Given I am still in Buffalo until Wednesday, still chilling (and not in a good way), let’s start the proceedings slowly, with some videos I did with the ebullient Sarah Lacy for Yahoo’s Tech Ticker site right before the holidays at the All Things Digital HQ (i.e., the cozy cottage behind my house).

In the first, below, I look back at 2008 and make predictions for 2009, including demanding that the new administration of President-Elect Barak Obama “fix my broadband!” Also: I copiously praise the stylings of Blake Lively on “Gossip Girl” and her show’s online life.

In the second, below, I play secret Santa to a range of tech figures, doling out virtual presents to Yahoo (YHOO) CEO Jerry Yang, Oracle (ORCL) head Larry Ellison and Apple (AAPL) icon Steve Jobs.

This, despite the fact that his work is supposed to mostly be on GE (GE) entertainment unit NBC Universal’s site (it owns SNL) and also the NBC-owned Hulu video site. But it is garnering fewer views in those spots, which is why Samberg’s production company–The Lonely Island–loaded it and more right up onto powerhouse YouTube.

But while “My Pants” is very funny in that overgrown teenaged boy sort of way that a lot of Samberg’s videos are, BoomTown is much more intrigued by the short episodic online comedy videos he is making with his longtime partners Akiva Schaffer and Jorma Taccone (the trio is pictured here).

Their efforts are one of the few times that I have seen professional entertainment folks truly understand the Internet medium and create new and interesting pieces of content for it.

While their work seems to be done cheaply and is definitely raw, there is no skimping on true talent and creativity here or its perfect online pacing.

There is a growing number of these kinds of examples out there, such as “The Guild,” sponsored by Microsoft (MSFT), which follows a group of dysfunctional gamers.

“The Guild” appears on Xbox Live, as well as on the Web. And it is headed for its second season–after getting nine million Web views for its first season.

So, it is indeed heartening to see that there can be a new format for original programming for the Web, well beyond short one-offs and badly repurposed television-like fare.

Here’s the first episode of Lonely Island’s delicious spoof of a TV soap like “Melrose Place,” which is called “The ‘Bu.”

It is described on the site as about: “Young, sexy people that live in Malibu call it The ‘Bu, because when you say the entire word, it takes time, and then you wouldn’t be young anymore.”

And below it is a holiday song from “The Guild,” which should give you a good idea of its infectiousness and involving intimacy with the quirky characters. (The quick shot of the dog in a Santa hat at the end is genius.)

The ‘Bu:

The Guild:

BoomTown extends apologies to the late Francis P. Church, who penned the original “Yes, Virginia, There Is a Santa Claus” editorial in the New York Sun on Sept. 21, 1897.

But with just a little rejiggering, his eloquent words work perfectly as a translation for Apple’s press release about its withdrawal from San Francisco’s Macworld and no keynote speech from Apple CEO Steve Jobs yesterday, which doubtlessly shook the Apple (AAPL) faithful to the core.

Oddly enough, it matches up surprisingly–and a little disturbingly–well.

Thus, here’s a little holiday inspiration to help those poor souls make it through these darkest of days:

Dear Editor:

I am 28 years old. Some of my little fanboys say there is no Steve Jobs at Macworld. My imaginary friend at AppleInsider says, ‘If you see it on BoomTown, it’s so.’ Please tell me the truth, is there a Steve Jobs?

–O’Hanlon, a geek in Virginia”

Apple wrote: CUPERTINO, California—December 16, 2008—Apple today announced that this year is the last year the company will exhibit at Macworld Expo. Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing, will deliver the opening keynote for this year’s Macworld Conference & Expo, and it will be Apple’s last keynote at the show. The keynote address will be held at Moscone West on Tuesday, January 6, 2009 at 9:00 a.m. Macworld will be held at San Francisco’s Moscone Center January 5-9, 2009.

Translation: Virginia geek, your little friends are wrong (and they also have no life, which is self-evident). They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia geek, whether they be men’s or children’s, are little. Not as elegantly tiny as the iPod Nano, but little nonetheless. In this great universe of ours, man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Apple wrote: Apple is reaching more people in more ways than ever before, so like many companies, trade shows have become a very minor part of how Apple reaches its customers. The increasing popularity of Apple’s Retail Stores, which more than 3.5 million people visit every week, and the Apple.com website enable Apple to directly reach more than a hundred million customers around the world in innovative new ways.

Translation: Yes, Virginia geek, there is a Steve Jobs. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion and the fabled touchscreen tablet Mac exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Steve Jobs! It would be as dreary as if there were no amazingly great iPhones. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance, no Pull My Finger app to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Apple wrote: Apple has been steadily scaling back on trade shows in recent years, including NAB, Macworld New York, Macworld Tokyo and Apple Expo in Paris.

