Ah yes, 2006...It was certainly an eventful year for my little weekly K-Files. In my usual year end nostalgia trip, I have gone over my archives to see just how much this column has changed. To finish off the New Years recap I started last week with my Coastie Awards picks, I thought it'd be fun to go through the big stories, hot topics, and unexpected surprises that kept me writing through 2006.

The year started innocently enough with my usual 3 story a week, paranormal news recap format. It was the standard that got me going with the original Ghost Files news reports back in the days before Khyron.net. The very next week, however, I would set in motion a series of events that would change this column forever. Taking a break from the usual format, I wrote a book review on Jim Marrs' Alien Agenda. By that time, I had already grown weary of news commentary. My sources on the internet that I used to get the articles from were drying up fast. It seemed each week I was scrambling at the last minute to find something interesting to present. That said, the format would limp on for about 4 months.

Then, finally, the paradigm shift arrived. On April 12, after reaching my breaking point on the subject, I wrote a longwinded rant on the subject of MySpace and why it sucks. I used an article Alex Jones posted on InfoWars.com about the site to tie it into the esoteric, but that was more of an afterthought to justify the rant in this venue. Little did I know, it would go on to be one of the most controversial things I've written. Before long after posting it, friends and family of mine that use the social networking site started hitting me with emails in defense of MySpace. For once in a long while, I was thrilled that something I wrote was actually getting read. No publicity is bad publicity, I guess, but most importantly, I was boosted with a surge of inspiration to move on to bigger and better things.

From that week forward, the format of The K-Files was forever changed. No longer would I be trying to add poor humor to obscure newsbytes. Instead I would really let the creative juices flow with full-fledged, weekly editorials. Over the following weeks, I would go on to cover topics ranging from the factual (The REAL ID Act of 2005) to the far-out (the Secret Topic). Though for the most part, I owe much of my inspiration to Coast to Coast AM.

In late May of 2006, the unexpected guest hosting by Coast to Coast announcer Ross Mitchell lead me to write a 2-part review of his performance as well as Ian Punnett's reaction. It was at this time that I first started hinting at my goal to listen to Ian Punnett's Saturday night early show more often. For those of you that follow my column on a weekly basis, you may have noticed that I've intro'd more than a few of these things with Ian Punnett in some way. In fact, Ian Punnett became the first host that I actually contacted via email. After my recap of his October 18th interview with Kim Paffenroth on the subject of zombie films, I emailed it to Ian along with a standard raving fan message. Although I received a reply the man himself, I was disappointed that it was more or less a canned response that made no reference to the questions I asked. I don't hold it against him, as I can only imagine the amount of emails these guys get...but a few days later I was pleased to discover that my website got a couple hits from a Premier Radio email inbox. I can only assume that it was Ian checking out Khyron.net. I feel so honored.

Looking back on my editorials over the year, I tried to choose which was my favorite. The easiest to write was certainly the above mentioned 'Zombie Rave!' recap. The 2 that received the most attention among my friends that read the column were the MySpace rant and my Pure Evil Nightmare description. But if I had to pick the one that I feel showed the highest quality, I'd have to choose my commentary on George Noory's appearance on the Alex Jones show. The apes were really working those typewriters that week.

 Now, to bring 2006 officially to a close, I present to you last year's The K-Files reduced in number form:

• # of 'Files: 40
• # of weeks off: 12
• # of 'Files editorials about or mentioning Alex Jones: At least 5 (I thought it would have been more)
• # of movie reviews: 1
• # of book reviews: 2
• # of typos, grammar mistakes, poor sentence structures: Innumerable

Thanks for reading, everyone, and thank you for supporting The K-Files. 2007 will be one helluva year.