Howdy, Bubba! Hey, if you're new around these parts, I just want to say how much I appreciate you dropping by! Oh, and you may want to subscribe to my feed. Thanks, and a tip o' the hat to ya!

To help you finish your year off on a high note, here’s a few bits of inspiration from the famous, infamous, and what the heck, even a few from the rabble. Check these out:

• “I think computer viruses should count as life. I think it says something about human nature that the only form of life we have created so far is purely destructive. We’ve created life in our own image.” – Stephen Hawking
• “There is nothing so absurd but some philosopher has said it.” – Cicero
• “The only way to make a man trustworthy is to trust him.” – Henry Stimson
• “Her virtue was that she said what she thought, her vice that what she thought didn’t amount to much.” – Peter Ustinov
• “When love is gone, there’s always justice./ And when justice is gone, there’s always force./ And when force is gone, there’s always Mom./ Hi, Mom!” – Laurie Anderson
• “Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.” – Pablo Picasso
• “The whole world is in revolt. Soon there will be only five Kings left – the King of England, the King of Spades, The King of Clubs, the King of Hearts, and the King of Diamonds.” – King Farouk of Egypt
• “There is a fine line between genius and insanity. I have erased the line.” – Oscar Levant
• “When they discover the center of the universe, a lot of people will be disappointed to discover they are not it.” – Bernard Bailey
• “I hate music, especially when it’s played.” – Jimmy Durante
• “A healthy male adult bore consumes each year one and a half times his own weight in other people’s patience.” – John Updike
• “People who have what they want are fond of telling people who haven’t what they want that they really don’t want it.” – Ogden Nash
• “If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts he shall end in certainties.” – Sir Francis Bacon
• “Everywhere is walking distance, if you have the time.” – Steven Wright
• “I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.” – Douglas Adams
• “What we become depends on what we read after all of the professors have finished with us. The greatest university of all is a collection of books.” – Thomas Carlyle
• “I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.” – Galileo Galilei
• “Once the game is over, the King and the Pawn go back in the same box.” – Italian Proverb
• “If I had to live my life again, I’d make the same mistakes, only sooner.” – Tallulah Bankhead
• “There are two types of people–those who come into a room and say, ‘Well, here I am!’ and those who come in and say, ‘Ah, there you are.’” – Fredrick L. Collins
• “It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.” – Voltaire
• “I phoned my dad to tell him I had stopped smoking. He called me a quitter.” – Stephen Pearl
• “The deepest definition of youth is life untouched by tragedy.” – Alfred North Whitehead
• “My Grandmother is over eighty and still doesn’t need glasses. Drinks right out of the bottle.” – Henny Youngman
• “A life of pleasure makes even the strongest mind frivolous at last.” – Edward Bulwer-Lytton
• “All of us learn to write in the second grade. Most of us go on to greater things.” – Bobby Knight
• “You can pretend to be serious; you can’t pretend to be witty.” – Sacha Guitry
• “Never try to tell everything you know. It may take too short a time.” – Norman Ford
• “The covers of this book are too far apart.” – Ambrose Bierce
• “Economics is extremely useful as a form of employment for economists.” – John Kenneth Galbraith
• “Eat a live toad first thing in the morning, and nothing worse will happen to you all the rest of the day.” – Unknown
• “When I was born, the doctor took one look at my face… turned me over and said, “Look, twins!” – Rodney Dangerfield
• “Never go out to meet trouble. If you just sit still, nine cases out of ten someone will intercept it before it reaches you.” – Calvin Coolidge
• “Freedom of the press is limited to those who own one.” – A. J. Liebling
• “With most men, unbelief in one thing springs from blind belief in another.” – Georg Christopher Lichtenberg
• “It is disease that makes health pleasant, hunger that makes fullness good, and weariness that makes rest sweet.” – Heraclitus

And finally, as a worthy thought to end your year:

• “I give you peace, the kind of peace that only I can give. It isn’t like the peace that this world can give. So don’t be worried or afraid.” – Jesus Christ (John 14:27; CEV)

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Note from the proprieter: The Middle Zone will be taking a short end-of-the-year break (que the weeping and gnashing of teeth). But take courage, my friends! The Zone will be back, bright and early next year. To all those who dropped by to visit in 2006, you’ve helped make the Zone what it is, and for that I thank you from the bottom of my heart (that’s the reverb effect you hear). If you’ve dropped by to read, to comment, to debate, and yes, to argue: thanks, and ya’ll come back, y’hear!
Have a great, safe, and happy New Year!

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