Lots of exciting things coming out of the generous minds of the great Pacific Northwest. First, Urban Honking, a blogging community in Portland, Oregon that has been compared to "a chic Fendi handbag," has launched a $1,000 scholarship for an entering college freshman. "We're giving $1000 to a college freshman in exchange for frequent updates about your first year in college," says the site's scholarship application page, found here.
Urban Honking founders Mike Merrill (the Human I.P.O.), Steve Schroeder, and Jona Bechtolt, the electronic musician--multi-media artist known as YACHT, didn't go to college. "We all just got busy," wrote Merrill in an email that explained that he instead "accidentally" joined the army, not knowing what he was getting into. But that didn't stop them from raising funds through Kickstarter.org to help ease the pain of buying textbooks and paying for weekend trips home for one lucky freshman blogger.
Applicants, this HuffPost writer first cut her teeth blogging at Urban Honking and assures you these guys are creative, fun, down-to-earth and supportive as anyone you'd hope to meet on or off-line. This is a tremendous opportunity to tell your story and help pay for college.
For creative people of all ages, who have an iPhone, The Beta Society in Seattle, Washington, a collective of artists who live in a Gatsby-style mansion on Puget Sound, has launched an iPhone app called Inspirataur. Need a jolt for your writer's block? This 99-cent app claims to work magic by flashing little messages and images to get your subconscious and conscious to play nice.