Natali Del Conte

So what if Festivus is a silly cultish joke? I’m trying to be an equal opportunity holiday celebrant. My apologies for not wishing you a Happy Hanukkah sooner.

I will not get to spend time with my family this season. I regret that but my family doesn’t make a big to-do about the holidays so I’m not missing much other than watching really bad comedies with my mom (like the travesty that was Boat Trip), making Ranger cookies for my brother-in-law, and gossiping with my sister about our crazy relatives.

Despite missing out on those beloved festivities, I am still feeling the holiday spirit. New York is beautiful (although soooooooo insanely cold) this time of year. It is my first Christmas in a proper winter. Plus, I’m excited for 2009 and heading to Las Vegas for CES in just a few weeks. Thank you to everyone who wrote me with encouraging words about 2008. In my last blog post, I mentioned that 2008 was hard. I moved away from my family and friends and had a rough time adjusting to New York. But as I look back, I have very few regrets. I’m glad I came here and I’m glad it was hard. Hard doesn’t mean bad. It just means hard. I quote General David Petraeus on this one: “Hard is not hopeless.”

Okay, enough optimism. It is Festivus after all. So here is my 2008 airing of grievances. I may add to this throughout the day. Feel free to add yours in the comment section.

• There is no native landscape keyboard, video capture, or MMS for my iPhone;
• There is no Mac version of Chrome;
• The person who found my iPhone in a cab and never returned it is hereby cursed to bad technology karma for the rest of his/her days;
• MobileMe never really does exactly what I want it to;
• Any and all browsers on my Curve behave like an absolute puta;
• The BlackBerry Storm was a big fat letdown;
• Nokia phones are too darn expensive;
• HP’s press representative won’t let me keep this Vivienne Tam netbook for one second longer than I need it for my TV segments;
• Every single pair of headphones or earbuds that come into my possession break within a fortnight – even the high-end ones;
• I never have a jump drive on my person when I need one but have about a dozen when I don’t;
• Google’s speech recognition search engine still can’t understand me;
• Loaded takes so darn long to encode and upload to CNET TV;
• The Teleprompter software we use on the Loaded set was developed by demons;
• Growl likes to freeze my OS;
• Microsoft Entourage, I hate you more than I’ve ever hated anything in my entire life. You make my life miserable every single day. Whoever developed you, wrote the program as a big fat “Screw you!” to Mac users. Message communicated. Screw you too!
• New: Cab drivers who lecture me about paying with credit card.

Yes, they are all mostly tech related. I don’t usually carry grievances for people. Except maybe for those responsible for the dismal performance of the San Francisco Giants this year! They know who they are!