I'm going to be staking out new territory, now. It seems my old hunting grounds have been burned barren by the fools at ZVUE. Don't get me wrong, I still consider this place to be mine, and I'll be stalking it's shadows yet, but this shall no longer be my own home, my den in which I reside. Those friends and fans who wish to find me can find me at www.ebaum.tv, in the forums with the rest of the original legends.

To those who are confused, I'll explain what has been going on this past week. We all know that our old friend Eric Bauman (eBaum) sold out to some corporation some time ago, yet remained here as the site administrator. We didn't really pay much attention to who it was he sold out to, nor did we really give a shit, to be honest. Well, that was ZVUE, a company that originally manufactured and sold a line of sorry excuses for MP3 players, which turned out to be as much of a failure as pretty much the rest of the company has.

Well, about a week ago, Eric and his staff (the original creators of eBaum's, sellouts though they may be) came into work to find the ZVUE CEO waiting for them with a camera crew and a team of movers. They were told to stay out of the way as their computers and all their work-belongings were reclaimed and moved out. Some were offered jobs working for ZVUE, which they of course refused, and so were left unemployed in their empty office with their empty desks.

Some of you may have noticed the absurd amount of spam and inappropriate content that has been uploaded over the course of the past week. This is because ZVUE, in all their epic brilliance, failed to recognize that Eric and his staff (who had written this website from the ground up) were the only ones who were familiar with it's programming language and coding inrastructure. Without them, parts of the site (comments being the most noticeable example) stopped working, and all the moderators left along with me and the rest of the most active and well-known users. The internet equivalent of rioting and looting in the lack of a police force ensued.

Apparently ZVUE has finally figured out how to work the site, repaired the comments, and appointed some new moderators who have set themselves to the task of deleting the absurd amounts of spam that went unchecked this last week, and banning the users responsible (not that any of them care, they've all moved on along with the rest of the original "real" ebaumers). So now that the dust has settled some, I've come to post this, a manner of a goodbye speech. I'll be around from time to time to see how ZVUE is managing the legacy they inherited (stole).

Also, for those interested in knowing a little more about ZVUE and why they did this, they are currently in dire straits financially (NASDAQ reports their shares trading at 17 cents a piece, which basically means the company is on the brink of bankruptcy). Between their failure of an MP3 line and their dozen-or-so small websites, they're just not making enough money to support themselves. On top of that, thanks to their failure to meet NASDAQ's requirement to hold an annual shareholders meeting, they have been given an ultimatum: If they don't fix themselves by April or May, I forget which, NASDAQ is going to exclude them from this years stock-trading market. Yep. No stock-trading for ZVUE. With the financial troubles they're already facing, that would virtually ensure they go under.

And so, EBW being one of their largest sources of revenue, they thought they would cut budget by getting rid of Eric and his staff (who were all being paid heavy salaries under their contract, since they were the original owners of the site... Eric certainly didn't sell out cheap) and taking the site over themselves... but things aren't going as they planned. I don't think they were counting on the site's largest contributors getting pissed off and leaving due to their not-so-well-thought-out actions.

And we, the original legends of EBW, are now enjoying the show from our perch at www.ebaum.tv, knowing full well the financial difficulty that ZVUE is facing and how much they need this very website to stay afloat... which is why we're encouraging you all to abandon ship and watch them drown.

So stay, or go. It's your call. If you're wondering where all the cool people went who used to upload all the best content, I've already posted the address in this blog. Twice. You'll find us all there, toasting marshmallows over ZVUE's burning husk.

I am Kaustic, and I'll be hanging my hat over at the real eBaum's World, www.ebaum.tv. (That's thrice!)