Folks,

Some of you got an earlier start on the New Year than C51 and I did living here in North America. Beginning with Wagonuilad in New Zealand and progressing onward from there, the hopeful celebrations of our readers began on the stroke of relative midnight. Dux was toasting the New Year five hours before I popped a cork. He may have started much sooner than that. With satellite TV we can watch the festive celebrations live from many countries across the globe and that allows us to start celebrating the coming of a new year early if we wish so to do. Of course, perhaps as penance, having done that, the hangover comes sooner as well.

The final tabulations are now in and compiled. No one may care, however it would seem that, according to the official SimHQ counters, 'replies' to our thread are about the same as last year yet our monthly average 'views' are up by a tidy 70% over 2007. Yes, 70%! That seems mighty one-sided to me but we thank all of you loyal readers no less for it.

Our resolution for the new year is to try our best to remove all negative words from our vocabulary and thus from our thoughts and our speech as well. Please continue to visit our forum and HWH in the coming year. We sincerely wish for ourselves and for you all a happy and prosperous New Year.