Today we received a delivery. No, a courier didn’t come to the office, nor did the pizza guy. Rather, a group of Kotaku readers exploded into our head quarters, massive boxes in arms, yelling “MERRY CHRISTMAS!”. We were absolutely blown away by the thoughtfulness of the gifts, especially some of the art and cards we received. Here’s the organiser of the Kotaku Christmas Project, long-time reader and all-the-time wonderful person, Chuloopa, to talk about the cards.
Hey guys and gals — ‘Loops here again!
Woah! What a day! So who wants to have a look at some cards? How about two amazing works of art from Sughly and Dr. What? And a REALLLY long message from Blaghman? I know I sure as heck do.
After weeks of planning and hard work, the community all submitted some Christmas cards to our cause all as part of the infamous “Phase 3”. Some submitted their own cards, others were foolish….er…trusting enough to allow me to create a card with their message included! So this is your first chance to check out what I’ve done as well! Oh the tension is palpable!!!
Three of the cards were double-sided, those of Steve-0-the-dev0, Lambomann, and myself — that’s why they have two images. All cards were printed on matte photo paper at Big W and looked absolutely amazing in the end — I’ve had to drop the resolution on these ones, though, so I could fit them in a email to Mark… but for now, Enjoy!!!
And here are the two amazing pieces of art:
Sughly:
Dr. What?
And last, but certainly not least, an amazingly long and awesome message that was too big to fit on a card from Blaghman!
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Oh Kotaku Crew, can I call you the Kotaku Krew? No? Oh, well I guess I’d better not, I wouldn’t want to offend you, this is, after all, all for you. By now I imagine you’ve finally grasped the extent of effort to which Chuloopa went to here, and I hope you’re impressed. This is his love-child, after all. But again, I’m losing track of what’s important here, and that’s you. You know, Loops said that the artistic among us could create special cards for you, with two parts to them, an image, and a wall of text, well, they say that a picture pains a thousand words, so I guess the only choice I have, as an artistically lacking member of the public, is to write a thousand words, and a wall of text. Somehow though, I doubt that that will happen. We’ll see though.
Mark, I guess it’s fitting to start with you. You’re the reason I’m here today, you’re the reason I started commenting in TAY. Well, kind of the reason. It’s your fault you see. I’ve been reading this site for a long time, a very long time. In fact, I remember the days when Plunkett was the “Australian Editor” and KotakAU didn’t exist as it does today. Of course, I barely read it back then, but I dropped in occasionally, and over the years, the site grew, and I began to read a whole lot more. Then, suddenly, I heard from a friend “Have you heard? Wildgoose is leaving Kotaku!” I couldn’t believe it. How could anyone replace the Goose? He judged our Haiku’s, he dealt with those crazy people in TAY! I didn’t understand. I found out about you, how could this Mike Squirrels character ever hope to equal the Wild Goose? And then, just briefly, a wild Junglist appeared. In that time, I became a part of TAY. I joined the old order, those of the before time. In weeks of 400 posts, that seemed so packed.
Then you arrived. Like a magnificent, magical bolt from the blue, you turned up. There’s not a lot I can say about this. Your coming was like the return of Rocky, as he rallies to defeat his opponent, like Sigourney Weaver in Aliens, fighting off the Alien Queen of bad journalism. Suddenly, you were here, and everything was okay.
Truly, words cannot describe the changes that have been wrought to Kotaku under your leadership, and I can hardly fathom the effect that the site as a whole has had on me, since I became part of it. The community of KotakAU is surely its greatest aspect, and with you as editor it has been allowed to flourish and grow, into one of the nicest places on the internet. So, Mark, a toast to you. Have a Merry Christmas, and never forget the effect you’ve had.
Elly, on to you next. I pride myself on being an observant person, I am almost certainly misguided in this, but nevertheless, I consider it an attribute. I am sure you can imagine the shock then, when I first saw your name appear on Kotaku. I had no idea who this person was, this “Elly Hart.” Who was she? What did she want with my baked potatoes? Why is the rum always gone? I’ll be honest, some of these questions have never been answered, though that may simply be due to the fact that I never ask hard enough. What relevance does this have? Well, I am not the only person who occasionally misses things. The first time I recall hearing about you, someone asked in the comments how you’d enjoyed your time as an intern at Kotaku. Yes, they had confused you for Ms. Tracey Lien. Oh the hilarity, women on the internet? Of course this couldn’t happen! I should not mock this asker so, they were only being polite, after all, I imagine that if I ever asked anything back then I would immediately have cause to regret it. Speaking of being polite, I feel that I should compliment your writing, though I am not just being polite as I say this, I do enjoy your written work, so you should really do more of it. Some kid on the internet told you so, so you have to now! Finally, in the interest of resurrecting an old joke, I never received that signed photo of you, a point with which I shall forever be sore. So, to you, have a Merry Christmas, and imagine that I say something profound here.
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Amazing, everyone. Simply amazing.
xoxo — Chuloopa
A personal message from myself: I have only been here for a few months and I can’t say how grateful I am to belong to such an amazing community. As a writer you’re constantly wondering who is reading your work and if anyone even cares, and the Kotaku community has been one of the most engaged communities I have ever written for. So thank you for making me feel so welcome. I love my job!
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