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I won a heap of cash for the Starfish Foundation. Here’s how I want to multiply the winnings by 100 and reach a total of R1 million for charity…

Winning: not without your help!

First some background info (so you know where the first R10k came from:) MoneySmart, a site that helps you track your spending, hosted a seven day Budget Challenge competition in which ten bloggers each selected a charity and competed to have a R10,000 prize donated to their cause. It wasn’t easy and ultimately, with your help, I won the challenge for the Starfish Foundation. Click here to see the cool infographic

Why and how did I give the money to Starfish?

Starfish Greathearts Foundation is an international development charity, aiming to bring life, hope and opportunity to orphaned and vulnerable children in South Africa. Starfish believe that everyone anywhere can make a very real difference to the lives of these children. And I agree with them.

They also have an initiative in sync with the Comrades Marathon to raise R1 million rand. It’s awesome and it’s the “how” part of this story…

How are we going to get the million?

Raising a million bucks is not easy. So lets get one thing straight: it’s going to tough. But together with the guys at Starfish, we have a simple 3-step plan that anyone can get involved with in one way or another. You don’t even have to part with your hard earned cash if you don’t want to. But you can still make a difference!

1. Become a Greatheart

For people who are running the comrades marathon.

There is no excuse why you shouldn’t sign-up as a Greatheart on the Starfish Facebook page. It’s free and it helps promote the campaign to your network of friends.

If you’d like to start the Comrades just behind the professional runners, then you can try work your way up the leader board by raising donations to meet the million…

2. Support a Greatheart

For generous people.

I took the R10,000 I won and supported my Starfish Greatheart of choice, Tanya Kovarsky. It was simple. I just logged on to Facebook, visited the Starfish page and followed the simple instructions. And bam! Tanya is now No. 1 on the leader board!

The entire R10,000 goes directly to Starfish. It’s just linked to a Greatheart…

3. Ask corporates to lend a hand (updated)

For anyone on Twitter.

Everyone knows that if you have enough voices to help you shout a message, you’ll be heard. Well, we have loads of voices, and plenty of companies with ears (and hopefully a little money to spare for a worthy cause.) Here are a few suggestions I have to get you started:

• @MTNSouthAfrica
• @cellc
• @Vodacom
• @StandardBankGrp
• @Rbjacobs
• @IS_global
• @Afrihost
• @AXE_SA
• @FordSouthAfrica
• @SandownMotorsGP
• @NikeRunningZA
• @exclusivescoza
• @WOOLWORTHS_SA
• @numetro
• @MINISouthAfrica
• @NokiaRSA
• @wimpy_sa
• @sunglasshutsa
• @OakleySA

All we need is a message and here are a few you can use, just copy and paste one into a tweet and send it off.

Make a corporate aware:

[insert a company here] how about supporting a @starfishcharity Comrades Greatheart with #R10k? http://t.co/Fg011gY

If you’ve made a donation yourself, why not challenge a corporate to match or beat you?

[insert a company here] Match or beat my @starfishcharity Comrades Greatheart donation of [insert amount here] http://t.co/Fg011gY

Check out the conversation:

The world is full of problems. And as new problems emerge, so do new charities, organisations and groups of passionate individuals who want to help (generally by rallying for your support and your hard earned money.) Some are good. Others are better. That’s for you to decide.

I’ve always been taught to give charity. And in many cases I’ve been sad that I wasn’t able to give as much as I would have liked to give. Times are tough. I’m sure you’ve heard people say “charity starts at home,” or even said it yourself. Giving charity is not easy. It’s not cheap.

With that said, I still can’t find a single reason to justify the stupid headline of the blog post. Why? Because it’s utter crap.

You should give charity. And I have a way for you to do it right now, very easily. It won’t even cost you a cent…

I was approached by MoneySmart last week to participate in a “social media” budget challenge. They’ve given me R1500 to survive on for an entire week. And they’ve put me up against 9 other folks who need to do the same. Sadly my budgeting skills are pretty kak. That’s where you come in…

R10k to give away

Here’s the deal that lets you give charity for free:

1. If I win the challenge I get to give R10k away to the Starfish Foundation.
2. I can win if you support me because it counts for almost half the score (40%)

Give charity for free. Right now.

- Update -

I won!!!

The Starfish Foundation. Why?

Read this story…

One day a man was walking along the beach when he noticed a boy picking something up and gently throwing it into the ocean. Approaching the boy, he asked, “What are you doing?” The youth replied, “Throwing starfish back into the ocean. The surf is up and the tide is going out. If I don’t throw them back, they’ll die.”

“Son,” the man said, “don’t you realise there are miles and miles of beach and hundreds of starfish? You can’t make a difference!”

After listening politely, the boy bent down, picked up another starfish, and threw it back into the surf. Then, smiling at the man, he said “I made a difference for that one.”

The Starfish Greathearts Foundation is an international development charity, aiming to bring life, hope and opportunity to orphaned and vulnerable children in South Africa. They (and I) believe that everyone anywhere can make a very real difference to the lives of these children.

If you’re interested, click here to visit the Starfish Greathearts Foundation web site

PS. If you think you shouldn’t give charity, then I think you suck.

