Well, basically it just looks like we took Christmas off and never came back until February. But we are back. And with a vengeance at that.

First (again) Larry Blamire is going to be our first Featured guest of the New Year and the interview is sweet. I'll be working on that this weekend/early next week and, of course, I'll let you know when it's up and running.

Second, the long overdue updates to the Fiction and Features pages are up. The second Ray Mileur interview (which was done in, well, November... sorry Ray...) is up and might be a little past date, but still has some good nuggets of baseball goodness in it. In the fiction realm a short story I did last fall called The Great Despiser is up. I consider it my first significant sci-fi piece which generally means die-hard fans of the genre will hate it. (I'm not apologizing to them, though...)

And, finally, March marks the official first anniversary of Joe-Mammy.com. Our first year has been one of insane amounts of work, good times, good friends and more than a couple of surprises. I'd like to thank everyone who has made this first year a lot of fun, and I'm happy and proud to announce that based on the success of this first year I have decided to write the check to bring Joe-Mammy.com back to you for all of 2005. It's official: you can't get rid of me that easily. So, in no particular order, are the rawkinest folks to ever jump on a Year Zero of a website:

Dustin "Platypus Man" Hansen--web designer and eternally patient sort (hire him and pay him lots of money)
Kari Larson--Mr. T to Dustin's Hannibal, the Willis to his Arnold, the Simon to his Simon (I'm officially out of 80's team references...)
Rod "Rex Havoc" Erdahl--Someone should pay him more, too.
Josh "Almost Vernon" Miller--For, you know, almost being Vernon
Virgil & Bea "The Devil Pups"--For not peeing in my work room at least
Chad "The Chad" Wilburn--For nearly getting me stuff for the "Bodies by Chad" section
Chris "Christophe der Soul Stealer" Gartner--For actually visiting the site
and our Featured guests in 2004:

Who all gave graciously of their time, talent and senses of humor for great interviews. The Features section wasn't something I'd planned to do from the outset, but it's been such a fun and cool part of doing this site that the site would not have been the same without them.

And finally, a big thank you to all of the surfers/readers/visitors to Joe-Mammy.com in 2004. The upcoming year promises more big things and has already started with All Things Right and Beautiful and the upcoming release of lilies of the field.

Thanks again from everyone here at Joe-Mammy.com and myself in particular (and sorry if I forgot anyone...)

-Joe

Well kids, let the fun begin. "Where are the Features?" you ask. "Has Joe-Mammy.com gone the way of the buffalo?" you question. Now I can finally answer that Joe marches on with the first of the 2005 series of Features with none other than the witty and charming Larry Blamire writer/director/star of The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra

And there's more on the way. Make no mistake, ol' Joe is here to stay and intends to keep doing the quality work in interviews, music and fiction that you've come to tolerate.

-Joe