Christmas is almost here. You know what that means. It’s time to bake those delicious gingerbread cookies! If you have a loved one that has fallen to the dark side of geekery, surprise them with a batch of specially decorated cookies that celebrate their favorite game or movie.

When you spend your days casually traveling through the infinite reaches of time and space in a big blue police box, you’re bound to run into a fair share of weird and wonderful characters from all sorts of kooky worlds and dizzying dimensions. The Doctor certainly has in BBC sci-fi series “Doctor Who,” which has been broadcast on British television screens since 1963 and is now approaching its 33^rd season and 800^th episode.

Throughout its near 50-year reign on worldwide TV screens (though with a 16-year hiatus from 1989 to 2005), “Doctor Who” has presented us with heroes, villains, creatures and monsters who have wowed and perplexed us nerdy viewers since the black-and-white days of ‘63. So, let’s take a look at the top ten characters (according to me) to have ever featured in this ground-breaking series, from the very beginning to the current incarnation.

Note: I’m including certain alien species as one entry as many of their members are, frankly, indistinguishable from one another, and to not include them seems unfair.

10. The Autons

First up, it’s the Autons, who were not only the first villains to be battled by the third Doctor, played by Jon Pertwee, but also by the ninth Doctor, played by Christopher Ecclestone; they were also the first “Doctor Who” villains to be shown in glorious Technicolor.

Season 1: Cartman Gets an Anal Probe

Here we have the episode that started it all. The groundbreaking pilot that was filmed using cut and paste stop motion animation, the only episode not to be animated on a computer. We’re introduced to the characters: The football jock Stan, the smartypants Kyle, the perpetually dying Kenny, and of course, the racist, evil, foul, bad tempered, conniving fatass, Cartman. The kids are at the bus stop when Cartman tells them of an awful dream he had where he was abducted by aliens and probed. Despite evidence to the contrary, some of it VERY compelling…

Oh hey guys what's up? Fishsticks for dinner last night?

…Cartman still believes it to be just that: a dream. The So called “visitors” up the ante by turning cows inside out and kidnapping Kyle’s little brother Ike.

This Blog Rules usually doesn’t engage in activism (we’re a humor/cool art/entertainment blog), but Congress may be about to do something horrible. On Wednesday, Congress could vote to create America’s first Internet censorship system, which would allow the government to block Americans from visiting any website with content that the government doesn’t like. This would annihilate Internet freedom as we know it in America, making us no different than China, Syria, or [insert your totalitarian regime of choice here] when it comes to how we treat our Internet companies and Internet users.

By Michael McLaughlin

I’m a musician who plays all the parts of the songs I record, and I decided I wanted to put one of my songs on youtube. So I figured I’d make a little artwork with the name of the song on it just so there would be a static image on the screen to go along with the song.

At the last minute, I remembered that I had some nature footage I’d shot in the summertime and I wondered if any of it would fit into the song. “I’ll just spend a few extra minutes,” I told myself. Nine days later, I was finished!

I ran out of my own footage quickly enough and then scanned the Internet for free or public domain footage that I could use in my video. As I searched and worked, a definite story unfolded and slowly revealed itself to me. Each and every one of the cuts in this video moves and changes in tandem with the music, which was no small feat! When I watch the video now, it’s hard to believe that my original intentions were so simple.

One of the youtube comments said that it reminded them of Koyaanisqatsi. I had no idea what this was, so I looked it up and watched it. I certainly wasn’t trying to be derivative, but I can see the connection.

Now if anyone enjoys this video and decides to check out any of the other 28 videos on my channel, expecting a bit of inspiration and intelligence, I will have to apologize in advance!