Howdy folks, Amalgamated Humor Vice President of Public Relations Gary Newbrunswick here. Last week, my nephew Larry reported the events of his spring break spent with us here at the corporate headquarters. Apparently, response was so favorable that the higher-ups have decided to institute The Amalgamated Humor Diaries as a regular feature of this site. Different members of the company will be posting here about recent events, though you know it's just going to wind up being me half the time because who the hell else around here does anything?

Last week, 60-year-old California investment broker/billionaire Dennis Tito paid $20 million dollars to be the first tourist in space. Jealous over the trip, Amalgamated Humor Co-President Brodie H. Brockie vowed to buy his way into space as well.

"Soon I will be floating happily through the peaceful solitude of the inky void of space," Mr. Brockie said. "And I don't care if I have to bankrupt this company or face pod-people to do it."

Co-President R.J. White was understandably worried about the financial stability of his company - not to mention the safety of his business partner and longtime friend, so he decided to take action. At least, I assume he was also worried about Mr. Brockie's safety. I mean, he didn't mention it specifically, but he's not completely heartless.

Anyway, Mr. White told Mr. Brockie not to worry about the arrangements - that he would take care of everything and Mr. Brockie could just concentrate on preparing himself for the journey. The eager, soon-to-be astronaut promptly began watching lots and lots of space invasion movies from the fifties, "just to know what to look out for besides those wily pod-people."

Meanwhile, Mr. White made a personal visit to Pam Wilson, the head of our daycare center, and instructed her that the kids' craft-time for the next several days would be building a space ship out of cardboard boxes, construction paper, and tinfoil. So the kids stopped packaging whoopee cushions and set to work on the ship.

Once their job was done, Mr. White simply installed a TV and an Atari 2600 with the game Asteroids for a control panel. Since he was already from space, our advice columnist, Zonar the Superion, was drafted to go along for the ride.

On Wednesday, the intrepid adventurers were "launched" into space from the parking lot. We had the boys from the loading docks come by and shake the hell out of the rocket. Thor offered to actually toss the thing into space for real, but we explained to him in one-syllable words why that wasn't what he wanted.

We thought Zonar would be more trouble too, but he just rolled his eyes and complained loudly about the inferiority of human-built space crafts. I guess he figured that's what a real Earth spaceship would look like.

They're both still out there now. No crisis as of yet, though Mr. Brockie radioed yesterday (via CB radio) that he was already out of Tang and Astronaut Ice Cream, but we managed to convince him that we could beam some more up, Star Trek style, and just shoved some under the back flap while humming loudly.

Mr. Brockie also says he's still somewhat jealous of the first tourist in space though, and is now considering changing his name to "Tito."