Well, welcome to 2005. New Year's Eve signifies, for me at least, the beginning of two months of having to scratch out '04 from every stupid thing I write and replace it with '05.

So what do I have to say about '04, you ask? A couple things:

2004: I kicked a lot of ass this year. Check out the various sections of ye olde website and realize that Jan 1, 04 this was more or less a plan jotted down on a piece of paper with a couple of reserved domain names and nothing more.

Check out the Features page and browse through the rockin' bunch of folks who donated a little of their time and energy to share their thoughts with yours truly for your enlightenment and amusement.

And another year of watching crap movies and a few good ones and writing down my observations to hopefully keep you all from having to sit through "From Justin to Kelly" or whatever the latest movie train wreck is.

It also marked the year that All Things Right and Beautiful was completed. (Now, '05 is the year it takes the world by storm...) lilies of the field was also more or less finished, but due to some software glitches and the untimely (or poorly timed, more accurately) illness of a keyboard and a drum machine, will be delayed for a polished version. A book and an album in a year period accompanied by a number of short stories is nothing to sneeze at. Especially for a poor working schlub by myself.

And through it all I've had the support of some damn fine people who helped me plow through this first year. And, as always, good folks are always deserving of a mention so here they are, in no particular order:

Ms. Kari
Dust
Rod (Rex Havoc)
Brent, Adina and Family
da Folks
Jason and Jennelle
Ray and Brian at the Birdhouse
Christophe der Soul Stealer
Young Squire Josh
Ka-Reestee
Mr. Bill
G'Root
The Chad
the guy who put together the "Slow Ride" commercial for Hardee's
Mikey
Skeeyot
Virgil and Bea, the Devil Pups
All our Featured Guests: Joe R Lansdale, Tess Wiley, Jamie Hyneman, Chris Null, Dan B, Ray Mileur and Ben Fritz, Bryan Keefer & Brendan Nyhan.
Mac Barnett (whoever you may be) for liking "Dinnertime"
the St Louis Cardinals for kicking ass all season (and most of the postseason)
and WTF... well, then again, not you cuz you're a dumb doodyhead.

I won't draw this out much longer other than to say that I'm dubbing "B.P.D." by Over the Rhine as the Joe-Mammy.com official song of the year and to thank all of you who drop by. There's more in store in '05 (now if it were '04 that would be all rhymey and stuff, like a festival tagline--but I'm above that...) and hopefully some notable developments on the way within January that will set the stage for a kickin 2005.

-Joe