Magazine Death Pool

Abandon ship!

If there is any doubt that boating and yachting magazines are soon to join George Clooney and the crew of the Andrea Gail in the Reaper's bathtub, look no further than a new upbeat report from Reuters.

The New York Boat Show is about as crowded as a meeting of the Bernard Madoff Appreciation Society.

"Tight credit, rising unemployment and Wall Street upheaval created a perfect storm for the $15 billion power boat industry -- new power boat retail sales are forecast to drop 30 percent this year, after a 13 percent decline in 2007, experts say."

Don't say the Reaper has not warned you about this in the past.

RIP: Hooked on the Outdoors 1999-2006

The Reaper doesn't get outside much and prefers the dark, as you may imagine. So any magazine about the outdoors was not going to get me doing a jig.

I guess many others felt the same way, and frankly, I was tired hearing about all this Granola-eating, healthy fishing, canoeing, kayaking, and climbing. I steer my own boat down here -- you don't see the Reaper in some Gortex sheer body shirt doing it!

The fact is -- when you are a small company competing against the likes of Time4Media and advertisers are hard to come by, your chances of survival are unfortunately slim.

So shamefully, you provoked the Reaper to pay a visit to Boulder, CO and take Hooked on a Feeling, whoops, Hooked on the Outdoors on my own one-way kayak ride.