Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader, when not wasting time on computer games, has been musing on death over the past few days. As he blogged recently, two people in your Maximum Leader’s life have died in the past few weeks. But these are not the only deaths about which he is musing.

Excursus: To those of you who sent kind condolence e-mails to me - many many thanks.

Your Maximum Leader thought he would commit a number of these musings to the ether of the internet as a long-ish blog post. But it just wasn’t working. The posts seemed too personal, or too morose, or too detached. None of the variations on the theme seemed to resonate enough with your Maximum Leader. So, he cut his efforts down to just one thought.

The only death he would like to muse about is not a physical death. It is a blog death. Yes, our glorious blogger dead. Anna was first. Then Conrad. Mister Green also passed. Now one of your Maximum Leader’s Loyal Minions has passed on. Yes. Kilgore has put his blog out to pasture.

Reading Kilgore’s most recent, and as best we know final, post has really saddened your Maximum Leader. (Saddened him so much he couldn’t blog about it for days.) He can hardly explain how much (mental) pleasure he got from reading Kilgore’s posts. Kilgore is a much better writer than your Maximum Leader. And his well crafted posts stand in stark opposition to those posted here. He will be greatly missed. For as long as the URL is active, he shall remain up at the top of the blogroll with the other loyal minions. And who knows what will happen after that.

Excursus: Hell, your Maximum Leader kept Conrad’s blog on the blogroll for months although it was dead and gone. He only removed it a day or two ago. And that was to make room for a new blog “Gypsy Scholar” by Dr. Horace Jeffery Hodges - who has in the past been a kind correspondent and reader of this site. (Welcome to the blogosphere!)

Just so you all know, after your Maximum Leader read Kilgore’s sign-off; he poured himself a big ole glass full of Ardbeg and ice and toasted the departed. It was sort of like a little Scottish wake consisting of one person pounding ine whisky alone in front of a computer monitor in his underwear late at night. Somehow, that was rather fitting.

Excursus - Isn’t a solitary Scot drinking in his underwear in front of his computer the definition (or picture) of a Scottish blogger geek wake?

One can only hope that from time Kilgore (your Maximum Leader isn’t sure that he could ever use his proper appelation: Lawrence) will choose to grace a blog with his presence. Kilgore, please know that you are always welcome at Nakedvillainy. Someday your Maximum Leader hopes you’ll do a guest blog.

Requiscat In Pace Kilgore. The blogosphere is diminished by your departure.

Carry on.