At Christmas time, everyone seems to have that one thing they always wish for. For Opus the Penguin, it was a wish for wings that would let him take flight. As for me, I never had one wish that lived on from year to year, although now it could be to win the lottery or find out I had a long forgotten rich uncle who died and left me a million dollars.

So here's my wish list for 2002, in no certain order...

1. I have finally come to terms with the fact that I will never be bitten by a radioactive spider and become a real life Spiderman. I also realize that I'll never get to portray Spiderman opposite Kirsten Dunst in a movie. So what does that leave me? Something that is attainable and makes the Hummer2, Prowler, Viper, and PT Cruisers beg for mercy. The Mach 5 from Speed Racer. Although not as fully featured as the animated version, I also don't think I would be getting into half as much trouble as Speed Racer ever did. Available from Focus on Cars out of Long Beach, CA, the cars are being sold to promote child safety on the road. The Shooting Star, driven by Racer X, has also been built as a prototype. You can find more information here.

2. For something a little more obtainable, a home theater system custom installed by Off the Wall Audio-Video. Based in my home town of New Orleans, Off the Wall custom designs and installs home theater systems to fit the style of the particular room the system will be housed in.

3. A Sony DCR-TRV840
Digital Camcorder. First off, I just like the Sony Digital Camcorders. I already own the DCR-TRV130 and can't complain about it other than I can't connect an external microphone. It was my mistake, didn't make sure it was available before I ordered it. Otherwise, it was done everything I have ever wanted to do with it.

4. Once I get that new camcorder, well, actually I could use it now, I need Ulead's Movie Studio Pro. I've worked with Ulead's VideoStudio version 4.0 and find it very workable. It is easily tops over Windows MovieMaker and is more advanced than MGI VideoWave. If you need to do any custom titles, Ulead's Cool 3D is a fantastic piece of software.

5. To hold all those movies I shoot and edit, not to mention to provide storage for the rest of my documents, I'd like a Magnitude by XIOtech, a subsidiary of Seagate. This Storage Area Network device provides full back-up and redundancy for data storage. You can easily share the space among as many machines as you want. Hardware problem with your PC? No problem, just plug in another comparable PC and keep on chugging.

Combine this with some blade PC's, if you can fit a lot of storage and processing power inside a small closet.

6. To move onto things a little more pragmatic, I need my PocketPC device to be able to sync with my desktop over the internet. Why do I need to sync only over a serial port?

I keep my desktop on 24/7 constantly downloading my email. I need to be able to connect to the internet and sync with my desktop. Email is not the only reason for carrying a PDA, especially one based on PocketPC. With Pocket Word and Pocket Excel, I may carry those documents on my PDA and make some edits. I would like to be able to sync with my desktop remotely so that I have a back-up some where. Microsoft - wireless email is nice, but wireless syncing would be great.

What am I saying? I could handle having to use a modem to connect to the internet and sync with my desktop.

7. Stop turning on automatically. I'm not sure if I just have a bad unit or if it is part of the PocketPC OS, but my HP Journada has a nasty habit of turning itself on and staying on. When I finally pull it out of my pocket I'm met with a low battery message. The Journada can detect if the cover is open or not. When the cover is closed, shut off with no activity after five minutes.

8. Don't arbitrarily open up a contact. After I pull my Journada out of the cradle it'll open a contact up for no reason. There's no rhyme or reason behind the contact that it opens. I have developed a habit of manually shutting down every program running before I turn off the device, so nothing should be open, and yet, next time I turn it on, bam! I'm staring at a contact.

9. Better character recognition. I think everyone may share this wish. My problems are with "a", "e", "n", "o", "r", "u", and "v". I don't recall having these problems when I used a Palm, but it has been sometime since I last used a Palm, so I can't be definite.

10. Better email features. Outlook Express has more features than the email client built into PocketPC. There is no ability to search for a message or do any type of filtering. If Microsoft wants us to use Outlook on the desktop, give us some of the same features on the handheld.