The boys at “Penny Arcade”:http://www.penny-arcade.com/ make, in my opinion, some pretty decent comics, and I’ve always been a fan of Tycho’s writing. I’m not alone in my approval, of course, and they regularly terrify their advertisers the click-through rates they can provide. There’s a good reason that the advertising they run works so very well: they’ve built up a lot of credibility with their community over the last 5 years, and they play stingy with that social capital by only accepting ads for things that they think their readers will be interested in, rather than just things whose vendors want to get in front of PA’s relatively-massive audience.
This year they’ve outdone themselves, IMO, by spending some of that capital on a “toy drive”:http://www.penny-arcade.com/childsplay/ for a local children’s hospital. Just as the advertisers are blown away the success of campaigns running on the site, I think the “hospital in question”:http://www.seattlechildrens.org/ is probably reeling a little from the “incredible”:http://www.penny-arcade.com/childsplay/9.htm “quantity”:http://www.penny-arcade.com/childsplay/18.htm “of”:http://www.penny-arcade.com/childsplay/24.htm “toys”:http://www.penny-arcade.com/childsplay/12.htm. As of this writing, none of the Lego on the “wish list”:http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/registry/2W2ZGW4875AML/ref%3Dwl%5Fs%5F3/002-4534135-1405607 is available for purchase from Amazon, and I can’t help but think that it’s “not coincidence”:http://www.penny-arcade.com/childsplay/4.htm.
If you were thinking of getting me something for Christmas, you have your orders. They’re going to branch out and do drives for more hospitals next year, so I should lean on my friends at CHEO and Sick Kids’ and see if I can’t get them involved. I get misty whenever I think about kids in hospitals, and I’m “so far past misty”:http://www.penny-arcade.com/childsplay/letter2.htm right now that it’s not funny. Even in the way that a grown man crying is usually funny.