For many, Christmas represents a time for sharing, looking inward and appreciating one's family and friends.

For me, it marks an occasion to ruin the fantasies of young children.

Since we all (hopefully) know there's no such thing as Santa, I figured I'd try something else -- revisiting, celebrating and possibly spoiling some of my favorite other pillars of wide-eyed innocence.  This top 5 list is highly subjective.  Feel free to add your faves in the comments.

5.  The tooth fairy is but a work of fiction.

This discovery inevitably raises a larger (and, depending on the cognitive ability of said child, potentially more disturbing) question, "Then who did what with my teeth?"

(It's worth noting that some tooth-fairy believers assert that the tooth fairy is actually the Easter Bunny, rewarding kids for losing teeth while eating the candy he gives them over the holiday.  And this is why I love Yahoo! Answers.)

4.  Babies do NOT come from the stork.

The method in which a youngster learns of this fact is the primary determinant of its accompanying level of shock. 

Being told by a relative?  Easy to deal with.

Being told what really happens by a classmate? Eh...

Discovering the gory truth by walking into your parents' room late at night to retrieve a mistakenly misplaced Shadowman video game cartridge for Nintendo 64, which may or may not have happened to my sibling?  Utterly horrifying.

3.  There is no Mavis Beacon.

I'm sorry, but it's true.  In 1995, the Seattle Times reported that this venerable, virtual typing instructor was a mere fiction designed to create a personal connection to the software.  Despite more than 8 million copies sold, cover model Renee Lesperance reportedly received (and receives) no residuals for her likeness.  It's almost enough to make you boycott home row.

(FULL DISCLOSURE:  "Mavis Beacon" is the reason I was able to type out this post at approximately 180 WPM.)

2.  Carrots will not improve your eyesight.

Sad, but false.

They can, however, turn your skin orange.

1.  Unicorns are not real.

Okay, so this is not one that I expect impacts many children, BUT I felt the need to include it for two reasons.

a) This incredible This American Life episode in which an adult woman recounts her tale of learning about the unicorn's true history in one of the worst social settings in which to publicly confront this fact.

b) When I was 6 years old, my parents took me to the Barnum & Bailey's Circus in Norfolk, VA.  The main attraction of said circus was the "Living Unicorn," a supposedly authentic beast that piqued my generally unicorn-free imagination. 

What I saw that night was definitely no unicorn.

I hesitate to use the word "abomination" in mixed company, but what we witnessed was, at best, a goat with giant, non-organic horn grafted onto its forehead and, at worst, oh god... I don't even want to consider it. 

(UPDATE:  My best guess was somewhat accurate.  The process for converting goats into unicorns has been patented. Oh god what have we done.)

And here is a close approximation of what said "Living Unicorn" looked like.  I'm sorry.

Merry Christmas.

Wait, don't answer that.

Last night, I threw the Nickelodeon-tribute-to-end-all-Nickelodeon-tributes in Long Island City, NY, using Facebook to circulate the invite.  If you checked into Facebook on the Web, you would've seen it started at 6 p.m. and went until 10 p.m. EST.

But if you accessed the event via the Facebook for iPhone app... well, it would've time-shifted the event by 3 friggin' hours (9 p.m. to 1 a.m.). 

I haven't seen a good explanation for this online, but it's clear that there's some bizarre time zone stuff going on in the FB app.  Be warned.

Maybe the Droid folks should be spinning this as an advantage for its barebones Facebook Lite app.

I don't know why I did it.

I don't know why I spent so many late nights researching the common, colloquial phrases people assign to their bowel movements.

I don't know what possessed me to learn Twitter's API rules inside and out in the service of a search engine dedicated to tracking and analyzing the number of people using the service to publicly talk about... pooping.

And I'm still not sure how I convinced my friends, like Willis Lambert, an unbelievable designer, and David Fishman and Will Braunstein into donating their time and financial resources to making this... thing... real.

But here we are: TwttrPoop is live.

Every 24 hours, about 3,500 tweets are sent out, each referencing someone's most recent release. For reference, that's generally more than Twitter users talk about:

• AIDS (As of 7/24, 12:18 PM EST, 2060 tweets)
• Iraq (As of 7/24, 12:19 PM EST, 2109 tweets)
• Oprah (As of 7/24, 12:20 PM EST, 2308 tweets)

For what it's worth.

We built TwttrPoop to become the world's ultimate resource for gathering and transforming previously taboo-laden data into something useful.  Think of it as the software equivalent of this:

Enjoy the site.

