It's been months since my last "monthly" letter and the last letter this millenium.  What do you expect?  This is a whacky biz, I'm here to tell ya.  We've been busier than a pack of investment bankers' lawyers at a stock fraud hearing.  Mostly we've been trying to raise funds to finance our next big Internet gambit, iforgotthenameofthat.com.

Before I let you in on the brilliance that is iforgotthenameofthat.com, let me explain the big strategy.

iTulip.com was the very first and original Internet company parody, as you all know but not a few reporters who don't seem to know how to check web site registration dates at networksolutions.com.   Anyway, we're gonna leverage the iTulip.com brand into the very first Internet company parody portal.  The first affiliate is FallStreet.com.  Other affiliate deals are in the works.  We're also developing a few on our own. 

Brings us back to iforgotthenameofthat.com, "The only Web site you need to remember."  New dot coms have spent $1.2 billion so far this year to advertise on "old media" newspapers, magazines, TV, billboards, posters, match covers, condoms -- you name it -- in a lame and futile attempt to get you remember who they are.  Well, can ya?  Hell, no.  You can't recall one tenth of the names you heard on the radio just on your way home from work today.  That's because old media advertising of dot coms worked when only a few were doing it.  Now it's advertising dollars down the dumper. 

But wait!  iTulip.com to the rescue.  Go to iforgotthenameofthat.com and use our special Web site search engine to find the site name you forgot.  Just type in a few words and we do the rest.  All those dot coms that spent millions on ads on the Super Bowl can get better traffic by paying us a mere $1000 to get listed on iforgotthenameofthat.com. 

How we gonna fund it?  The boys over at heyidiot.com offered to put in but their stock offer basically sucked, so we're going it solo.  Instead we suffered through four months of so-called "due diligence" with Porcine Capital Partners, trying to get a coupla lousy million bucks so we can launch the site.  Months chasing our asses around for these guys while we're trying to run our business.  Go get the witch's broom.  Go back and get the witch's hat.  Sheesh!  That fiasco ended with negotiations marked by weaseling, obfuscation and physical torture before at last we closed a round of usury equity financing.  My dog now owns more of the company now than I do. 

On the management front, we've rounded out the iTulip.com team with the addition of Arty Leavitt, our new VP of Tobacco, Alcohol and Firearms. 

We're proud to announce that iTulip.com is now 100% Y2K Complacent.  You can browse iTulip.com without having to worry about Y2K.  We don't talk about it and, when we do, we tell you everything's gonna be just fine.

But the really big news, the news you've been waiting for ever since you bought an iTulip.com Bogus Stock Certificate... We've scheduled our IPO* for... Dec 20, 1999!  We hope to issue 1000 Bogus iTulip.com Stock Certificates priced at $9.00 (plus $1.00 shipping and handling).  Just to make extra sure the IPO* goes well, we've sent a note to Alan Greenspan requesting that he please keep pumping up the money supply (M3 has increased at an annualized rate of 12% since Sept. 20) at least until after our IPO* to assure a nice bump in orders.  Hey, the same pumping got Akamai to $24B.  It's our turn, dammit! 

Well, that's enough.  Good luck and remember, you are a unique human being, just like everyone else.

Sincerely, 

Arnold Greenspatz 

The Prez
iTulip.com