BatFlattery

There’s a really cute story by Penny Arcade’s Gabe this week. It seems he went along to a Pokemon tournament at his local mall, expecting to find a lot of guys his age, way more seriously into Pokemon than he was. Reality was slightly different.

But what I also liked about his story was something I noted myself when my son was majorly into Pokemon: it’s a very engaging world, with cute monsters, a good competition ethic, and it engenders in the kids an enthusiasm that is very positive and nice to behold. Nice to see it continues!

Just a quick reminder that Child’s Play, the excellent charity initiative from the amzing Tycho and Gabe of Penny Arcade is up and running again, and this year, one of the hospitals is Alder Hey in Liverpool.

The idea behind Child’s Play is for gaming enthusiasts to give toys, games and books to children’s hospitals for the sick kids to use, especially those unfortunate enough to be in hospital over the festive season. To this end there are a number of Amazon wishlists, each set up by one of the hospitals, and to contribute you just go to the wish list and buy something. Amazon sends the goodies direct to the hospital. That’s it!

In the three years that Child’s Play has been in operation, they’ve raised more than a million dollars, and so far this year we’re up to $50k, so if you need to make up a bit of ground on your charitable giving this year, please consider buying a toy or two for sick kids.