You may or may not have heard of Sacklunch.com. It was a website dedicated to pointing out the absurdities, foibles and hilarity/hypocrisy that is present the "action sports" industry. Except, that as you can probably guess, when it comes to poking a little fun at this mega billion dollar industry, a few folks aren't really up for getting their noses tweaked.

It was a fairly cryptic email (and believe me, I get accused of being cryptic at least once a month, so I know cryptic when I see it) that landed in my in-box yesterday. It seemed to say so much, yet say so little.

"The site has been removed from the Internet. While you may miss the site, please know that it will not miss you. You're the ones who visited a little too often, shared a little too much, and in fact, are responsible for the site becoming a little too big. So big in fact, that it . . . well, let's just say it got too big. So we're
going to say our two favorite phrases in the world:

Thank you and Good Bye!

The Editors

P.S. If you look around online carefully, you may start seeing our handiwork showing up in other more visited places. . . Just don’t
tell anyone we told you."

So there you have it...gone with the wind. Still, it was fun while it lasted. I'd love to know who called who. What type of pressure was applied - ah, it's a mystery alright.

Of course, the beautiful thing about the internet (and the most painful, if you happen to be on the receiving end) is that nothing really "dies." I mean, just because Sacklunch.com is toast, doesn't mean that their spirit doesn't live on.

For where there is hypocrisy, there is surly someone on the net willing to call BS.

Don't believe me, visit realskate.com, the slapmagazine.com message boards or the newest of the bunch, aworldwithoutskateshops.com.

I am not sure how to explain it, but this year seems unlike any other we've seen in skateboarding in a long, long time.

Debauchery, destruction, mayhem....we can't pretend and say it doesn't exist in skateboarding. It does and it can be fun, within limits. Sadly, adding to this list is death. We've lost two great skaters in the course of the past 2 weeks - Shane Cross and Ben Pappas. We almost lost Ali Boulala and who knows how well he will skate when he is fully recovered.

If any of the skate gods are listening, can you just give it a rest for a while? Perhaps take the rest of the year off?

Caught this news?

Oceanside, CA – March 7, 2007 – TransWorld Media, the world’s leading action sports media brand, is pleased to announce record growth in its combined TransWorld websites including six action sports titles: TransWorld SKATEboarding, TransWorld SURF, TransWorld SNOWboarding, RideBMX, TransWorld Motocross, QUAD Off-Road, and monthly trade magazine TransWorld Business Online.

In total, the TransWorld Network of web properties realized growth of over 45 percent in monthly unique users and 51 percent in total pageviews in 2006 vs. 2005. Over 15 million individuals visited TransWorld Media websites during 2006 for an average of 1.4 million monthly unique visitors. This audience viewed over 237 million pages of content. Continuing this momentum in January, online uniques exceeded 1.7mm driving over 28 million page views and over 6mm video views. January was a record month for the company and represented 24% growth over December.

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Wow, that's volume. I can't even begin to digest those numbers...but if you really want to see something interesting, check out http://www.silverfishlongboarding.com/concretewave/CW_BG2007.pdf

and have a look at 1200 different skate products. Yep, the 2007 Concrete Wave Buyer's Guide is up! Did I mention we're giving away FOUR completes?