Bleg for advice

can any of you Morons put me some knowledge?*

so anyway, it looks like the hit counter has finally crapped out. My Brother-in-Blog set it up four+ years ago, a couple of weeks (months?) after Supply Side Politics came to be. Now it's broken and Greg can't be reached for comment.

Here's where the bleg comes in: I need to set up a new hit counter, but what's the protocol here? I know that around 8:00 AM-ish on Monday 05JAN09 the counter read 8973 hits. (I check it and make note every Monday morning before starting my thankless Stoopid Business™ job.**) I could set up another counter, but what do I use as my baseline starting point? Is my hit counter to be forever plagued with an asterisk?

Your thoughts are appreciated. How do I properly deal with this, and what's the bestest freebie counter available?

* Now I'll have to endure an excruciating call from my parents tomorrow morning wondering why I'm asking Mormons for advice....hey, they're good for a dozen hits a week, so I gotta take the call from my parents. Pity me, fellow Moron-bloggers.

** Why do I check it every Monday morning? Shut up, that's why.