It has been my great pleasure to have been the webmaster of SURVIV.ORg over the past year. Now, with the conclusion of Survivor 3, I must, with some sadness, announce the closing of this site.

This decision was made some time ago (and no, it has nothing to do with the fact that my guy got gooned by a bad case of the runs, and that the dweeber who, from Day One, I insisted couldn't possibly win, won), and is certainly no reflection on the feedback I've received about the page - in fact, the support has been overwhelmingly enthusiastic. I want to thank everyone who has written to me personally to tell me how much they've enjoyed SURVIV.ORg. It's been a very special year.

The site will remain open for the next two weeks, for anyone who wants to browse through our past work, but will not continue to carry news items. On January 25th, the site will close its doors.

I would first and foremost like to thank our correspondents, Allison and Craig, for their hard work in developing the site. It has been a real team effort, and their boundless enthusiasm has more than made up for some long nights.

SURVIV.ORg was launched as Survivor: The Ultimate Game on February 1st, 2001. I developed it solely as an expression of my own interest in Survivor, and certainly had no illusions of its ever attaining popularity, or even gaining more visitors than the 8 per day I was averaging.

I was therefore stunned and delighted when the hit count for the site went through the roof in late February. Visits to the site continued to climb all the way through the summer (without a series on the air to stoke them) to the first episode of Survivor 3, where we hosted 25,000 visits in a little over 24 hours. Overall, over half a million people have come through this site in under a year! That truly boggles my mind, but it's a real testament to one of the underlying truths of Survivor - it's a communal experience. Nobody just watches the show; they watch the show to talk about the show, think about the show, obsess about the show, and hash over their predictions about the show with other enthusiasts. It's been a great pleasure being a part of that process for so many people.

With Survivor 2 having served as a "test run" for this site, the page was completely redesigned and relaunched at www.surviv.org in September of 2001.

I am excited to be moving on to new projects, both online and off, and am deeply grateful for having had the experience of running this site.

My final column, a summation of Survivor 3, along with some choice thoughts about how Survivor has made the mark that it has, can be found by clicking HERE. A warning to the wise, however: I long ago decided that all my writing on this page would be rated PG, like the show I'm writing about. Well, let's just say I am sufficiently agitated about the finale of Survivor 3, and sufficiently satisfied with reigning myself in all these months, that tonight's column may contain a few discriminating words.

Allison's final column, her summation of Survivor 3 and all its crazy happenstances, can be found by clicking HERE. Again, a big thanks to Allison for her contributions to SURVIV.ORg!

Thanks for visiting, best of luck to all future castaways, and enjoy Survivor 4!

I can honestly say that I've done just about everything I've ever wanted to do during the operation of this site, and written more about Survivor than any other single thing in my life. I've enjoyed it immensely, and have no regrets or lingering "wish I woulda's."

One thing that continues to elude me, however, is playing the game itself. It disappoints me greatly that there is still no available opportunity for Canadians to play Survivor. We know that Mark Burnett owns the rights to a Canadian version; Mr. Burnett, if you're reading this, either use those rights or sell them to someone who will!

In the end, those who can, do, and those who can't, criticize. It's time to play.