The Big Oh-Five

Believe it or not, today marks the fifth anniversary of the launching of the Llamas.

At this time last year, I believed we were on the verge of busting out big time: Gary, the LMC and Chai-Rista had all come aboard and we were getting ready to launch a new look and logo incorporating them. (Think the Sgt. Pepper's album cover.) We had a respectable sized regular readership and the occasional notice of some of the biggies. A couple more torques and Glenn Reynolds would have been begging us for a Llama-lanche.

Well, insert gratuitous reference to Shakespeare's "Full Many A Glorious Morning" here, because those of you who have paid any attention at all know well that it's been a pretty bad year since. Steve-O went dark, I went holier than thou and the whole juju collapsed.

Nonetheless, insert gratuitous "Invictus" reference here, because we Llamas are still around, our woolly heads bloodied but unbowed. Sure, it's not exactly the kind of birthday I would like, but the fact that we're having one at all is still a cause for celebration.

So what now? Well, for this coming year, I'd like to see the Llamas get their groove back. First, Gary and the LMC have been doing some fine work here, but I think we need to put our collective camelid heads together and come up with a plan. The whole recent Middle Aged Babes thing was a good start, recalling some of the headier foolishness from past days, and I'll bet if we brainstormed a bit, we could concoct some similar themes. Of course, it's tough to do that sort of thing at long distance, so I believe that an executive session and golf outing weekend probably is in order.

Second, there is the question that continues to swamp the Tasty Bits (TM) Mail Sack: Where the hell is Stephen Tiberius Llama? Friends, I tell you truly I do not know, not having heard from him at all since the summah. Steve-O ranks as the single most brilliant person I've ever met in my life, and also one of the craziest. And it's no secret that it was his inspired insanity that provided the dilithium crystals that gave the U.S.S. Llamas warp capability back in the day. We've been doodling along under impulse power since they gave out, our converters bypassed like a Christmas tree, but I continue to hope that perhaps Steve-O will beam back aboard from wherever it is he's boldly gone and set the engines aright.

Anyhoo, time for all that later. In the meantime, there's a whole lot of bubbly to be drunk, cake to be eaten, and Llama fannies to be spanked! Thankee much to Gary and the LMC for sticking with it this year. Thankee also to all of you: At better than 1.6 million hits since we got off the ground, we must be doing something that you like!

Yip! Yip! Yip! Yip! Yip!