Please don't forget to read the bulletin board. Enter +read from anywhere.

The SED, or Society of Evil Doers held its annual dinner this week. Held at the Cafe des Cieux, in the French Quarter, the staff had prepared a delicious buffet, and the guests enjoyed a delicious meal.

SED head, Morticon, local evil wallaby, started the proceedings by introducing Argon, local centaur as the SED's Guest of honor. Morticon and Lilahfae gave speeches thanking Argon for "saving" the SED by his purchase of the majority shares of SED stock sold by Morticon earlier this year. A challenge to Morticon's sale of the stock was won by Tarka, local otter, as reported in an earlier edition of @Action News.

Argon graciously accepted the thanks of the SED, and gave a little speech himself about how he had hoped to make the SED a legitimate organization. Obviously, these plans were dashed as Morticon regained control.

As the dinner progressed, there was a mysterious power outage. The breakers were reset, but suddenly part of the wall of the cafe was crumbled by a large forklift driven by Darius, local ferret. As he and his machine entered the room, Lilahfae used her magic to trap everyone in mucus flavored Jello, negating the option of eating one's way out. Darius then used the forklift to lift the entire piece of Jello, with the Guests embedded in it, and carrying them off to 1313 Mockingbird lane.

There, he dropped the Jello, with its struggling contents in front of a two headed snake that thanked the ferret for a snack. Meanwhile, Morticon was observing the whole thing, making "horse jokes" about the SED's "GUest of Honor's"centaur form.

Argon, in a rare action, revealed that he had a magic spell, which he had intended to use on someone who possessed the Centaur State of Mind but not the centaur form. MOrticon, of course didn't have the Centaur State of Mind, but Argon thought the wallaby ought to see just how "horse-like" being a centaur was. So he used the spell, uttering an arcane phrase and turned Morticon into a wallabytaur! A look at MOrticon revealed that,

Morticon has become a wallabytaur! He looks fairly normal from his ears down to his hips, but rather than the big wallaby legs that used to let him hop great distances, he now has the lower body of a very large, very heavy Clydesdale. His coat his is a gleaming brown, with a long flowing white tail and white fetlocks which flow over his polished black hooves. His equine aspect is that of a normal sized Clydesdale, standing about 18 hands high at the withers. His wallaby torso has increased in size so the two aspects of his new form are in proper proportion to one another. Morticon has a nice mane of hair going from the normal wallaby grey-brown on his head to white at his equine shoulders. One aspect of his wallaby form that has remained is his pouch. Located in it's normal position, it extends down to his equine chest.

At this point, Morticon hopped, well, sort of trotted off, not at all used to moving around on four legs. The two headed snake tried making a meal of Sunshine, local sheep, but she used her wool coat to tickle the snake under the chins and escaped.

Soon the Jello started to disolve, but before everyone was able to escape, Darius used a remote control to set off a nuclear bomb and destroy Adara's Cafe des Cieux. After a discussioon, and some threats, Darius promised to rebuild the cafe and make it good as new.

All in all, the 2004 Annual SED Dinner went as expected, and everyone went home happy (Except for Adara who had lost her resturant) and full of good food.

Kern, local clockwork inca tern, arrived at the Sundance Surf area of Patch O'Black, local Jellicl cat's, Jellicle Fields. The tern greeted everyone, saying, "Hi! Hi ... hi and hi and has anybody seen Ing?"

Austin says, "Hiya, Kern, Ing, Alex."
Gryphe chitters, "No, sorry, Kern."
Kern says, "Ing's *not* here! That's the problem!"
Argon says, "Hi Kern. Nope, haven't seen him around."

PatchO'Black remarked, "Um...Kern....I though Ing could only be seen by you." Kern flaps its wings frantically and flies up on top of Mavra's head."It said, "Ing went missing and I can't find it anywhere!"

Argon said, "Well, it'll come home when it needs to be wound up."

Kern replied, "Yeah but I know where Ing goes to rewind and it's not *there*!"

Suri suggested that we should ask the Magic Eight Ball, or Gryphe's crystal ball.

Kern said, "Crystals are good...Ing likes crystals."

Suri remarked,"Once my cousin Phoobia fell down the stairs just as she was saying that word."

Austin said, "Oh, please, do tell, Suri. I love when lemurs tell stories."

