Shortly after uploading that issue, we decided, one fine Southern California night, to take our dog for a walk. (Paul here again... we're shifting from the editorial "we" to more of a royal "we". Obviously, the HMSS website doesn't own a dog.) Anyhow, in the course of that pleasant dog walk, we were (I was --PB) hit by a car, thereby breaking a couple of vertebrae in our neck, and winding up in the hospital as a newly-minted quadriplegic. (The dog was OK, by the way, as were various other parts of the editorial "we." Such as our brain.) As luck would have it, Mr. Clint Eastwood was nowhere in the immediate area.

One of the consequences of this accident is that HMSS has languished for several years. Months of hospitalization, ongoing physical therapy, and a serious addiction to "The People's Court" on daytime TV pushed lighter pursuits onto the back burner. The logistics of moving back to Chicago was an excellent consumer of large chunks of time. Loss of the use of hands made operating a computer a dicey proposition, until we ("I,’ I mean,) acquired some seriously great voice activation software. (Big shout-out to the makers of Dragon NaturallySpeaking. Great job, guys.) Once we relearned the computer using our voice instead of our hands, it occurred to us (this time I literally mean "us;" Tom Zielinski and I,) that it was time to get the band back together and knock out a new issue.

We're excited about getting back to work. (Not the editorial "we're," but all of us associated with HMSS, which, when you think about it, would indeed be an editorial "we're." Whatever.) We've attacked the preparation of this new issue with gusto and a high level of enthusiasm. We hope the results meet with your approval. (I do too!)

-- Paul Baack

Managing Editor´s Note:
Indeed it´s been a long time and hell yeah it´s great to be back on-line. HMSS has always been our (as in Paul´s and mine, but I won´t bog this down further with asides as to grammatical correctness) little toy train, and so it´s great to dust the cobwebs and get back to the fun. It´s a special Casino Royale issue with terrific content and though Paul hates when I say this, the graphics he´s created are per usual, brilliant. That they are designed with voice-controlled software is all the more impressive. You´re the man, bro.

We're pleased and proud to announce that, starting with this issue, HMSS is the new and official home to the FAQ for the USENET newsgroup alt.fan.james-bond. FAQmaster Ron Miehls is an old friend and newsgroup playmate of ours, and we couldn't be happier to have The Shadow on board.

Finally, we´d be woefully remiss if we didn´t recognize and thank the talented (and patient and understanding and really cool) contributors to HMSS. So a big thanks to our buds Ed, James, Mac, Rob, Bill, Vern, Michael, Ron, Phil, Joe, Ray, Jeremy, Jeff, Fraser, and Neal & Rob.

Thanks guys.

Enjoy.

-- Tom Zielinski