Happier news is available to students (who must be 18 years old by June 14th of this year) with some skillz in the Geekly Arts, though you apparently don't have to be a student of a specifically Geekly program. One of the participants in Google's Summer of Code ("Google's program to introduce students to the world of Open Source Software Development") is LiveJournal, and as a Mentoring Organization in the project, it has posted a page with suggestions for possible projects relating to LJ and Fotobilder/ScrapBook. (You can also choose from a large number of other organizations which are participating, if you really, really hate Brad or our step mom.) According to the Participant FAQ, upon successful completion of their projects, every participant in the program will receive an award of $4,500 dollars from Google (which has alloted funds for up to 200 participants.) An additional $500 will be given to your Mentoring Organization. Oh, and you also get a free T-shirt!
Students! Forget the parties and the beach and the tan! Spend the summer growing paler in front of your computer, writing code that will benefit me! If you come up with a successful project, I'll send you some cookies! Someday.