Suri carried on, involved in her own story. "She'd spilled her ball bearing collection on the stairs, and had been gonan say "I've spilled my ball bearing collection on the stairs, so you need to be real careful", but what actually got said was "I've spilled my ball bearing collection on the stairs, so you wanna be ACK! OW! OW!..."

Kern said, "We planted ball bearings! One of the springtails who wanted to get us hydraulic lifts gave us a bunch but we knew they'd hatch into bears if we left them out."

Suri, her story finished, sat back down and zoofled to herself.

But, as of press time, the mystery of Ing's dissaperance has not been solved. If you see Kern's imaginary friend anywhere, please tell Kern.

In between calling each other horses and hopping flea hotels, Morti and I were talking about putting a FAQ, or "Frequently Asked Questions" section on the SpinDizzy Web site. OOC, MOrti sometimes has pretty good ideas, so I got to work on it.

The result is the prototypeSpinDizzy FAQ Page I've included "FAQ" about the SED, the "centaur comminuty", and am expecting information on the Art Ambush, and the Puppeteer's Guild. Just to make the page look better, I included a few of the other groups I could think of including, The Puppeteers' Guild. The Story Circle. The Neorepublic. and The Balloonies.

There are a lot of other groups and ideas and "things folks ought to know" that could be linked to this page, so help me out. If you have something thought ought to be on this page, mail it to argon@spindizzy.org!

Thanks a lot!

Argon
Editor, @Action News
Webmaster, http://www.spindizzy.org

Sunshine the porcupine had a problem last Saturday. Ever since she traded bodies with Logan the bunnypawed retriever, she wanted to be a porcupine again, but Logan likes borrowing her porcupine body. So Sunshine asked Leslie the faux-bunny fairy for help. Leslie's always happy to help and stirred the magic wand around and around a couple times making the body Sunshine had on glow and get nice and ready for magic to help. She was going to turn into a copy of her old porcupine body while Logan was using hers. (Nobody was going to cheat Logan though because we'll turn her back before Sunshine and Logan give their bodies back to each other.)

But something went wrong during the changing because Sunshine didn't come out as a new porcupine, but turned into a sheep instead! She was still kind of tall but nice and white and fluffy soft. She liked it though, and said, "Well, at least I'm a girl again. And I always did want a perm, though it was hard to get one as a porcupine." She also said, "Now I can go back to eating leaves again!"

Leslie offered to try again to get it right but Sunshine said maybe they better not. NeverNever the demon might be able to change Sunshine's shape again too--she can change people's shapes easily--but Sunshine wanted to stay like this a while. Brenda the cougar-dragon joked she could imagine Logan "getting his body back--but as a sheepdog!"

Kinsor the bat didn't know Sunshine and Logan had traded bodies but said his bat technology could make hats that trade people's personalities and minds and that's about the same effect. You get a hat and, "You just wear it for a few weeks, say a month, then give it to your friend. In no time flat it'll take effect!

And when Logan saw her old body was turned into a sheep she was fine too, because it was looked neat and she liked being a porcupine still. Leslie still doesn't know why it went wrong though, because "...usually when I start the magic up like that it just makes what you really wish for happen...it's kind of like the easiest way to make things go. I don't know why it made her a sheep instead." Sunshine just smiled and brushed out her neat new wool coat.

As a celebration of being re-instated as head of the Society of evil Doers, Morticon, local wallaby and alledged head of the SED or Society of Evil Doers, had his portait mained by Dameonnuit, local panther.

The Painting is roughly the size of a large poster and is oil on canvas. The background is is a big swirl of dark colours-Indigo, violet, black, and traces ofdeep red-that brings to focus the subject of the foreground. In the center there is the head of what appears to be a rather enraged wallaby, the ears are laid back, its brows are drawn together, the lips of his muzzle form a snarl that bares its long sharp teeth (one can almost hear the growl). Below the face and on both sides are his paws, claws out, in a grabbing stance-as if the wallaby were leaping towards the viewer to attack. But amidst all this are the eyes.

Easily the most attention grabbing part of the painting-they golden yellow and done in great detail using metallic gold paint so that they catch and reflect what light there is in an eerie sort of way...One can see cold, calculating intelligence in those eyes and an evil deep within. At the bottom of the painting is a signature-DN'04

This work of art is on display in the lobby of SED Headquarters.

Note: Because of tight security, @Action News was unable to get a photgraph of the actual painting. Displayed with this story is an artist's rendering of the artist's rendering of Morticon.

