Am I too picky?

My blogging platform of choice is WordPress. There's a lot of community support, a lot of themes and plug-ins and it is so customizable. Just wonderful. And now you're wondering why you're reading this on a Blogger powered blog, right? More on that later.

I just love it.

Then I hate it! I spent about 4 hours going through themes trying to find the theme that meets all my needs. Designers are you reading? I wanted

• Listing of pages which would display sub-pages without resorting to the pages widget... my sidebar real estate is too valuable for that.
• I want a customizable photo header
• I want the RSS feed button or link really prominent at the top of the page.
• I want text to wrap around the pics.
• I want the theme not to fall apart when I type in long words.
• I didn't want to have to build the theme from scratch myself.
• I didn't want to have to pay for the theme.
  

I didn't think I was asking too much. Surely, there are other people out there using WordPress with similar desires ("No, there aren't. And don't call me Shirley.").

And that was just for the theme! Imagine what I am going through finding the right blend of plug-ins that are compatible, load fast, do what they claim to do, and not require a degree in theoretical quantum mechanics to use.

But then I started thinking abut my conundrum from another perspective. Maybe I was being too picky. After all, I do the same thing when I select wood for my TriLooms... out of a rack of 500 pieces of wood I can usually only find 20 or 30 that I consider usable (and the guys at the wood store are always rolling their eyes at me).

Likewise, my tools have to be durable, do the job, and not cost an arm and a leg. People keep telling me "You get what you pay for." That's almost a truism. I've found that the sentiment can be more accurately rendered as either "You get what you (carefully) shop for." or "You get what they rook you into getting based on a brand name that means nothing anymore 'cause it's all made with too much lead in China anyways." But I might be a bit cynical there.

Might be, but the longer I look the less likely that seems to be. I read labels in the store (drives Jen nuts... she often wants what she wants and is used to and will grab and go) and the more I read the scarier it gets.... since when was high fructose corn syrup needed as an additive to EVERYTHING? I swear, they're adding high fructose corn syrup to high fructose corn syrup. That's about as ridiculous as opening a Starbucks inside a Starbucks. And engine coolant as a sweetener or favoring in low cal ice cream? Isn't that the stuff they warn you not to spill in your driveway because dogs and cats will drink it and die?

So, I'm going to keep on reading labels (sorry, Jen), and I'm going to keep on shopping for the best products at the best prices.

I'm going to keep on being picky and I'm not going to apologize for it. Sorry, but I just won't!

Oh, yeah, why is this WordPress lover's blog being written on Blogger? Simple. I also believe in redundancies, believe in redundancies, believe in redundancies, believe in redundancies. I'm also a geek and I like to stay abreast of available technologies... sort of the same reason I'm writing this on my Mac with three Windows PCs and a linux box in the same room.