Raise your glasses and rejoice, for the fun times are about to drastically expand. To paraphrase The Rock: "Finally... Old Sammy has come back...to Buttonhole!"

My true return, from a lengthy (not to mention unwanted/unintended) hiatus has suffered more delays & false starts than Axl Rose's Chinese Democracy album and Duke Nukem Forever combined. I'm not sure exactly how many times I've said (usually in my Editorial Columns) something along the lines of, "Sorry I've been away, but now I'm back." It feels to me as though I've said something like that about 10 billion times over the past 12 months, or thereabouts. You can see my latest my excuse/reason in previous Editorial.

Well, sorry to bore you...Actually, I'm not sorry at all. What do I owe you? Fuck you, cocksucker. But, anyway, I am going to say it again: Right here and right now, I am making my full-time return to Planet Buttonhole. Again, though, I've made many claims like that in recent times. Indeed, I may have unwittingly turned myself into "the boy who cried wolf" with some people, as a result of my numerous preceding failed and/or short lived comebacks. Frankly, I can't really blame anyone who might be sceptical about hearing this once again.

However, I can say, in absolute sincerity, this is, by far, the most assured & confident I can recall feeling about saying this sort of thing. While I'm still not exactly all good health wise (basically, I'm well enough and VERY far from my worst), I just kind of know, or feel- as corny as that may sound - in my heart and mind, that I am now ready. Ready and able, to happily get back to providing every bit of energy & attention this wondrous website requires/deserves.

To tell the truth, my protracted absence has caused Buttonhole to lose a whole lot of ground. Unfortunately, we've got some major catching up to do. Particularly in areas like promotion (to repeat a P.T. Barnum quote I've used many times before, "Without promotion, something terrible happens... Nothing.") and the relationships we have with our supporters. Obviously, we've also lapsed substantially when it comes to providing our readers with frequent, up to date & varied news and reviews for all of our website's main topics.

Buttonhole is, metaphorically speaking, rather like a plant, or flower. First you must plant a seed and from there, in order for the plant to grow to its full strength and beauty, you must nurture it constantly; water it daily and make sure it gets the right amount of sunlight etc. Right now, this plant of ours is looking a touch wilted.

For the record, I wanna stress the fact that I, personally, am solely responsible for this situation. It is also, essentially, up to me to get Buttonhole back on track and blooming again. At first that prospect felt a bit daunting. But now, I find it very exciting. I'm fired up about putting my gardening gloves and getting stuck into the rebuilding process.

Before anyone gets all freaked out, or starts thinking Buttonhole is/was on the brink of collapse - relax, baby! Everything is fine and dandy. We are behind where we were and that means we're also definitely behind where we should be. But we're also an enormous distance away from any Michael Jackson style fall from grace. Sure, Buttonhole isn't at any sort of great peak right now (compared to our more bountiful periods): But our site hasn't started to suck either. In fact, we are still looking pretty darn cool and remain well above average.

I'm aware that I've praised Buttonhole's Assistant Editor, Australian Ninja, many times now in my Editorials, but I really can't stress enough just what a life saver that guy has been. On top of his other work commitments and so forth, Aussie Ninja has spent countless hours writing reviews, building/maintaining contacts and editing and posting almost every single Buttonhole article that's gone online over the past few months.

Aussie Ninja and Buttonhole's Lead Contributor, Jason (along with a couple of other people - like Special K, with his invaluable tech support) have done a tremendous job of keeping our website's heart beating. I'm in the process of arranging it so that both Ninja and Jason are added to the contact list of all Buttonhole's supporters. Because, it seems to me, those guys (as well as me, of course!) are essentially going to be the lynchpins of this site from now on. Anyway, I reckon when we fully establish that core team, it shall definitely make it easier for Buttonhole to continue onwards and upwards.

On top of that, of course, we'll still have the sweet reviews & content provided by the other members of Team Buttonhole. For example, our new guy, Borgieman, seems very keen to get stuck into some reviews. Hopefully we'll soon have some more wrestling-related content from the mighty Gimmick and other old favourites too.

Captain Buttonhole will soon be getting heavily involved in various ways, which should be well worth watching, to say the least. For instance, Cpt. B and Killer App have decided to join forces, to form the latest and greatest (new & improved!) duo to go by the name of "The B Team". I've checked out a few samples of what the B Team's reviews/articles are going to be like and...Let's just say I can't wait to see more.

In closing, there are many plans in the works and I'm pondering numerous ideas. Speaking personally, this is the most creatively fertile period I've experienced since Buttonhole launched. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. We'll first need to get our feet steady and learn to be comfortable walking slowly again. Before too long, we can work back up to a jog. Eventually....we'll be speeding faster than the Road Runner. Meep meep, motherfucker.