Wednesday night Annon, the salesrat, was trying to sell postcards, like one that was a polar bear with his eyes closed in a blizzard. Leslie wanted to buy that one and a couple others like the one with a kangaroo who'd jumped hopped off the page. So Annon said he'd be happy to sell them--"I like to deal in gold or major forms of cash. You wouldn't happen to have any of these would you?"

Leslie didn't. Making cash would probably be counterfeiting, but gold is okay, and Annon thought it'd be really neat to be a gold rat. But Borris the polar bear pointed out a solid gold rat couldn't move, so Annon said he'd give Leslie the postcards for his weight in gold.

PatchO'Black the jellicle cat, had a bowling ball that's about as heavy as Annon (who's not a really big rat) and gave it to Leslie to use. Leslie magic wand-waved and covered it in glowing purple magic that changed it over, but left it stuck inside the magic shell. Cye the giant vixen and Brenda the giant cougar-dragon were ready to help break the shell, but Annon was able to start ripping it open and tore up the shell.

The bowling ball of gold was really hard for him to move around and it started rolling away a couple times, so Leslie added a little ring chain like the one Nikon has for a tail when she's a necklace so Annon could wear it like a harness. Annon rolled the ball to a safe hiding place last we saw it, and Leslie got the whole box of postcards.

Each of the postcards starts out blank but when you hold them some cartoon comes in and does things, like skunks dancing around each other or a raccoon coming in and eating an egg. Violet the scent-taur thought the dancing skunks one was the neatest.

Violet the skunk-donkey centaur transformed into a pure donkey Monday morning in the Balloon Fields. The cartoon explained this was a condition with which she has lived for a long while, a shifting among several bodies caused by an accident with a mad scientist's device. Though the process looked alarming, with her falling backwards, shedding limbs, and losing control over her form, she assured onlookers it was not painful. "It's hard to hurt a 'toon. I just change between forms sometimes." She admitted it was, "...not something I can control yet.

She explained the condition. She had been an ordinary cartoon skunk when she began working with a "wannabe mad scientist" named Cogz.

"Well, he claims to be a scientist and inventor..but..." Violet said, while making a swirly motion by her head with one finger, `"...he's not all there sometimes."

"I was stupid enough to volunteer to help him test his transmorgifier machine. He turned me into a donkey by mistake. When he tried to change me back I ended up as this mix [ the skunk-donkey centauroid ]. Then the machine went to pieces. "As her skunktail puffed out into a purple and white-tipped donkey tail she said, "I destablize from time to time from the machine's side effects."

Answering balloon half-dragon Beltrami's question about what sets off the changes, Violet said, "It just happens, I'm a donkey for a while then I change back, until my phase moves back toward skunk again, I'll be a donkey off and on, then I'll be a skunk again off and on.'" She reiterated it did not hurt, but the forms which had only hooves were limiting.

She expressed concern that the centaur community might not be as welcoming during this time when she was not, in fact, a centauroid.

Lead centaur Mavra, asked for comment, assured our reporter persons would not be shunned on such grounds. As of press time she had the form of a scent-taur.

Violet the cartoon scent-taur, showed Leslie the faux-bunny fairy Friday night, how she could use a pen and ink and draw brand-new stuff. This time she drew a saddle and cowboy hat on herself, and a cowboy hat on Leslie. She said she could because of her bottle of paint,"It's a special mix of toon paint. Got it on the sly from the animator's desk when he wasn't looking.

Leslie showed off fairy magic by taking Roofus_roo the kangaroo and shrinking him down to beanie-baby size so he could fit in Violet's saddle, she's little, and she rode him around some. Roofus had fun playing sheriff and Firewind the fox asked if that was all Leslie could do. Leslie asked what Firewind wanted and he just said to do something, so Leslie wrapped him up in the magic glow and turned him into a kid about Leslie and Violet's size, and a cartoon, which Leslie never tried before! Violet's happy to try helping Firewind learn all about being a cartoon, "It takes some practice."

She started out by taking out an anvil and blowing up a balloon and stringing them together. The balloon lifted up and picked the anvil up in the air. Firewind whipped out a blowgun and a dart and popped it, making the balloon fall and flatten Violet! She dug her way out and ran around in circles flat as a pancake a couple times until she got her thumb in her mouth and puffed hard, reinflating herself. She said, "I'm fine, it doesn't even hurt ...much. I wouldn't advise trying it on a flesh and blood type person though."

And now Firewind can try it.

