The next Senate election will probably start in a few weeks.

As FairyKiya reports in this week's Times, the City Workers held another monthly "Meet the Makers" gathering in Club Why last Tuesday. (CWs and citizens meet on the 4th of every month.) There, the workers learned that WhyHats are in huge demand, and that animated face parts act as projectile shields.

City Hall says most of the workers support returning the WhyHat to its original place -- free for Club Why members! Wh00t!

As for the "projectile shield" nature of animated parts, the CWs are discussing it now. One idea on the board is to create an actual animated "projectile shield" and make the other parts "normal" when it comes to projectiles, but they're not certain what the best plan is yet. One certainty is that, with as popular as animated parts have been -- they're selling like hotcakes and increasing sales of WhyPasses big-time -- Akbar will definitely be making new ones in the future!

In other news, the Solstice Safari's deadline was extended last week. Good luck teams!!!

Speaking of team activities, there may be something special coming up in the next week or two. Keep your eyes peeled to the Times and the calendar in the Welcome Page!

In the last "What's New", I mistakenly reported on what I called the last Trivia Hour of 2004. There was actually one more Trivia Hour, held on New Year's Eve. CW neutral says he prepared several questions that were "thematically related to the celebration of the New Year holiday around the world" and he doubled the stakes!

The smallest prize was 50 clams, and the last question of 2004 was worth 800 whopping clams. The question was to translate the Roman numeral "MMIV" into the decimal number. "This is how we said goodbye to 2004," says neutral.

Gold837 won 50 clams; FiryKiya got 100 clams total; FireBeam and Haphbaked each earned 100; Dartanian took away 150 clams; and the grand prize-winner of those 800 clams was ephippo.

Let's not forget another great award that City Workers hand out -- the Good Citizen Award! It's time to talk more about the good behavior and great deeds of your fellow Whyvillians. The City Workers are asking that all Y-mail Helpers and Senators help us identify folks who truly exemplify the "Whyville Way." If you're a Y-mail Helper or a current Senator, please send your nominee(s) and reasons for naming them to city-management at Whyville.net, okay? Thanks!

Wonder what the "Good Citizen Award" is? Check out City Hall's explanation here.

From the good to the bad... "Beware of My Club!" bellowed a lame Y-mail sent around last month. It threatened that a so-called club "takes over websites and destroys them." The Y-mail was sent to "important figures" on Whyville like Senate candidate PUNKnPIE (now Senator!), former Senate candidate deriko, and former Senators Giggler01 and OrEoBaBy, as well as City Workers scyllaCat and mark.

The Y-mailer claimed that his club would hack these figures as a first step, using "hacking devices, high-tech computers and many friends" to accomplish his goals.

First of all, Whyville has never actually been hacked -- no Whyvillian has lost an account to any technological gadgetry.

Now, the Y-mailer calls his club "the LD", which sounds like "Lame Duck" to us, but it doesn't matter. Whatever or whoever, they don't belong here. If you ever get a threatening Y-mail like this, please use the 911 report tool to let City Hall know. We don't believe citizens should have to put up with absurd threats. There's no danger to Whyville, but it's inappropriate to bother our citizens with nonsense of this nature. Yeesh.

Thanks for being such a great help, everybody!

Times Editor

p.s. A quick note to our writers: February is coming up, so we're looking for Valentine's stories & poems, as well as good articles that highlight African-American History Month. Make it fun, make it snappy! The deadline for our Valentine's issue is coming soon!