Start of a new year and time for a little refreshing of the look. First, an update on how things are going. They are, in a word, good. On the stats log, December was astonishing. In spite of the holidays and my hiatus, it was the highest traffic month ever at L.A. Observed—the first to cross into six figures for visitors and to surpass a million hits. For the year, L.A. Observed was read by almost a million visitors who looked at 2.1 million pages and registered 7.9 million hits.

That's an average day for Drudge, but it makes me pretty happy. It tells me there's something catching on here. The only downside is that as the traffic rises the costs of keeping this site on the Web are about to escalate. I'm not worried, since I think there are going to be some smart sponsors who realize this is becoming an elite L.A. audience. If you want to reach media pros and news makers, this is a great place to do it cheaply. Here's a link that explains how sponsorship works. In the meantime, if you feel like starting the year with a voluntary subscription via Paypal, it will go a long way. Thanks to everyone who contributed during 2004. The button is in the right-hand column.

As you can see, I've tweaked the design (again...). I hope the links column is more functional and easier to read. The overall look is a bit crisper. Your mileage may vary, and please holler if it doesn't work in your browser. The FAQs have been freshened a bit too. Later today, I also hope to have up a new feedback page for responding to posts. Entries will be signed, and moderated in the sense that I'll be posting them out of my email queue.