I got you these presents

Well, It’s that time of year when every website and your dentist has put together a gift guide, often a sneaky way to use affiliate links under the guise of “content” to earn a little extra end-of-year money. Last year I had an idea to write a newsletter where every single word was an affiliate link to something somehow related to that word. But then I found out that Amazon actually forbids using Amazon affiliate links in an email. Oops.

Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m a little burnt out on gift guides anyway. So I came up with a better idea for this newsletter.

Instead of listing the same expensive stuff you can find listed elsewhere but with my own personal breadcrumb attached so I get a few pennies if you buy it, I decided to get you some presents this year.

Yep, that’s right. The rest of this email is things I picked out for you. No affiliate links. Just stuff I think you might like since you like this newsletter.

Before you get too excited, none of this is physical stuff. We’re talking bits, not atoms. And I didn’t so much pay for them as I did make links to them. So curb your expectations.

Also, um, none of it is wrapped. Sorry. As you scroll, just pretend that revealing an item on-screen is the same as unwrapping something. So are you ready to virtually unwrap some presents? Let’s do it!

Since I know you like antique shopping

I got you Guess Me If You Can, a game where you are in a museum where all the artwork is taken from real eBay listings, and you try to guess the prices. It can be played solo or multiplayer.

It was made last week by a two-person team as part of a GameJam with the theme “Everything has a cost.” It’s very impressive for such a small project!

It’s a downloadable game, and since it’s not a formally published app you need to give it permission to run if your OS says it hasn’t be checked for malicious software. I gave it permission, but if you’re concerned then just skip to the next gift. I won’t be offended.

Since I know you like music while you drive

I got you Isle of Tune, a web-based combination city-builder and music sequencer, where cars trigger different musical effects. Like this:

Since I know you like The X-Files

I got you two mini-seasons of The X-Files that you’ve never seen. And you still won’t see them, because they are audio dramas, so you’ll only hear them. But they star David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson reprising their roles as Mulder and Scully. These stories were released on Audible in 2017, adapted from stories that first appeared in comics.

They’ve since been removed from the Audible catalog so they are no longer available for purchase, but someone has preserved them on YouTube:

Since I know you like to solve crimes

I got you Murdle, featuring a new made-up murder mystery every day. You get all the clues, but can you solve the crime?

But that’s just a warmup for your real gift. I actually got you this real unsolved murder from 1910, the case of English actor Thomas Weldon Atherstone who was found dead at the bottom of the stairs in his ex-girlfriend’s backyard.

He had the bad fortune of being murdered the same week as a woman named Cora Crippen. Her case got more attention and was solved (spoiler: her husband did it). But poor Thomas Weldon’s murder remains a mystery.

Here is an article from 1910 with lots of information about the crime. Maybe you can solve it?

Since I know you like late night TV

I got you Conan Throwbrien, a weird dice-based game where you play a late night TV show host who has to get a high enough Nielson rating for a special guest to come on.

Since I know you sometimes need a confidence booster

I got you the subreddit /r/No_Small_Parts because sometimes it helps to see that future stars had tiny early roles before they got their big breaks.

Since I know you like writing

I got you Typatone. As you type, you make music. It’s kinda hard to explain. And I suppose there’s a chance it will make you enjoy writing even less. On second thought, maybe this is more of a white elephant kind of gift.

Since I know sometimes you just need to relax

I got you A Soft Murmur, my favorite online background noise generator. Sometimes when I’m stressed, I like to put on a mix of rain, thunder, and waves, but you can mix several other sounds together and create the background audio of your choice.

I once dreamed of putting a dishwasher in my bedroom because it had the most soothing sounds. Now that’s actually a thing. The White Noise app from tmsoft has a dishwasher sound that I actually listen to when I’m having trouble sleeping.

Since I know you like weird old movies

I got you Something Weird’s YouTube Channel where they’ve recently been posting full length exploitation films from the 1930s through 1970s. They use the movie title cards as the thumbnails, which makes just looking at the video page an interesting exploration of early movie typography.

Since I know you also like less-weird old movies

I got you Classic Cinema Online, a collection of more mainstream movies like Abbott and Costello Meet The Invisible Man, the Jerry Lewis comedy Hook, Line, and Sinker, and the James Stewart classic Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Videos are embedded mainly from the Internet Archive, with the occasional YouTube video.

Since I know you like to laugh

I got you this YouTube search for Norman Gunston. Norman Gunston was an awkward fictional reporter long before characters like Ali G were doing awkward interviews, but unless you’re Australian there’s a good chance you never heard of him. Many of his interviews can be found on YouTube uploaded by different accounts, so a YouTube search is a good way to find a lot of them.

I’ll get you started with this Sally Struthers interview and see if you’re not crying from laughter by the end:

Since I know you like classic sit-coms

I got you Fibber McGee and Molly. It’s an old time radio comedy about a married couple. I love old time radio and when I first discovered this one it became a favorite. That link goes to the Internet Archive’s collection of 1,248 episodes.

But I also got you this episode of NewsRadio in which the giving of Fibber McGee and Molly as a Christmas gift is actually part of the plot.

So this “class sit-coms” thing works on multiple levels.

Since I know you like vintage ephemera

I got you the David Rumsey Map Collection. It features incredible high resolution scans of maps and globes from around the world. Despite all the maps, I can get lost in this website for hours.

Since I know you like word puzzles

I got you Gisnep, the daily quote game I made that I have mentioned in the newsletter several times but I’ll bet this is the time that makes you say “Okay okay I’ll play it already!”

Gisnep has a good number of fans who come back to play every day. But to be completely transparent, the growth has really slowed down recently. So if you’re a person who loves Gisnep, let people know about it. Especially if you’re, I dunno, a huge celebrity with millions of followers and a podcast or something. The game could use that kind of boost.

Aaaaaand that’s it for another newsletter! The best thing about all these gifts is that you can feel free to re-gift them to others while still keeping them for yourself. It’s a holiday miracle.

This is probably the last newsletter for the year, so I wish you all a happy version of whatever particular thing you celebrate, and a great start to the new year.

See you on the other side. And thanks as always for reading!

David