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We're just about a month into the school year now, and already we're on our fourth fund-raiser. The first was a quickie, selling books filled with coupons. Then came the two gift-wrap catalogs, one from each school (how much gift wrap can one family use? We're about to find out) and now, today, material for selling pies to benefit my daughter's 7th-8th grade band. This is the first step into the world of band fund-raising for my daughter, and I'm already a bit put-off because she was pulled out of class for a whole period to sit in the auditorium and hear about the wonderfulness of selling these pies. They better be pretty wonderful, too, because man, are they expensive. Eighteen dollars for a cheesecake? We'll buy a few, of course, because that's what parents do, but it kind of dampens my enthusiasm for rounding up other people to raise funds from. Perhaps we could sell them by the slice. ... Speaking of raising funds, the Web site VOTE or NOT, in an apparent attempt to bribe people to register to vote, is hosting a sweepstakes with a prize of $100,000. If you follow my link to register for the contest (which you can do whether or not you've registered to vote) and wind up winning, I'll get $100,000, too. That'll buy a lot of pie.