Christmas Eve at The 8-Bit Variety Show!

It's MegaMan... With Santa's powers. Take a moment and think
about the implications of that.
Yeah, that image of MegaMan standing over Santa's body is BitNick's Christmas gift to you.

Ho Ho Ho there, dear readers!

Because this is my website, and I can do whatever I want to do, I wanted to meet you all here, in Christmas cyberspace, to give you your gifts and say a few things that I've wanted to say all year.

First, for all of you good boys and girls, I present two pictures, one old (for those who remember the golden age of Rare and Nintendo), and one new (for everyone who knows ANYTHING about gaming):

First, the old:

May your holidays be haunted by images of toothless, leering monkey-mouths.

I actually remember the issue of Nintendo Power where this image first ran, which dates me terribly. Nonetheless, I was there for the golden age Rareware, and played all of the Donkey Kong Country games like crazy.

Now, for your second Christmas gift:

I found this, and it made me happy.

Now, with presents out of the way, there's some things I want to say.

The first is simple: THANK YOU!

Thank you for reading, for listening, for commenting, for sharing, for liking, mailing, caring, inquiring, and any other "ing" that you may have engaged in for the benefit of BitNick or The 8-Bit Variety Show (although we'd prefer if you kept any of the unsavory "ings" to yourself for the forseeable future)!

I started this site because I wanted to write, and I wanted to write about things that I cared about. I had hoped that there would be readers, but I didn't know if there would be. Now, a year, a podcast, and many articles later, I count most of you as great friends, and a very few others as much-needed enemies. I count myself lucky that there are vastly more of the former than the latter.

I also wanted to say a special thank you to our contributors this year! Although most of the articles this year were written by me (of which, 80% were apologies... at least, it felt that way sometimes) we had some INCREDIBLY solid articles, pieces of art, and podcast contributors who helped make The 8-Bit Variety Show! into something that I LOVED to do. Thank you Warza, Jobot, Kender, and Mrs. Bit for your part in 8BitVS, and here's to hoping for even more good times for all of us in 2012.

The people I've thanked here, comparably meager though your numbers may be, are the reason I love it here. As far as 2012 goes, LET'S DO THIS.

Yours in deepest thanks,

-St. (Bit)Nick

P.S. ....Still here? Alright, here's one last Christmas gift from me to you. I give you "Carol of The Bells" by Rush Coil, an 8-bit band.