TwasTheNightBeforeChristmas

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  • Three Night Before Christmas versions arrive for iOS

    by 
    David Winograd
    David Winograd
    12.13.2010

    In December of 1823, an anonymous poem was printed in The Sentinel, a Troy, NY newspaper, titled A Visit From St. Nicholas. It was widely reprinted, and eventually attributed to Clement Moore and re-titled as "Twas the Night Before Christmas." It's arguably the most famous Christmas poem ever written. It introduced the physical appearance of Santa Claus, the names of his reindeer, his sleigh and his penchant of giving presents to all the good little girls and boys. It's a poem that most everyone knows by heart, or at least its first few stanzas. This year, the much loved poem has spawned at least seven iOS versions, which are available on the App Store, ranging from very traditional with old-time look and feel, to a complete re-imagining of the tale. I'd like to tell you about three of them. Two of the three use the original text of the poem, and they have a passel of animated elements, as do most interactive children's books. But outside of the Violet re-telling, I really don't consider these children's books per-se. Maybe they are creating a new category of interactive family books.

  • Forum Post of the Day: Twas the Night Before BC

    by 
    David Nelson
    David Nelson
    12.21.2006

    I read a lot of bad attempts at being clever in the forums. I see tons and tons of bad PvP videos. It is a pretty rare event when I am impressed by anything that is posted in the WoW.com forums. But this poem written by Scrann from the Earthen Ring server is really, really impressive. He takes Twas the Night Before Christmas, puts a World of Warcraft spin on it and it works perfectly. For those of you behind firewalls at work, I have included the entire text of the poem below and after the jump. Enjoy! Twas the night before BC, and in World of Warcraft Not a creature would /stir, /sing, /dance, /silly, or /laugh The servers were hung, all instancing ceased In hopes the expansion would soon be released The children were nustled all snug in their beds (Only orcs; no young tauren, trolls, or undeads) And I, in my warlord's gear, from PvP Had just trekked to the inn for some rested XP When out by the bank there arose such dissent I wondered if Blizzard started a world event I went into cat form, to ensure my good health If demons were invading, I was gonna be stealthed