I really like the idea of Thanksgiving. It’s all about gathering with friends and family and sharing a feast. No over-the-top gift competitions, no crazy-loud partying. It’s my favorite winter holiday.

And stopping to give thanks probably isn’t something we should only do once a year, but life is so crazy hectic that it seems we need a reminder.

I’m generally a glass-half-empty person. I wish I owned a house instead of renting an apartment. I wish I made more money. I wish I had a nicer car. And on and on, blah blah blah, whinge whinge whinge.

But really, I’ve got a lot of be thankful for, and if you’re at your computer reading this, you probably do as well. I’m thankful I don’t go to bed hungry every night, and that I’m not living in fear. Fresh water is at hand at all times. We take stuff like this for granted, but a lot of the world doesn’t.

More topically, I’m thankful that I live in an age where I can reach out and make friends all across the world. I’m old enough that I didn’t grow up with computers or email. Who you knew was who lived nearby, for the most part. Having a ‘pen pal’ from a few states away was pretty exotic.

Now the only barrier to making friends, really, is language. Geography has become irrelevant in many ways. That’s pretty incredible.

And since this is a gaming blog…I’m thankful that there are virtual worlds to visit with these far-flung friends. We all bitch about our games, but when you step back and think about it…they’re all pretty awesome. If you plucked someone from as recently as the mid-1970′s and sat them down in front of WoW or EQ2 or LOTRO, it’d blow them away. LOTRO in particular… grab a flower child grooving on Middle Earth in 1969 and drop ‘em into LOTRO and they’d think they’d gotten some very fine acid indeed.

It’s a good time to be alive, y’know?

And my final thing to be thankful for is that you’re reading my blog. I really appreciate you taking the time to listen to me yammer: it means the world to me.

Here’s wishing you and yours have a very Happy Thanksgiving. And for those of you in other parts of the world, well, I wish you a very happy Thursday.