The crush of people requesting perosnalized attention from Austin, local coati and head Wiz, by communicating with him by whisper or page has reached the point that most of his communication is now done by these two commands, the rabbit-ear, nose, and tailed coati revealed this week. "I can go an entire evening seeing virtually nothing but someone paging me and the text of my responses," he said. "As for what's going on in the Rose Garden or the Park of the Day or wherever I happen to be? Nothing."

"Asked whether he minded such demands on his attention, Austin said, "It really depends on what's going on. It only annoys me when I'm trying to test out a program or a building project, and I suspect people watch closely for signs of me testing projects so they can all page me at once. When there's something fun going on in public that I'd like to get in on that also seems to draw distractingly many pages.

"I don't mean to ignore anyone, of course; I just get into these long volleys with so many people one might be scrolled two or three full screens away before I think to get back to him. It's not a conspiracy, I'm pretty sure, it's just people like to answer a page with another page and so we get into these volleys nobody will let end." @Action News paged Austin and asked if he might make any moves to reduce the number of conversations he ends up in, Austin paged back, "I can't, really. No one person's chatter is ever worth ignoring or putting off until later, and if I try setting myself Haven or page-ignore everyone that brings a crowd of people to my side to figure out what's wrong. I just have to live with it."

Adara the cat, said Thursday something wonderful happened to her player. "I bought four guppies today: 2 males, and 2 females. I brought them home in their seperate little bags (they weren't together at the store), and took a look at them as I was in the car (I wasn't driving, don't worry). I saw a couple of little things floating in the water, so I thought the fishies were just pooping from the stress. Well, I got them home, and took a closer look at the bag. Turns out that one of those girlie fish was pregnant...but not anymore!" It turns out some guppies can get pregnant several times in a row without seeing a male guppy again, so there's maybe a whole bunch of new fish coming.

To whom it may concern:

I would like to submit a brace of filks for publication in @Action News. The first was originally presented in a different form, before I actually had an opportunity to visit Jellicle Fields, and is written to reflect what may be found in that whimsical and tasty place:

"Jellicle Fields Forever" (06/27/04)
(Original music and lyrics to "Stawberry Fields Forever" by Lennon/McCartney, with apologies to PatchO'Black)

Let me take you down
cause I'm going to Jellicle fields
Have a good meal
the snacks are growing all about
Jellicle fields forever

Farming is easy for Patchy
Harvesting the produce that you see
It's not so hard to find something
that you really like
It's tasty, low cal, and carb-free

Let me take you down
cause I'm going to Jellicle fields
Hear the bell's peal
as you wander garden plots
Jellicle fields forever

Someone I think lives by the sea
Or, on the ship, might live below
Maybe you can't, you know, sail off
into the night
Just 'cause its anchored, don't be sad

Let me take you down
cause I'm going to Jellicle fields Enjoy each reveal
and watch the reindeer run about
Jellicle fields forever

Always, no, sometimes out of date
But you know the seasons all the same
I think I know I mean, ah yes
but it's okay
The holidays, not what you ate

Let me take you down
cause I'm going to Jellicle fields
Have a good meal
the snacks are growing all about
Jellicle fields forever
Jellicle fields forever
Jellicle fields forever

The second is closer to the original form of the first, and more accurately describes SpinDizzy as a whole:

"SpinDizzy Fields Forever" (07/02/04)
(Original music and lyrics by Lennon/McCartney)

Let me take you down
cause I'm going to SpinDizzy fields
V.R. is real
the world is growing all about
SpinDizzy fields forever

Living is easy on SD
Just interact with all you see
It's not so hard to be someone
so it all works out
It's better than what's on tv

Let me take you down
cause I'm going to SpinDizzy fields
RP's the deal
exploring all the world about
SpinDizzy fields forever

Someone I think lives in that tree
Or, maybe, they live down below
Maybe you can't, you know, move in
but it's all right
You can just build your own tree pad

Let me take you down
cause I'm going to SpinDizzy fields
Live what you feel
and sing the tales you've done about
SpinDizzy fields forever

Always, no, sometimes think it's weird
But you know this world's a waking dream
I think I know I mean, ah yes
but it's okay
that is I think there's nought to fear

Let me take you down
cause I'm going to SpinDizzy fields
VR is real
the world is growing all about
SpinDizzy fields forever
SpinDizzy fields forever
SpinDizzy fields forever

-Ray

Dear Bearing Up,
I'm trying the Atkins diet but when I eat at kin's house I eat more than I should. And my kin are getting tired of me mooching off them. How can I lose weight without making my relatives mad?
-- R. Simmons

Dear R. Simmons:
Eat more and have them chase after you. The exercise will do you good and will aid in your weight loss.

