Happy Hot Pipes Birthday

The official HPO fan club in full swing.

Today marks the one year anniversary of this blog. Our main goal, which we achieved, was to still be blogging this many moons later.

Our secondary goal, which we did not achieve, was to put a monkey wearing a pirate costume into space. Our excuse is that no one took us seriously, but critics claim that we set lofty goals that are "unreal" and "make no sense."

To that, we say: "Go take a long walk off a short pier."

Anyways, we are celebrating the fact that we are still writing 12 months, 150 posts, and over 22,000 readers later. A lot has changed since our first post, but the message has remained the same. And because of this, we would like to explicitly thank at this time all of our Hot Pipes field reporters, who send us tips, stories, and ideas from around the world.

A big Hot Pipes thank-you goes out to Ophelia Johnson, Bill Johnson, Jimmie Fontaine, Hector Golightly, "Free-ballin" Colin aka Captain Midnight, Johnny Red, Koch, Pete Barley, Mooney Pantagraph, Jelly, and last but not least, the man known only as "El Cerdo Azul".

Without you, dear contributors, this blog would be nothing more than a haven of mindless ramblings and inane BS. With you, however, we are a shining beacon of literate enlightenment that is transmitted at the speed of light through the fiber-optic wires of the internet, all the way to your high-tech man's idiot box, where you can read it and hopefully share a laugh with us.

This is how we feel.

As a result of the past year's mental gymnastics, the majority of the creative element of this website is celebrating by going on vacation in Miami. As a result, no posts will occur for the next three days. We hope you will survive, and we hope you will join us for another year of reducing things to the ridiculous.

Viva el tango de los pipas calientes.

Ain't it good to be alive?