UPDATE: I’ve created an installable Firefox Add-on that makes it even easier and quicker to vote for Rory. Check out the Rory Vote-O-Matic Add-on for Firefox page.
You may have already heard of the “Vote for Rory” campaign that is gaining a lot of support all over North America. The idea is to take advantage of the NHL All-Star Game voting system (that allows people to vote as many times as they like) to vote Rory Fitzpatrick into the 2007 NHL All-Star Game in Dallas, Texas. There’s more details on the Rory Fitzpatrick Wikipedia page and VoteForRory.com.
I’m already a big supporter of the cause to send this moderately skilled work horse to the all-star game since I learned of it this week. As a friend of mine put it having just learned about the campaign, “It’s amazing how much I care about this already.” But how can I contribute to the cause? What are my skills?
Nerd skills. So I wrote a Javascript bookmarklet to help people vote. In a few steps you can turn your Firefox browser into an automatic Rory voting machine:
- Download and install Firefox if you don’t already have it
- In Firefox, create a bookmarklet by right-clicking the following link and choosing “Bookmark This Link”:
- Choose “Bookmarks Toolbar” from the drop-down list and click “Ok”. This will create a bookmark on your Firefox toolbar under the URL bar.
- Click here to go to the NHL’s vote page
- When the vote page is done loading, click the “Rory Vote-O-Matic” bookmark on your Firefox toolbar
 {function exists(a, s) {for (var i = 0; i < a.length; i++) {if (a[i] == s) {return true;}}return false;}var x = document.getElementsByTagName('select');var a = new Array();for (var i = 0; i < x.length; i++) {var obj = x[i];if (obj.id == 'wwi') {for (var j = 0; j < obj.options.length; j++) {if (obj.options[j].value == '8459469') {obj.selectedIndex = j;}}}else if (obj.id != 'ewi') {function c() {try { obj.selectedIndex = Math.round((obj.length-1)*Math.random())+1; }catch(e) { obj.selectedIndex = 1; }}c();while (exists(a, obj.selectedIndex)) { c(); }a.push(obj.selectedIndex);}selectPlayer(obj);}var x = document.getElementsByTagName('img');var s;for (var i = 0; i < x.length; i++) {var obj = x[i];s = obj.src.match(/captcha\/([0-9]+)\.gif/);if (s != null) { s = s[1]; break; }}var w = new Array('crease', 'whistle','freeze','overtime','stanley','faceoff','slapshot','enforcer','elbowing','forecheck','forehand','backhand','endboards','offside','period','penalty','goalie','crease','roster','sideboards','slashing','zamboni','allstar','campbell','expansion','feeding','goalposts','linesmen','neutral','rebound','referees','roughing','scramble','division','tripping','whistle','freeze','overtime','stanley','faceoff','slapshot','enforcer','elbowing','forecheck','forehand','backhand','endboards','offside','period','penalty','goalie');document.getElementById('captcha').value = w[s];setTimeout("document.getElementById('ImageSubmit').click();", 2000);}) ()){kind=link}
Presto! You just voted for Rory! The bookmarklet randomly selects a bunch of other players but always chooses Rory for one of the Western Conference Defense positions. On a scale from 1 to Rory, how awesome is this? Definitely Rory!
So why are you still here reading this? Be persistent. Continue voting over and over again. Don’t give up. Rory wouldn’t.