Not another chuffin best of 2005? Of course, what else?! As is my want at this time of year, I sit back in a comfy chair, with water biscuits and a well stocked cheeseboard to mark my highlights.
Favourite things of 2005:
- My Family. It sounds awfully trite, but I’m nothing without them. I love you.
- Merlin Manns podcasts.
- SXSW was amazing, meeting so many great people. Some I knew before, some I met for the first time, but all such good company!
- Rob Weychert’s Musical Breakfast. (The first part of 6six).
- VoodooPad. The more I use it, the more I love it. It has no equal.
- Flickr for its provision of doing quick, easy blogging to a community without worrying about the site design. I just hope the crack down on ‘non photographic content’ doesn’t get out of control next year.
- Safaristand for bringing Omniweb style tabs to Safari.
- That people still stop by here to read and offer comments, despite having little to offer in the way of Standards discussion or ground breaking CSS techniques! The goodwill from the Firefox logo is sure to give out soon though!
Music of 2005
Without a doubt, Sigur Ros’s “Takk” has been my favourite sound this year. However, while there have been great albums, nothing got as heavy rotation as ’Antics" by Interpol did last year.
- Sigur Ros - ‘Takk’
- Starflyer 59 - ‘Talking Voice vs Singing Voice’
- Rufus Wainwright -“Want One & Two”
- Ladytron - ‘Witching Hour’
- Embrace - ‘Out of nothing’*
- Low -‘The Great Destroyer’
- Arcade Fire -‘Funeral’*
- British Sea Power - “Open Season”
*I actually got these last year, just after last Decembers ‘best of’ post, but I love them too much to leave them out.
Cheese of the year 2005
Without a doubt, it has to be the Oxford Isis. A great all-rounder.
Hopes for 2006
- Samantha starts school in January. This will be a big upheaval to our lifestyle - rather than finishing nursery at 5pm, she’ll be leaving school at 3pm. However, my hope is not that we ‘manage’ timewise, but that she makes friends and enjoys it. Our little girl is growing up! Sniff!
- That Omnigroup will get a substantial update to Omniweb out, with the latest webkit, more interface polish and find as you type support. I so want Omniweb to succeed, but in some important areas, they’re behind Safari. Especially Safari on Tiger loaded up with Saft and Safaristand!
- That I manage to create a mac-based home entertainment system - music/photo/movie/work server with my G5. Siobhan wants this too. I could just use Windows Media Center (which is excellent), but I want Mac-ness, and quite like the idea of cobbling it together.
- That no more embarrassingly manky items of clothing end up on ebay.
- That the practice of calling yourself ‘CEO’ of anything you create, will result in severe mocking and derision.
Predictions for 2006
- John Oxton will retire from blogging in January.
- John Oxton will return to blogging in March.
- John Oxton will retire from blogging in May.
- John Oxton will return to blogging in August.
- John Oxton will return to blogging in September, forgetting that he hadn’t left it yet.
Concern for 2006
OK, here is my worry. It feels as if a lot of people are getting a bit too worthy, earnest, serious and po-faced in their blogging. I’m not naming names, but to me, there seems to be very little fun of late. I might well be guilty of this myself.
Balancing informative articles with wit and humour is hard but John, Jeremy Greg and Merlin seem to manage.