No baseball talk today. Just want to say thanks to everyone who’s stopped by to check out Ducksnorts this year and especially to those of you who have dropped a note or three. I learn a lot from y’all and very much appreciate all the feedback. Without you, I wouldn’t be doing this. Big, big thanks for reading.

Now that I’ve kissed your ass, there are a few administrivial things I need to mention. This coming month, I’ll be cutting back my blogging to once a week while I put the finishing touches on Ducksnorts: Best of 2003. I’ve got it about 90% assembled, just need to read through once more and make some editorial comments (things like how horrible my list of Top 20 Padre prospects looks in hindsight). I’m expecting it to check in around 130-150 pages. Compiling this retrospective has been an interesting exercise, if a bit time-consuming (and humbling). I try not to ask for a lot, but I’m going to need to hear from several of you saying that this was a worthwhile effort for me to do it again next year.

There you go. I couldn’t just say thanks and leave it at that. I had to start making demands. Okay, well I’m making some demands of myself as well. I’ve now been working on Ducksnorts for over six years. Today marks the conclusion of 31 months of blogging. This is a little frightening to me because (a) 31 months flies when you’re having fun and (b) I never really expected blogs or blogging, much less this particular blog, to stick around so long.

The point is, I’m pleased with what Ducksnorts has become. But I also don’t think we’ve seen its best yet. With that in mind, here are a few goals I’ve set for 2004:

• Make the site more interactive. I’ve been working with this particular template since November 2001. I built it by hand, and I’m kind of proud of it. I think she’s aged pretty well and I’m flattered to see that some other sites have used some of my little design tricks (not that I’m bragging; I’ve certainly stolen borrowed my share of ideas over the years from sites I admire). But as I said above, I really enjoy hearing back from readers. To my way of thinking, Ducksnorts is less about giving sermons from the mount than hanging out with friends. The exchange of information and ideas runs both ways. I’m not quite sure how we’ll accomplish this goal, but I have been looking into ways to allow you to add comments to blog entries. Maybe some kind of poll capability. I’ve been evaluating everything from full-on content management systems to other, less radical solutions. If anyone has suggestions on how to make this happen, please let me know. I’m open to ideas.
• Speaking of hanging out with friends, another thing I’d like to do this year is get a bunch of readers together for a trip to Petco. This is a nebulous idea in my mind right now. I have no details. I just think it would be pretty cool if some of us could hook up for a game in 2004. So I guess I’m open to suggestions on this one as well. With luck, the idea will morph into a plan and we can continue on our quest for global domination. Or at the very least, catch a ballgame.

Running out of steam here, so I’ll wrap up with this bit of silliness:

• Japander.com The “mission” of this site is to poke a little fun at western stars who advertise products in Japan they might not necessarily use.

Thanks again for all your support. Have a safe and very happy New Year, and we’ll talk again in 2004!