A Christmas List

First off, happy Thanksgiving Christmas-time. I can't believe so much time has passed since my last post. I considered posting on Thanksgiving, since so many others were, but then I found something else to do. In my defense, I've got a drafts folder full of promising posts. None of which will probably ever be published, except maybe the one on the imminent demise of Webtrends.

It's funny isn't it how Thanksgiving is so quickly forgotten. The day after, everyone starts putting up Christmas decorations. It's actually the right thing to do - otherwise it'll be mid-December before you get 'round to it and by then it's not worth all the hassle. I used to mock the people who put up their Christmas lights several weeks before Thanksgiving. I still would, except now everyone else has their lights up and I can't remember who's who. Now I mock the house that has an H2 in their driveway (foolish saps) and thought it was a great idea to go to Costco, buy all the ugly-as-sin blow-up lawn decorations (including the ridiculous giganto plastic snow globe), tote 'em home and then line them up side by side on the front lawn.

Now a disclaimer - this Christmas list isn't a list of things I want. You can check out my Amazon wishlist for that. It's a list of things that I find exceedingly annoying followed by a list of things I'm thankful for, mostly in the vein of web development.

h2. Things That Grate On Me

(in no particular order, except for the first one) * Job politics, and especially those who use politics instead of growing up The "don't-mess-with-what-works" attitude when it's actually not working at all, and never did Web programmers who solely use Microsoft products Web design companies who don't know a thing about web standards Web pages done completely in Flash Gigantic, ugly, plastic snow globes (unless you're going to set it up in your yard, dress up like a yeti, somehow get inside, and then jump out and scare passers-by) Web sites/applications that don't support Safari but do support that dead-as-a-doornail browser called Netscape (or IE Mac, take your pick) Taxes on phone services - c'mon, just build it into the price! Trickery, connivery! Celebrities breaking off a marriage after three years (or less... or more) - what the hell do they think commitment means, anyway?

h2. Things For Which I'm Grateful

• My wonderful wife and son
• An incredible church that teaches the Word and embraces community
• Web standards, without which web development would be a chaotic mess and no fun at all. The brightest minds on the web are at the helm of the web standards ship, driving progress and innovation. If you call yourself a web developer or designer and you're not on this ship, well it's your choice but know that the boat of "doing whatever I want, and ain't Flash/.net/table-based layouts the bomb" isn't a cruise ship - it's a rotting dinghy - and it's not headed to the tropics but the isle of irrelevancy.
• Community, both web and otherwise. Life and job would be sans joy and inspiration if there were no community.
• Pepsi & Cheez-Its
• All the bad press Walmart's been getting recently
• iTunes, and how ingrained both it and the iPod are in today's culture. Music is a great thing. And Apple deserves the attention.
• del.icio.us
• Many other things (family, friends, my Powerbook and iMac, Quicksilver, donuts, that video of Bill Gates getting a pie in the face)

There you have it. Some random thoughts on a December evening.