Translation: Not believe in Steve Jobs! You might as well not believe in those admittedly freaky iPod shadow dancers. You might get your other pretend friend at MacRumors to hire men to watch in all the Chinese manufacturing factories on Christmas eve to catch Steve Jobs, but even if you did not see Steve Jobs ordering up new Mini desktop computers, what would that prove? Nobody sees Steve Jobs, but that is no sign that there is no Steve Jobs. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see the iPod dancers dancing bizarrely on the lawn? Of course not, but that’s no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

Apple wrote: Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple II and reinvented the personal computer in the 1980s with the Macintosh. Today, Apple continues to lead the industry in innovation with its award-winning computers, OS X operating system and iLife and professional applications.

Translation: You tear apart the baby’s rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived could tear apart. Only faith, poetry, love, romance, and the fact that the Mac guy vs. PC guy ads are pure genius can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia geek, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

Apple wrote: Apple is also spearheading the digital media revolution with its iPod portable music and video players and iTunes online store, and has entered the mobile phone market with its revolutionary iPhone.

Translation: No Steve Jobs! Thank God! he lives and lives forever, despite Henry Blodget-fueled health rumors to the contrary. A thousand years from now, Virginia geek, nay 10 times 10,000 years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of Mac fanboyhood.

With all this humbugging about holiday retail online–down? up? sideways?–it would do a person well to think more Tiny Tim than Scrooge these days.

And here are some very clever advertising videos from the fine folks at ChangingThePresent.org, created for the charity nonprofit by StrawberryFrog to help you get there.

They should make you think twice when you see those dumb buy-more-and-more-and-even-more ads out there.

Give the gift that matters, indeed. But judge for yourselves:

Say Forever

True Luxury

Our friends at JibJab whipped up another odd video for us for the Thanksgiving holidays.

It includes some of our staff–the whole staff is here–glad we are not the poor turkey (for more on turkey mishaps, see this horrifying video of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin).

BoomTown is thankful for our great All Things D team, as well as our amazing readers. Also this year, for Yahoo (YHOO) CEO Jerry Yang, without whom there would be no news.

We’ll be publishing more lightly after tonight, but there will be news over the holiday weekend, so keep checking back.

Now, here’s our video:

Could Facebook Co-Founder and CEO Mark “Cindy Lou Who” Zuckerberg teach Yahoo Co-Founder and CEO Jerry “Grinch” Yang a thing or two about holiday cheer?

You can bet your roast beast he could.

BoomTown has been, we admit it, quite tough on both Zuckerberg and Facebook since we launched the site–about everything from its still unproven business prospects to its toddler widgets to its insane valuation to its legal harassment of a magazine to its stalkerish Beacon ad product.

But Zuckerberg and his team, including its tireless and doubtlessly tired PR head Brandee Barker, have consistently responded to BoomTown’s prodding and posts without rancor and not too much disgruntlement.

(Except when Zuckerberg once told me I was too mean to him, but we’ll let that one pass, because we kind of are on the age issue, at least.)

While we can’t commend Facebook’s reaction to the Beacon controversy (too slow and too reactive and too little), given the level of leakiness around it, the hot social-networking company has handled its external relations with a level of maturity that is laudable, especially with the massive pressure involved in being the Web company of the moment.

Proof of that below. And Zuckerberg only looks 15% uncomfortable to be standing next to me–looking drunk, though I don’t drink, and oddly shiny–at a holiday party recently (picture credit goes to Facebook VP Owen Van Natta’s lovely wife, Jennifer).

I had a great time debating issues with Zuckerberg at that party, and he seems game to continue that healthy back-and-forth in the future.

Contrast that to the ever-grinchy folks over at Yahoo, which I have also been pretty hard on, although I think I have also been fair given the state of turbulence at the Internet giant.

While I have consistently asked for interviews with most of its top execs, including Yang and President Sue Decker, only a very few–and I thank them for that, I really do–have been brave enough to talk openly about the many challenges that Yahoo faces.

Thank goodness, then, that Yahoo is the leakiest ship of all in the tech sector these days, providing BoomTown and others with a number of great scoops over the year.

Perhaps the 100-Day Sacred Cow VisionQuest Countdown was annoying, but it was Yang who set the stakes and then did not exactly deliver the goods.

Perhaps Yahoo cringes at reports of the many departures of execs–some leaving, others pushed.

Perhaps it does not like the speculation on its lack of bold moves or the prospects of a takeover or worries about its declining share of the search market.

And perhaps Yang was irked by all my brilliant videos, including shamelessly using my own children, to raise money for a good cause, all while haranguing him for one simple lunch! (In that case, though, that would mean he had somehow completely lost his sense of humor.)

But, as I have written time and again, Yahoo has amazing traffic, brand, engagement and products, and I look forward to seeing it reinvigorate itself–which is always a great story.

It would be nice then to be able to talk to Yang and others on the record about its epic struggle to right itself.

Thus, with a little help from Photoshopping fiend Adam Tow, here’s my wish for blog peace and good will in 2008.

(Or, more aptly–Fah who for-aze! Dah who dor-aze! Welcome Christmas! Come this way!):