My gifts to you for 2025

You may recall that last year, instead of publishing a gift guide full of affiliate links like every other newsletter, I got you some presents. They weren’t physical gifts, just things you could experience through the magic of the internet that I thought you might like. I’ve decided to do it again. And the best part is that you don’t need to wait until Christmas morning to unwrap them. You can go ahead and open them now.

Since you read this newsletter, I know you like some of the same weird things I do. So I got you gifts with some of your strange preferences in mind.

Since I Know You Like Vintage Horror

I got you The Mummy and the Monkey. It’s a small YouTube channel that does a weekly livestream of a classic horror movie, hosted by two characters named Janet Decay (the mummy) and Grimm Gorri (the monkey) in the same spirit as old TV horror hosts like Elvira and Svengoolie.

The format follows those old shows: They do some intro banter, play the movie, and after occasional commercial breaks (showing vintage TV ads) they come back to share a bit of trivia about the movie or do a skit before returning to the program.

It appears to be a labor of love. They only have around 6,500 subscribers despite the fact that they’ve been doing this for more than ten years. But sometimes the number of subscribers isn’t as important as who those subscribers are and how passionate they are about what you’re doing [I say as I glance at my newsletter subscriber count].

Janet Decay is played by Janet Jay, an actor/model who began hosting horror movies on public access in Cleveland before she met James Harmon, who was doing something similar in Rhode Island as a monkey-costumed character. Now they’re married, living in Cleveland, doing this show together. (Only the performers are married. The mummy and the monkey are just friends.)

Since I Know You Like Comedy

I got you the Internet Archive’s collection of humor magazines.

It features thousands of issues of MAD, Cracked, National Lampoon, vintage issues of Judge, Ballyhoo, Capt. Billy’s Whiz Bang, the unfortunately-named Trump magazine and so much more. You’ll love going through them. And there’s even a fascinating collection of appearances of Alfred E. Neuman before he was the face of MAD!

Since I Know You Like Practical Special Effects

I got you this article from 1910 about how early movie effects people made illusions on film way before CGI and how they had to keep getting better and better as audiences became savvy:

Tricks popular a few years ago are being abandoned. Sophisticated audiences demand that the ideas be worked out in a logical way. This forced the manufacturers to drop the obvious or merely ingenious... The result has been that the tricks of the moving picture man have progressed to a point of mechanical complexity that is amazing to the layman, and have developed ideas worthy of a skilled dramatist or novelist.

Since I Know You Like Alex Winter

I got you every episode of his short-lived TV show The Idiot Box, a sketch comedy series that Alex Winter made for MTV shortly after he starred as Bill S. Preston, Esq. in Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure.

The show was a mix of music videos and sketches. There were only six episodes, and once you take out the videos, you’re left with this hour of comedy uploaded a couple years ago to the official Vimeo channel for Alex Winter’s company Trouper Productions:

Since I Know You Like Songs About Rats

I got you cover versions of the song “Ben.”

You already know this, of course, so this explanation is for everyone else: There was a movie in 1971 called Willard about a guy who befriends a bunch of rats, particularly one rat named Ben. There was a sequel a year later called Ben where the rat from the first movie becomes friends with a sick kid with a heart condition. These were horror movies, in case that wasn’t clear. But Michael Jackson recorded a tender song for the sequel that’s a sort of love song addressed to Ben. The rat.

This gift is an article at CoverMeSongs.com about the history of cover versions of this song. So now you can hear it sung by Crispin Glover (for the 2003 remake of Willard), by a six year old British girl (for a talent competition show), by Donny Osmond (for whom the song was originally written), and by The Brady Bunch star Maureen McCormick (for some reason).

Since I Know You Like Cartoons

I got you Disney In The Public Domain, a YouTube channel posting every Disney short as it becomes public domain. It’s not the only channel I’ve seen do this, but it does appear to be the most complete, and I like how the videos are organized in categories.

On reddit, the channel owner who goes by WeaknessOtherwise878 explained last year that of the 82 videos he uploaded, he got copyright claims on 17 of them. He noted, “Surely I’ll win every single one of them, due to proving the public domain status of each.”

He just announced that he has every short from 1930 that’s due to become public domain on January 1, 2026 ready to go:

Every 1930 Short will slowly release on that channel on January 1st, 2026 between 12 AM at 1:45 AM EST, one every 5 minutes to give enough time to watch each and enjoy them as they come out.

Since I Know You Like Stale Websites

I got you the late Swiss artist and Alien designer H.R. Giger’s website. It has barely changed since it went online around 25 years ago and still looks like this:

Yep, it even still uses frames for the navigation menu! If you explore, you’ll eventually come across the QuickTime VR tour of the Giger Museum, but the website warns you that because some QTVR files are as large as 180 KBites, “downloading will take some time.”

There’s also a FAQ, which includes answers to questions like:

WHEN SHOULD FANS CONTACT GIGER’S AGENT?

Hardly ever. But fans being fans and not always prone to listening to reason, they will do whatever they want, regardless of the advice given here.

And if you check your stocking, you’ll see I also got you the companion website called The Little Giger Page, which is similarly undesigned:

But interestingly, the link to the Giger Museum shop shows that someone is still updating the content, if not the design, with this unfortunate sign of the times:

Since I Know You Like Online Games

I got you Andy Baio’s list of his favorite web games of 2025. There are a few games here that I already play, plus a bunch of new favorites I’d never heard of. Check them out and be sure to scroll down to his reply where he added a bonus 11th game.

Hey, speaking of web games, what a coincidental opportunity this is to plug my own web games. Last year I launched Gisnep, which has just posted its 500th puzzle. So if you haven’t played in a while, or ever, there’s a huge archive awaiting you! (I’ve heard from several people who play daily and have solved every single puzzle. But no pressure.)

And a few months ago, I made Doomscroll, the action-filled shooter you play just by scrolling. It works great on desktop or mobile, and is a wonderful time-waster.

That’s it for this year! I hope you like the presents. Before you go, please gather any wrapping paper that’s on the floor and put it in the recycling bin. I’ll take it out to the curb later.

Thank you to everyone who read any of my newsletter nonsense this year. I appreciate you all. But an even bigger extra special thank you to everyone who shared any of my newsletter nonsense this year. The best way to help me grow is to spread the word.

And of course you can always gift yourself or a loved one a paid subscription to Ironic Sans – which doesn’t get you anything extra right now but provides a warm holiday feeling – or make a one-time donation.

Merry Holidays and Happy New Year. See you in 2026!

Thanks as always for reading.

David