• by Tom Hespos , December 9, 2003

Dear Santa: I originally sent this to you at your NorthPole.com address, but it bounced. I guess it must be tough getting reliable bandwidth up there at the top of the world. Either that or I must've sent my e-mail while your servers were down. (Darn that Grinch and his Denial of Service attacks!)

In any case, I was hoping you might hook me and some of my industry friends up with some cool stuff this year. I think I've been a good boy, unless you count the incident with Meskauskas and the virus I sent him that wiped out his BIOS. (That was a mistake. It was supposed to make his computer play the Happy Birthday song and display pictures from Hef's hot tub party at the mansion last year. Sometimes, things just don't work the way they're supposed to.) In any case, here's the annual list of demands. The milk and cookies will be in the usual spot this year. You scratch my back. I'll scratch yours. You dig?

For Dave Smith: A predictive reach and frequency tool that works for every medium and for any audience. And a nice silver frame for the cover 4 he got for Napster during their launch week.

For Doug Weaver: A T-shirt that says "Talking to yourself is one of the first signs of insanity" on it.

For Greg Stuart: Feedback on the rich media guidelines, plus a new stereo to replace the one I blew up at the Old Timers barbecue.

For Jim Meskauskas: A wicker basket woven underwater by hand. And a free root canal from a blind, left-handed dentist.

For Bill McCloskey: A magical tool that can track a viral e-mail campaign with 100 percent accuracy, even if it's not an HTML e-mail.

As for me, I'd like a Nerf Grenade Launcher for those stingy reps that believe in rate cards, a 2004 editorial calendar for the Tuesday Online Spin so I know what to write about every week, and a backpack that can fit a widescreen laptop. Oh, and world peace. Thanks.

-Tom