Dear Bearing Up,
I don't have a doctor so I'll ask you. Is Allegra right for me? Thank you.
-- James Kildare

Dear James Kildaire:
No Provental is. I'm an asthmatic.

Dear Ba'ar,
Am I the only one who thought Cold Mountain was the best movie this year?
-- J. Law

Dear J. Law:
Yes, everyone thought that T3: Rise of the Machines was the best film of the year.

Dear Bearing Up:
If you were trapped on a desert island, would you want a roll of duct tape, or masking tape?
-- Argon

Dear Argon:
Neither, Scotch Tape!

dear bearing up,
just where is the caps key?
-- l. case

Dear l case:
BELOW THE UPPER CASE KEY

Dear Ba'ar:
Slide rule vs. calculator. Which would you rather use?
-- Signed Accountant

Dear Accountant:
Neither! Abacus!

Remember possums (to steal a term from Dame Edna, if you have any questions,please page mail me (Ba'ar) online or send mail to big_bear@operamail.com. Thanks.

@Action News, SpinDizzy's weekly paper, apparently has a fairly healthy circulation, so we figured we'd show just how healthy it is.

Each week, as long as there's room. I'll show the 'hit graph' for the @Action News website.

This week I have arranged to do the @Action News Survey. The onefor this week is: What was your finest experience, role playingor otherwise, that you had with Butterfluff?

• Argon says, "Oh, working with her on @Action News, Ba'ar."
• Tarka giggles and wags her tail... "It was when I was running around trying to pickpocket people and butterfluff kept treating me like some kid. "Now now... that is a bad otter. Give their wallet back.
• Darius says, "Fondest expeirence. Since I never really role played with them, I would have to say eithber when we spoke of Books and favorite authors, or when Thefluff brought Elizabeth here. it was really nice of Them to do so."
• Gilead barks, "Butterfluff was a great comfort when I was going in for surgery."
• Sunshine hmmms.... "The Fluff would play The Fluff of La Mancha, and I would play Dulcinea, and we'd do nothing but exchange extra-corny-with-mayo-on-top dialogue between each other."
• Terry puffs, "I don't know, Butterfluff always really annoyed me, so the finest experience would be the one that annoyed me least, meaning the least memorable."
• Inigo remembers a discussion on how wasteful it is to not eat the cans that ones food comes in.
• Firewind, in response to the question, would say, "I'd have to say it would be the time I learned about filking and mucking."
• Leslie pages, "I think the best ever Mr Bear was when we got together after the fifth birthday party and were just telling jokes and poems and songs and stuff in...I guess charter park...with Mrs Mr Butterfluff. It felt so nice." to you.
• Kefan says, "I always loved swapping filks (and demented haiku and limericks) with the Fluff."
• Ray says "My finest experience with Butterfluff? The entirety of our friendship! There is no way to pinpoint a specific instance; I am still in humble awe that the Fluff chose to share time and interests with me. I only regret that it was only through Butterfluff's passing that I came to SpinDizzy, and that I missed everything that Butterfluff did and was in this world."
• Violet nods and sighs "I did not know much of Butterfluff, I'm sorry to say. I only know the legacy the Fluff left from the folks I've talked to. I guess for me that is the best experience. I regret never having known Butterfluff.
• Jac says "I am not sure what night it was, but it was several months ago, I just happened to login as I wasn't too tired from work etc. Well I found everyone down at the beech, so we had a cookout, it was very fun and the Fluff was very happy, even if I did try to put the clams in the pot to cook them."

Submitting a story or artwork for @Action News is easy! Just send it to newspaper@spindizzy.org or qmail or page @Action or sdnews about it.
@Action News is published weekly on or after 12:01 AM Eastern Time on Sunday. Most any type of story or article will be accepted. Generally, we'd prefer things that aren" t out and out lies or flames about other folks, and have a basis in the reality of SpinDizzy. Things that occur in public areas are fair game. The things reported dont have to have actually happened, (any more than anything that happens here does) but make sure you don't overstep the social boundaries and rules of interaction that we have. These are pretty broad guidelines, but we expect good sense to apply.

Thanks! Argon, Editor @Action News