Tonight at 6:00 p.m. Pacific (US) time (02:00 UTC) I'll be participating in the Desert Bus campaign to raise money for Child's Play, a charity that supports kids with cancer. Desert Bus is a videogame produced as part of a package of minigames for Penn & Teller; in it you can drive a bus across the desert in real time. That's it. Nothing of any real import happens in the game, ever. That's the joke.
However, something of very large import indeed has come out of it. An internet comedy group started the Desert Bus for Hope campaign, where they play the game live-streamed over the 'net continuously for days, raising money for Child's Play, a charity which gives video games to sick kids. If you wonder why they would do that, then please please please read this blog post by my friend Liz Smith, who makes it very clear ...
