Merry Clickmas
Posted: Wednesday, November 29, 2006 10:49 AM by Will Femia
I caught the Charlie Brown Christmas show last night and remembered that Linus is the original Lisa Simpson (unless there's an original Linus I'm not thinking of). The fact that the issue of over-commercialization of Christmas hasn't changed since the 70s 60s is a little depressing. It also made me think of seasonal traditions that are beginning to shape up online:
- Speaking of Charlie Brown Christmas, the Hey Ya mashup is back in circulation this year.
- How old is this snowball throwing game, Snowcraft? Since before 2000 I think. (Thanks also to Maureen for the reminder.)
- Remember this guy with his interactive Christmas lights display? "Use the christmas webcams to view live images of 15,000 christmas lights and also CONTROL them."
- And how soon before we see the Christmas lights set to music back in the viral circuit?
- For some reason I remember the snowflake maker having a bigger interface, but this one I plucked from Gael is for a good cause.
- The yellow snow writer is in questionable taste, but also part of the season's panoply. This is probably a more acceptable way to write your name in the snow.
- Have you clicked any that I'm leaving out?
And speaking of online Christmas traditions, I wonder if this will be a lasting event: "You won't need to be in New York this year to attend NBC Universal's annual Christmas tree lighting at Rockefeller Center." They're also doing a virtual lighting in Second Life.
I can't get the virtual tree to work, but maybe it's not on yet. (UPDATE: Hmmm... I wonder what that registration link is about. Do you have to register for the lighting or is that just regular Second Life registration?) I'm going to be otherwise engaged when this event happens, but if anyone attends, let me know what it's like.
UPDATE: This is beginning to turn into a winter-themed links list rather than Christmas tradition links list, but that's OK. In addition to what's been added in comments, here are a few others:
Kathy wrote in to request Elf Bowling. I only find this as a download, but it's very small and didn't set off any alarms on my computer so I think it's benign.
Line Rider has a winter theme, so let's put it on the list of link that could become traditional winter links. Note that this link is sort of a bootleg of the original. The menu on the left lets you play this one (with a few extra features) or the original.
Speaking of winter themes, Yeti sports games are probably the ultimate in free viral snowy games. The site now requires registration, but the "quick registration" is genuinely quick and you can play all of them online so there are no odd downloads.
How about this for a Christmas click: The Nutcracker Suite played exclusively on bicycle parts.
Jennifer sends the larger version of the snowflake maker that I remembered.
(I don't know why some of the links lately aren't showing up as clickable. I'm going to make linked text bold until we figure out what's going on.)
