Comfortdoc on Squidoo

Take a trip back in time. Relive the memory of Freddie Mercury and Queen in the Freddie Mercury and Queen - The Virtual Concert on Squidoo. The lens was created to
to raise money for two HIV / AIDS Awareness organizations, the AIDS Research Alliance and the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation.

What is a Virtual Concert?

The Squidoo Activists are raising money again this time it is a Virtual Concert Series. This is the second fundraising event for charity sponsored by the Squidoo Activists.

Pick a Group, Pick a Charity
Stage a Virtual Concert

In this week-long event, lensmasters are encourage to create a Virtual Concert lens by their favorite musicians and musical acts, for their favorite charity or charities.

The deadline for entering has been extended to August 3. Winning Lens will be the Lens of the Day on Monday.

Find out more about making your Virtual Concert lens by visiting the Virtual Concert Week on Squidoo lens.

Once you’ve made your lens, be sure to submit it to the Virtual Concert Series Group.

Music to Raise Money = A Good Time By All

It is with great sadness that I have to report that the inspirational Dr. Randy Pausch has lost his battle with Cancer. He died on July 25, 2008.

Dr. Randy Pausch was one of our featured SuperHero Project Lenses, for his head-on, straight-forward, entertaining and motivational approach to facing the diagnosis of terminal pancreatic cancer. If you don’t know, he was the Professor who delivered the inspirational “The Last Lecture” that was turned into a number one best selling book.

I had a strong feeling that since his personal web page hadn’t been updated in nearly a month, that things were not going well. I had been checking for updates since making the SuperHero Lens.

I’ve updated all three lenses that I have for Dr. Randy Pausch to reflect the sad news. This includes the SquidWho lens on Randy Pausch for and the SquidLit lens on the Last Lecture the Book.

We have lost a great spirit and great teacher in the passing of Dr. Randy Pausch, but his legacy will live one.

My thoughts are with the family.

A new group was launched this week, the Squidoo Activists. The activists are much like the Giant Squids and the Squid Angels (except we don’t get cool mini graphics next to our names…yet)

The Squidoo Activists grew out of the Squidoo SuperHero Challenge brainstorm of Squidoo’s Non-profit Organizer Extraordinarie, Anne Reidy.

Many of the members were invited to participate as Squidoo Activists because of our participation in the SuperHero Challenge or because they have demonstrated an interest in promoting charity work on Squidoo.

The primary goal of the Squidoo Activists is to do even more for charities using Squidoo.

Visit the Squidoo Activists lens to learn more.

Taking a different look at things today, I’ve updated the We Can Solve It lens and the Al Gore - SuperHero with his challenge to the Nation speech from yesterday. The Al Gore - SuperHero lens was created for the SuperHero project to spread the word about the We Can Solve It Campaign.

In his speech Former Vice President Al Gore called for a “man on the moon” approach to the solving the problem of global warming. He challenged the nation to take bold steps towards solving the climate crisis.

You can view excerpts from the speech or the full speech on both lenses.

I am glad that I am finally going to see Mamma Mia this afternoon. I need a bit of escapism in these dark times.

As I’ve been waiting for Mamma Mia to open on Friday, I decided that it might be fun to create a lens on how to Host a Mamma Mia Party. It’s a way for some of us who are a bit older to have some fun with this movie and escape for a bit to Greece in a romantic musical comedy.

In her blog, Anne Thompson noted that “this exuberant Greek Island romantic musical will play great to aging boomers looking to get away from the real world.” Mamma Mia is an escapist fantasy musical for these dark times. I know that I am looking forward to escaping for a few hours.

While I think that planning and throwing a Mamma Mia Party may be more popular once it is available as a DVD, there is still potential for pre-movie premiere Mamma Mia Parties.

The Themes that I came up with are:

Mamma Mia Come as You Are Party
Mamma Mia Visit the Greek Isles Party
Mamma Mia Wedding Party
Mamma Mia Dance Party
Mamma Mia Retro Disco Party
Mamma Mia Early ABBA Party
Mamma Mia Classy ABBA Party

I will probably be doing the Mamma Mia Come as You Are Party theme for Friday’s premiere since it will be the easiest one to do with the girls. Later in the week when we head up to the lake to let them play on the beach we might try a Mamma Mia Visit the Greek Isles Party and pack along the soundtrack.

I was surprised to see that I currently have three lenses in the top four at the top of the SquidFlix, the Squidoo co-branding that allows you to critique, review and rate movies.

My top SquidFlix lenses are

1. Ever After - A Cinderella Story
2. Mamma Mia! The Movie
4. We love Disney’s Enchanted

Mamma Mia will be coming out on Friday. I can hardly wait.

Top of Non-Profit

I also happened to discover that my SuperHero lens on Amy Jaffe Barzach and the Boundless Playgrounds is the Number 1 in topic for Non-Profits.

Mamma Mia is being called the feel good cinema event for the summer, or “Grease” for the older generation. For anyone who remembers listening to ABBA, this is the summer fun film for you.

I am *so* excited about the Mamma Mia movie coming out this month (July 18) that I not only made one, but two lenses on the topic.

We love Mamma Mia! is a Squidflix lens that explores the Mamma Mia! Movie. Weigh in your whether you’ll be seeing the Movie and whether or not you like the music of ABBA. It is currently ranked # 5 on the Top 100 Best Squidflix Films.

Mamma Mia! - The Movie, The Music, The Musical, The Song explores even more about the movie, including the connection with September 11, 2001 (9/11), interviews with some of the stars, a look at the Mamma Mia, the musical that the movies is based upon and finally the song by ABBA that inspired it all.

We’ve been listening to the album since it came out on Tuesday and they’ve been dancing in their “car” booster seats. My girls even wanted to take it over to Grandma’s yesterday to keep listening to it.

I’ve added both Mamma Mia lenses to the Favorite Giant Lens Contest. It would be great to have these lenses featured on the day that Mamma Mia comes out in the theater.

I was a bit surprised when I checked the Dashboard today to discover that I have four lenses in the Top 100! Considering that there are over 500,000 lenses, I am very happy.

Two of the lenses are from my Grief and Loss topics that have slowly been rising in the lens rankings over time:

Loss, Grief and Bereavement

How to Write a Condolence Note

Two of the lenses are ones that I created for the Squidoo SuperHero Project and have been featured as lenses of the day:

Dr. Randy Pausch - A Superhero

Amy Jaffe Barzach

I had to take a screen shot to mark the occasion, since it may not happen again (for a while).

I am hoping that the lens rankings are all sorted out now. I don’t believe it is a fluke.

The Favorite SuperHero Lenses have been chosen and are ready for viewing on the Favorite Squidoo SuperHero Project Lenses page.

The Favorite SuperHero Lenses are the lenses created for the SuperHero Project, submitted to the SuperHero group and voted for by visitors and lensmasters to the Squidoo SuperHero Project lens.

There were so many great Superhero lenses submitted to the Superhero group, that the top three lenses in each category are featured on this page.

Today the Superhero lens Amy Jaffe Barzach was named Lens of the Day. I am very honored to have the first winning lens from the Superhero Challenge.

The lens focuses on her efforts in creating Boundless Playgrounds. It was my 11th Superhero lens, submitted at the 11th hour for the Superhero Challenge.

Boundless Playgrounds is the first national nonprofit dedicated to helping communities create extraordinary barrier-free playgrounds where children, with and without disabilities, can develop essential skills for life as they learn together through play.

With this honor comes the added recognition of being the first of five winners of the Superheroes challenge for charity.

Even better, as one of the winners of the Superhero challenge $500 will be donated from Squidoo to help the next playground be built.