Make a Wish kids: Good morning, Hank!

It's Monday! So Hank, you just got said hello to by several Nerdfighters, including Esther, or as she's known on the internet, crazycrayon! Hank, you know Esther.

She helps run the constantly updating spew of awesome known as Eff Yeah Nerdfighters, link in the Doobly-Doo. She also has cancer, which sucks. This weekend, a bunch of her friends got to go up to Boston to visit her and I went and visited with them for a day, and it was an amazing day of amazing.

And it made me really proud to be a Nerdfighter to see these relationships that began online in Nerdfighteria be so sustaining and meaningful IRL. So what'd we do? Oh we all wrote silly questions on this volleyball and then we would throw each other the volleyball and answer the questions, like I had to answer what color my underwear was.

John: The question is, what color is your underwear, and underneath that it says, PANTIES. I guess in case you don't know what underwear is. Uh, it's black with little white palm trees.

Esther: That's very...cute. Then we had to decide which Harry Potter Esther would be. She's a big Harry Potter fan.

More on that in a second. [Clip] Esther: I don't know who I'd be. Maybe I'd be a mix of Luna and someone else. John: Half Luna, half Dumbledore?

Esther: Yeah, that would be very beautiful. Then we tried to have a puff fight but it turned into a head-butting contest, as puff fights so often do. Esther: Yeah, I dunno.

Yours has a lot more shape to it. John: Ow! Too much, too much, that was a head butt.

Yeah, not good. Then we went on this insane adventure through the twilight streets of Boston trying to find this one place that had espresso and gelato. And then we all had espresso and felt terribly sophisticated.

Anyway, all night long I was thinking about how grateful I am to know Esther, and trying to find a way to like, give thanks for our weird internet-based cross-generational friendship. And then I remembered the first amazing night of amazing I spent with Esther was at LeakyCon, a Harry Potter conference. And after all, if it weren't for Harry Potter, I would have no Esther, and also there probably wouldn't be a Nerdfighteria.

Then I thought about the fact that Esther's a huge supporter of the Harry Potter Alliance, a charitable organization that Nerdfighteria often partners with. Like, remember when Nerdfighteria and the Harry Potter Alliance raised $123,000 to help Haiti heal and we had the SS DFTBA load up and go over to Haiti? Right, that Harry Potter Alliance.

Hank, the HPA is currently in this huge contest to potentially win $250,000 to dramatically improve the amount of World Suck they can decrease. The HPA is currently in 3rd place, but what if we all go, link in the dooblydoo, and we vote, and we tell our friends to vote, and they win the $250,000, which allows them to continue their work, getting books to kids around the world from the Mississippi Delta to Rwanda and allows them to grow the work they do advocating for human rights around the world. And also, it is a small little way of saying to Esther, "Hi, thank you for being awesome." I'm not gonna say that we should win this contest for Esther, because if I say that, she will throw up in the back of her mouth and hate me.

I think we should win this contest with Esther. So if you wanna give thanks for the existence of Nerdfighteria and the existence of Esther and the existence of wonderful boy wizards, please go to the link in the dooblydoo and vote for the Harry Potter Alliance. So please go vote and thanks again to everyone in Boston.

It was so fun to hang out with you guys. Hank, you'll find this out at VidCon, but it is so pleasant to spend time with people who are wearing your face on their chest. I'll see you on Wednesday.

Or as they call her on the internet, crazycrayon! I look kind of like I'm robbing a bank right now. How would you describe the assailant, sir?

Mmm, about six foot one, pretty nerdy, fair bit of puff.