An idea as exciting as it is creative

Some guy named Mauricio Arruda is the designer-architect responsible for this ingenious House of Cards table.

Are you getting that these are not regular playing cards yet?

It’s truly spectacular because it just looks so damn real. Mauricio describes the process of production saying:

“To manufacture the table, a process of laser cutting was used. This technology created a perfect reproduction of a deck of cards in scale 13:1. Subsequently, steel cards were welded one to one forming a second‐story house of cards that serves as an under frame. These frames feature a versatile look to the piece, since they are capable of supporting different sized tabletops.”

Whatever you do, do not bump the table.

Each card is created as a single piece so they can be assembled like a real house of cards, where each piece is selected randomly. What a clever way to bring freshness and charm to a room.

Those sleek boys at Porsche Design are back at it with this simplistic creation…

It's not a hard drive. It's not a camera. It's a...

It’s a sleek monolith-styled torch flame lighter that will set you back a cool $160 (about R1000). It comes in a variety of styles like brushed metal, matte black, and even carbon fiber. Get it here.

Don’t forget to check out these Zippo lighter cufflinks and these bear-Claw Firelighters for the Seasoned Pyromaniac.

Most of the women I know have a bag that’s packed full of junk or a shit-load of things they ‘really need’. But they can never seem to find anything which is extremely annoying for me – so imagine how bad it must be for them? That’s why I figure this little baby will come in handy…

This will light up your life. Believe it.

The SOI happens to be a somewhat flexible light source that intelligently tells when you reach into your bag for something. It turns on when there is close approximation or slight contact and when there isn’t, it conveniently turns off. Bang!

No more constant hunting in the dark

It is tiny, but the light is big and bright so you’ll never have to miss calls again because you couldn’t find your phone or embarrassingly empty your entire bag onto a bench in the middle of a mall – pretty handy if you ask me. The nifty light will cost you $40 (About R290) here.

More for the ladies:

• The Most Expensive Nail Polish
• A Digital Photo Locket
• Paris Hilton’s Pink Bentley
• Seriously Hot Lamborghini Heels

What you’re seeing right here are two bottles of Armand De Briganc champagne…

Witness it.

But don’t get muddled up thinking the small one on the left is a buddy bottle. It isn’t – it’s a normal size bottle and, in fact, the bottle on the right contains 30 liters of what is regarded as the worlds finest bubbly…

Perspective.

This ‘Midas’ bottle, cracked open in Vegas club XS, takes the cake as this New Year’s top champagne story. It cost a staggering $100,000 (about R700k) and the cork was lifted at UFC heavyweight champion Cain Velasquez’s party. But it wasn’t him who fitted the bill. All we know is that two strong men were employed to carry the 80-pound bottle over to a high roller’s table.

Quite the spectacle!

At first sight you wouldn’t have guessed this is a knife – I mean it’s round after all, and that’s not exactly traditional…

Perfect for chocolate, herbs and spices

It’s called the ‘Chop Round Knife’ and the brains behind it, Paolo Lucidi and Luca Pevere of LucidiPevere Studio, claim that it’s usable with a simple design that sits well in the hand.

The Chop Round Knife comes in blue, grey, pink and black for $48 (about R330) here. I like it.

Just look at the new Johnny Walker Gold that comes with an “Ice Pillar”…

Serve Chilled - that's how they want you to drink it

Basically, it lets you freeze your bottle and then extend it’s temperature so you can enjoy your whiskey they way it’s meant to be served (for much much longer).

“To make this new consumption ritual visually conveyed, we have symbolized gold confined into ice. The Ice Pillar keeps Gold Label bottles frozen.” Denis Boudard says.

If we take a closer look, the inner box is inspired by frosted gold leaves and symbolizes the whole “Gold Label” vibe, while the outer box is transparent depicting the ice wrapping the item.

The slanting dynamics of Johnnie Walker Gold’s emblematic label

The Gold Ice Pillar is covered by a metallic gold anodized ring with embossed logos – it makes the product and the brand immediately identifiable and is also used for closing the case.

If you’ve heard that Jay Leno has an awesome garage, you obviously haven’t seen what Ralph Lauren has stashed away – classic cars is what the man pined for when he was a little boy, so it’s no wonder that he’s snatched some of the rarest vehicles in the history of the world for himself now that he’s a big success.

The Ferrari Room - yes a room just for the Ferrari's

Photographer Todd Eberle, courtesy of Vanity Fair, got the opportunity to snap away at Ralph’s museum-like garage in Atlanta.

Click here to see photos from the most amazing garage I’ve ever seen!

There’s a little bakery in Japan that’s been baking these awesome life-size iPhone cookies for two years. But recently, photos have appeared on Twitter and this blog, sparking huge demand…

Now you can literally eat your words

Originally, the small, local bakery made the cookie as a special birthday present for a customer’s husband. But thanks to social media, the $33 cookie is being ordered by hundreds of people around Japan (sadly it’s unavailable outside the country, so you’ve got to know someone who knows someone…).

Two months: The current waiting time for an iPhone cookie.

Perhaps there is another cake boss out there willing to try bake some for me?