(via TwttrPoop)

So the question remains:  what drives more visitors to Armenia -- 'sexy girls' or interactive maps?  Only Google knows.  (Though I think I can guess.)

Bittage.

The most noteworthy announcements related to videogaming -- and this will the first of many times I begin using this phrase in this life: when I was growing up -- were about bits.

"Dude, videogame console XX is going to have DOUBLE the bits of console YY!!!"

"Dude, I heard Sega's coming out with a 32-bit system!"

"Dude, everyone knows that your TurboGrafx 16 is really only 8 bits and that makes you a complete pussy but when you're done with Legendary Axe you should come over and play Actraiser because it's totally awesome and truly 16-bit from the Mode 7 graphics to the stereophonic Koshiro score but you wouldn't know what those are because you're only playing a lame 8-bit system in your stupid bedroom that your stupid mom spent $400 on because she's stupid and so are you though that TurboExpress thing sounds pretty cool I mean whoever heard of 16-bit games I mean 8-bit games being able to be played on a handheld so bring it over when you come even though my Super NES is way better."

As a kid who knew nothing about cars but worshipped the SuperFX chip and spent many of his high school years playing Shadows of the Empire, bits were a more tangible metric of machismo and horsepower than... well, horsepower.  Every 4-5 years, a new generation of video game consoles would emerge, effectively doubling the bittage of the previous epoch -- and it was awesome.

Bit cycles meant as much to me as did the Calendar Round to a Mayan, a means for marking time,  quantifying progress and even reflecting upon my age.  I'll never forget turning 16 and trying to deny my 'childish' excitement over the Nintendo 64, a battle that was lost in about 3 days because -- come on -- we were talking about 64 bits!

Now, I have no idea what an increase in bits actually did (and honestly, I still don't), though the lovingly designed diagram above shows that clearly, graphics improved considerably along with the bits, so something had to be happening.  Regardless of what they actually did, however, bits remained a symbol of clean advancement, not unlike report cards and summer vacation.

1999 marked the end of bittage, when Sony's PlayStation 2 touted its 'bit-less' Emotion Engine. (That year, the 128-bit Sega Dreamcast became the last console to draw attention to its, um, bits.*)

We've now jumped several console generations and it's clear that the bittage conversation is over.  In its place is a murkier sense of advancement, trumpeted by motion-sensitive controllers, handheld consoles, online play and a blurring of media platforms.  In the end, it really shouldn't matter that much, but...

*Nearly 10 years later, the bit needle hasn't moved an inch: this generation's Playstation 3 remains at only 128 bits. 

Dude, we should totally be at, like, 1024 bits by now.

From: NAME AND E-MAIL REDACTED
Date: April 16, 2009 6:25:37 PM EDT
To: sale-vcpyw-1125692842@craigslist.org
Subject: Re: Your Craigslist Ad for Shoes


Hey,

I want to start off by saying that the shoes you are selling are beautiful. My name is Juan-Luis and I moved to NYC from Barcelona in September. I am attending a graduate school in the city and a part of the executive MBA program. I also work part-time at a real estate development firm. I am living in the Financial District and this being my first time living in the U.S., I am really enjoying it.

From the limited months I have been here though, one interesting culture difference that I have found between Europe and the U.S. is the open-mindedness of people. From the conversations I have had, the parties I have went to, and the people I have met, Americans seems a little bit closed at first than most Europeans. And, it has been quite disappointing to observe this. For as long as I can remember, I have always been attracted to a woman in high heels. I relate a woman in beautiful heels with elegance and allure. My ex-girlfriend back home entertained my appreciation of heels and had 9 pairs of the Louboutin collection among many other of her shoes. She loved to have me pamper, massage, and take care of her feet.

The woman who I have told about my appreciation for heels and feet have given me shocked reactions. They think its strange, random, and out of place. And every person has a right to react the way that they feel. Nevertheless, an Italian colleague of mine suggested I use craigslist, stating that you can find "anything and everything" you want on this site. So we will see. Since you posted an ad for such beautiful shoes, I figure that you care how your feet look and about the shoes that you wear. I know I am not responding for what the original intention of your ad is for, and I hope you do not take any offense or think I am disrespecting you, as I do not have any intentions in doing that.

I was hoping you would be open and entertain the thought of setting up such an arrangement where I would be able to take care of your feet and pamper you with heels from time to time as well. Looking forward to your response and if you are not interested, best of luck on your selling venture!

Ciao

Yeah.  I don't know what to say either.

Yeah.