August 29, 2003

Dear Cap'n Wacky readers,

Cap'n Wacky's Boatload of Fun turned 4 years old this month (August, 2003). Four solid years of updates of fresh comedy on very, very nearly every Friday. We launched in August of 1999 with just the Amalgamated Humor home page, eGad, The JimmiCam, the wildly popular Mobster.com section and the promise of more to come. We sent out e-mails to our friends and family and hoped word would spread.

Four years later, the site has enjoyed some modest success. Yahoo now lists us as one of it's most popular parody sites, we've been featured in real physical newspapers like the Sacramento Bee, the Seattle Times, and the London Times, and hundreds of you stop by every day.

But though the site is only four years old, it has already hit puberty.

Lately, the Boatload of Fun has taken to locking itself in the bedroom, putting on headphones, cranking up the guitar rock and ignoring us when we pound on the door. It's sullen and bitter and seems to take less joy in the things that made it happy when it was younger.

In the immortal words of Peter Brady: "When it's time to change, you've got to rearrange who you are into what you're gonna be (shalla la la la la la la la, shalla la la la)."

So, we're going on a hiatus. The regular weekly updates are stopping for a little while so we can spend more quality time with The Boatload of Fun, and help it through this transitional phase. For the next four months, we'll be updating only once a month - on the first Friday of each month. Expect the Disgruntled Employee of the Month to continue it's unbroken run and I'm sure Zonar will be rearing his ugly head some of these Fridays too, as the studios are not taking a break from releasing their awful, awful films. There may be other small additions too, but we're not promising, because, as mom always used to say- promise makes a "prom" out of "is" and "e."

Mom had problems.

During these four months, we plan on spending a little time not working on the Cap'n. We've got some other projects in the cooker, and half of the Cap'n Wacky staff will be getting married in October, much in the tradition of the Washington Times. After a little time away, we plan to take a good look at what we've presented on the capnwacky.com, see what's working best, see what could be improved, and hopefully even come up with some entirely new additions. (Hint: It rhymes with "'Real Ghostbusters' fan fiction.")

We want you to be excited by Cap'n Wacky's Boatload of Fun again, and more so, we want to be excited by Cap'n Wacky's Boatload of Fun again.

On Friday, January 2, 2004 Cap'n Wacky's Boatload of Fun relaunches. Some things will be new, hopefully much will be improved. We'd give a few teasing details if we had them, but we're stingy that way. Feel free to send us feedback about what you're enjoying and what you'd like to see more or less of to gnewbrunswick@capnwacky.com, so we can spot you among the hundreds of spam messages we get daily. Let us know what you've liked best or what you'd like to see more of. Please don't send ideas for new sections because we either don't want to steal your ideas or we just hate them.

Thanks for four years of fun. See you in January to start it all again.

Sincerely,
Brodie H. Brockie and RJ White