So, wow.

On the final day, David Moore surges ahead with a huge donation which also takes us right up to the month's goal, much to everyone's (except possibly David's) surprise.

Cmaaarrr then stages a last-minute comeback with a number of extremely generous donations.

And then, mightymur, from out of nowhere, offers up a little cleavage and steals the victory at the very end with another huge donation!

I foolishly did not ask our donors whether or not they would like recognition for their gifts, so I'm not going to out anyone who hasn't been outed, but by all means, feel free to comment if you did and would. You have earned our great esteem.

I do not have the words to express my gratitude for the sponsors and the contributors and those who spread the word for us. You all did something amazing this month. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

If there is a better feeling than helping to save the world by way of some of the silliest goofing off imaginable, I will be quite surprised to hear of it.

In a few days, I will either set up a special checking account for the Fund, or transfer the portion of $3,663.23 that PayPal has to my personal account, pad it out with the portions of the PayPal fees we agreed to cover and the cash donations, and then write a check to the Breast Cancer Research Fund for that $3,663.23. So that there will not be any concerns of shady goings on, I'll give Kris Johnson access to the PayPal account and the canceled check so that he can verify there were no shenanigans.

For Mur, I'm going to throw together a web emblem indicating her supremacy of not growing beards, and we'll get Natalie working on her valuable prize. I don't know if she'll find a place to display the former, but I'm sure the latter will earn a place of merit. Let's all give Mur (and the girls) a big round of applause. I also offer special mentions of awesomeness to Cmaaarrr and David Moore for taking silver and bronze, respectively.

On the beard side, it was also a fantastic year. Most contributors returned, and we welcomed a few new ones. The beards grown were all evidence of superior manliness, and the posts provided many hours of entertainment. Thank you gentlemen (and lady!) so much for your creativity, insight, and willingness to make fools of yourselves for the greater good.

I also need to thank Kris Johnson for the inspired idea and for allowing me to make a web playground out of it.

The site is open year-round, so if you feel inspired to post an update or send in a donation, feel free! Further donations, like all the others, will go 100% (except for PayPal's cut—Grr) to fighting breast cancer, but may be deferred to be combined with next year's fund. I will see if I can get RSS cooking in the off-season so that you don't have to check the site manually to see if anyone has posted, commented, or donated.

Speaking of next year, late next October, I'll be moving this database to the archive and then setting up a new one for 2010. I hope you'll all consider coming back then and if you know of anyone to whom this sort of madness might appeal, you are certainly welcome to invite them. Perhaps we'll shoot for an even more ridiculous sponsorship goal.

Finally, if you've read this far, thank you again.