Before I go, however, I thought I would like to unload a few of the things that are on my mind, stuff I’m nervous about, excited about, wondering about.

I’m thinking a lot these days about cloud computing. Google (GOOG) is talking about it a lot. You probably know more about it than I do. It’s a movement away from local storage of personal information, all the things we have normally come to expect on our own dedicated hard drives and servers, including applications and data. It feels very Terminator to me. Like, I think about Skynet going self-aware and destroying the future.

I also wonder in my own mind whether we are constructing what is, in effect, the Library at Alexandria. All the knowledge of the ancient world was located there, back when men wore skirts. Then it burned. Now we have a handful of plays from Sophocles where there might have been dozens for all we know. What happens if the cloud gets a massive wedgie?

As always, I believe that Microsoft (MSFT) is taking the rear-guard action and developing ever-more evolved servers for home use. I admit to feeling more comfortable with all my intellectual property tucked right next to my desk. It just doesn’t seem to be the way things are going. We are all melding slowly into a collective mind that connects via innumerable electronic nerves with Mother. But I wish the geeks at Microsoft well.

I also send out big hugs, in spite of what some of you may think, to all the good folks at Apple (AAPL), not so much for what they’ve done for us this year, but for all the good things they’re cooking up right now. I don’t even know what they are. But I want whatever it is they’ve got on their minds already. And that makes me feel very hopeful about this future of ours.

I’m also thinking about what kind of year 2008 will be, of course. There seems to be a lot of negativity around, some of which I admit, in my own small way, I grouchily contribute to. I’m sorry if now and then I bum some of you out. I’ll try to be more upbeat in the year to come. If, you know, the airplanes run on time, among, you know, other things.

Now I’m going to take a leap here, skip the Happy Holidays thing and just say Merry Christmas to all of you, not in a hostile, mean-spirited, contentious, divisive Lou Dobbs way, but just because it is, after all, a real holiday, not a merged and transformed national event like President’s Day. And even though I do not believe in Santa I’m glad he’s around. And when it snows on December 25th, I feel like childhood. So Merry Christmas to us all, each and every one.

I wish you a terrific 2008 as well. May your securities go up. May your loans not be adjusted. May the Fed time its actions to help your portfolio. May your work be as pleasant as possible, and not interrupted by any forces outside your ken or power, either majeur or otherwise. And may you make more money in 2008 than you did in 2007, without trying quite as hard to do so.

Finally, I just want to say thanks for being here, for your crazy boss stories, for your thoughts about your bulls**t jobs, for yelling at me when I annoy you and rallying to my side when the Humor Police occasionally comes knocking at my door.

Shakespeare said that many a truth is spoken in jest. I hope to aim for that and occasionally hit it in the year to come.

Until then? Hasta la vista, baby. But just for now. As Arnold said on more than one occasion…

I’ll be back.