - PM people - AIM people - get them to pledge even $5. A $5 donation from 20 people does more for meeting the goal than a $20 donation from 4 people. And 20 $20 pledges are fan-freaking-tastic! 
It’s too bad that I can’t post my erotica here. I would be willing to write a new story and post it just to get the pledge numbers up. Hmmm…maybe the Mods could be convinced that it’s for the good of the Board? (LOL - “UncleBeer - to save the Board, we must have more lesbian porn!!!” )
Una
Since I am addicted to this place and start jonesin’ for a fix whenever the site is down for maintenance, I’ll kick in $100. I hope I won’t have to pay this til after I’ve paid my holiday credit card bill, but I’ll consider it part of my Xmas present to myself if I have to cough it up before.
Total: $1860