Merry Christmas. Is "Happy Christmas" chiefly British in usage? Sorry, someone gave me beer this year, and I'm sitting here in the middle of the night drinking it and talking to you.

If you've played Raving Rabbids then you're familiar with the crazy bunnies and the sorts of things they do and don't like to do. See all the mini games have funny names like "Bunnies don't like being disturbed on vacation" or "Bunnies are addicted to carrot juice". We thought these names were great and so when Ubi asked us to do something for Raving Rabbids we decided to make up a few of our own and then illustrate them as one panel comics. Thanks to Joe Pekar who colored these for me. He did a great job as usual. You can see our finished products over on the Rayman site.

I apologize to those of you who are not fans of the CTS. I know he's not for everyone. Honestly I think he's mostly for Tycho and I. He represents an opportunity to do something very different from our normal routine. I think of the CTS as a vacation from Penny Arcade that we try to give ourselves once or twice a year. We decided to pull him out for our Holiday special and to make it a little bit more interesting I'm going to try and provide some "directors commentary" regarding the entire life of the character. With each new page of the storyline I'll cover a bit more of the history of the character as well as try and provide some insight into the creation of the current strip. If you don't like the CTS I recommend quitting here. The standard Penny Arcade warning is in full effect today… This is not for critics.

Starting with The Last Christmas, we moved away from the low-impact recitation of "which games came out, mans" and moved instead to a place we once renounced: the murderous peaks and ravenous valleys of Continuita, "the perpetual realm."

GameTrailers just posted their video footage from the Child’s Play charity dinner and auction. They were there all night filming and doing interviews. As always, they did an awesome job of cutting it together and making us look great. Thanks to the crew from GT for covering the event and thanks for the generous donation from the GT community.

I wanted to point out a couple of people who are doing cool things for Child’s Play. First CheapyD from Cheap Ass gamer had a fundraiser over on his site with a goal of bringing in $5,000. Well he updated yesterday with news that they had actually managed to raise $10,285! All of my interactions with CheapyD are on Xbox Live, R6 Vegas specifically. It’s usually him at the far end of the elevator hallway in Calypso shooting me in the face as I breach the slot room. Because of this I had come to think of him as a real son of a bitch and one night I think I actually called him a “garbage fucker”. I was very angry. I feel sort of bad now. He’s obviously a good guy and he’s got a lot of very generous readers. So thanks to CheapyD and the Cheap Ass Gamer community. You're not a garbage fucker. 

The Wii's Forecast Channel just debuted, with the Internet Channel (i.e., Opera for Devices) arriving later this week - treats for that new or even lapsed gamer referenced by Nintendo marketing materials. I know instinctively that this person does exist, but that's all I know. I don't know if the Wii is a draw for that person long term, I don't know if there's a strong current of titles to maintain that person's interest... To be honest, I don't even know if a constant stream of content is as important to these shy, mysterious creatures as it is to us. I can tell you that the Forecast channel does have merit, even to the hardcore, but one must be creative in its application.

So the comic was late today and that’s my fault. You may have seen on the news that a good chunk of Seattle was without power over the weekend thanks to a massive wind storm last week. Parts of the city are actually still dark today but juice in our office is back even if the heat isn’t.

Emerging from the dim cavern of the Electronics Boutique into the fully lit mall, I blinked several times and tried to adjust. A single, determined bat still clung to my sleeve. I shook him off, as gently as he allowed, and tried to remember why I shopped for games in a place covered in lichen.

You can now get free replacement straps from Nintendo, but whether this is them admitting that they have done wrong or them taking out idiot insurance I think is an open question. In any event, there is a window of opportunity here for the savvy extortionist - one that could potentially incorporate an innovative orifice.

I used to be obsessed with the Pirates Constructible Strategy Game from Wizkids - if you have seen people putting together little pirate ships they punched out of what looked like credit cards, that's probably what they were playing.  Imagine my surprise when Sony Online Entertainment - a company we have been savage to, behaving much as wild animals would - not only announced that they were bringing the game online, but that all proceeds from the launch would go to Child's Play.

The launch day, coincidentally, is today.

We're grabbing the client as we speak - there's even a free demo.  I must admit to being quite humbled by their generosity.

(CW)TB

There is some kind of apology on the blog now, which... Whatever. I don't know if they want a gold star or what.

We were just made aware of three really interesting auctions, and since people can create auctions that support Child's Play without notifying us (via MissionFish), this was the first I'd heard of them. As a result, these things haven't gotten much publicity, which could potentially mean big savings.

Well tonight is the big night. Our Child’s Play charity dinner and auction kicks off this evening at 6:30. Kiko will be taking pictures all night so those of you who couldn’t make it can still get a peak at the fun.

Everybody heard, right? A Firefly MMO? I should probably establish firmly that there is no pre-pre-alpha of the game available, to put pistol-packing browncoats at ease. We were just goofing around in the strip, without even the trace particles of truth we ordinarily rely upon.