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Studies on the spindizzy field which surrounds the main city indicate the field is weakening in intensity, to the point that expeditions outside to the planet on which we have landed may be possible within days.

A spindizzy field is an electro-gravitic field in which electric charge and gravitational mass are fluidly exchanged. The result is an effective and very power-efficient antigravity device which makes possible the travel at superluminal speeds with nearly infinite range.

As a side effect however the field causes particles which it touches to be given a random velocity tangent to the field. This is actually a benefit: it means without any effort taken on our part -- and even without any hull -- the city can move in space and keep its atmosphere securely intact. It also keeps space debris from smashing into the city proper, and deflects the most dangerous cosmic rays. It also served well last week when we landed; the space underneath the city was automatically dug out by the spindizzy field.

The velocity at which particles are scattered depends on the strength of the spindizzy field, the mass and momentum of the entering particle, and a host of minor variables. Under in-flight circumstances it is virtually impossible to penetrate the field except at certain specific docking ports from which small spacecraft have left and our flux of newcomers have arrived.

Sensitive measurements of the generated antigravity field made possible by such devices as the Mossbauer Effect balance and the Hall Effect ionizers indicate the field has weakened to less than half its normal in-flight intensity. Assuming the standard inductive resistance to changes in the spindizzy field continue to hold projections indicate several 'holes' in the field will open to ordinary, nontechnological, nonmagical exit shortly.

The nice ascii art of SpinDizzy locked into the planet on the splash page was done by Chanspot. This is the picture you see when you first log on. If it's too far to scroll back up to see, it's on-line here.

I don't know of any way to make that screen display wihout actually logging on.

This week while visiting the Rose Garden, Argon, local centaur, was "raccooned" by Nikon, local raccoon. This turned the rather large horse-like but not like a horse into a cutr six limbed raccoon! Complete with ringed tail and mask, the raccoontaur instantly became quite interested in Sonya, local crystal fox.

Nikon along with RubbertexRaccoon, local balloon raccoon, joined Argon in the sterotypical raccoon facination with the shiny Sonya. Not sure how to deal with all the raccoony attention, Sonya found protection from Roofus Roo, local kangaroo.

Roofus distracted the raccoons by tossing some golden dollars towards them. They were distracted for only moments though, as Nikon soon 'collected', Sonya. Argon followed suit and 'collected.' Roofus who exclaimed that he was not collectable.

Having to go wash some fish, Argon gave the collectable Roofus to Nikon as he left. Nikon then attempted to collect Sonya to complete her collection. Both Sonya and Nikon took exception to being collected, and Nikon and RubbertexRaccoon soon gave up on the shiny folks and decided to also go wash some fish.

A new computer game, Evil Genius, has many hallmarks of the work of alledged Society of Evil Doers leader, Morticon, local wallaby.

As reported by CNN.com this game allows you to play the part of, well, an evil genius. You build an underground headquarters, train your henchmen, and "interrogate" enemies.

Although all of this sounds very much like what Morticon has attempted to do here on SpinDizzy, the game differs from his methods. You can actually succeed with this game.

Note: Beltrami wrote this Sept. 25. It is only now being published.

Nighteyes, royal dragon, suffered what he termed an explosion of his magic. He was left trapped in a winged human form, and blind. While under the care of Aushae, dragoness, he supposed the problem may be differences between the magic of his home universe and that of this universe. He theorized that forming a new egg and allowing himself to re-grow and hatch anew may restore him to normal health. With that Friday afternoon he summoned sufficient magic to coil up and remake himself as a four-foot tall egg, tucked into the sand of the Rose Garden beach. Though unable to speak while embryonic strong impressions were received by those susceptible to telepathic communication. These suggested notably that he required warmth, which cougar-mousetaur Logan provided by wrapping hir body around the egg. The egg quickly developed, shell hardening and growing thicker. Tanuki, tanuki, caused lights around the shell to glow brightly enough the silhouette of the figure inside. Its development looked healthy. When Borris, polar bear, suggested cracking the shell with his mallet Beltrami, balloon half-dragon, leapt on and sat protectively on it.

Though Nighteyes is developing quickly it is not expected he will hatch before Monday.

Note that Nighteyes did hatch safely.

Spindizzy's weekly Bardic Circle (Poetry/Filk gather) met Friday, October 15, at 7:00pm Spindizzy time, moderated by Ray. In attendance at varying times were: Stormsong, Aushae, Findra, Shoe, and Ba'ar.

The venue had changed for the first time since the SpinDizzy Bardic Circle began; initially, the Portal in the Court of Infinite Destinations led to a Mistbound Island. Now, it leads to a Quiet Garden, as its destination does, indeed, appear to change, from time to time.

Ray began the readings with an original poem titled, "Dreams of Home." Stormsong followed with another original poem, untitled, on a similar theme. Ray resumed with another original poem titled, "Final Sunset." Aushae read another, untitled poem composed in the previous few minutes, again on transience and wandering, and the comfort to be found in the company of another, lonely soul. Stormsong read again, another untitled original poem which complemented the mood of the poems which preceeded it.

Findra read a Haiku on the elusive nature of inspiration. Ray followed with an original piece titled, "Custodian of Dreams." Stormsong followed with another untitled original poem which touched on the fire of inspiraton and rebirth. At that point, Findra began a round-robin poem about a vixen upon the hunt, which ended up being a series of volleys between Ray and herself. Afterwards, Ray read a filk, "AVFSFC (A very familiar song from Cats)" ( Words copyright Shadowmage, 1992 (E-mail schang@pitvax.claremont.edu ), Tune: Memories), about the need to upgrade to a system with more RAM. It was actually something shared in the past by our late friend, Butterfluff. Aushae interjected with a brief, untitled computer-filk, of sorts, as well.

Ba'ar changed gears with an original poem titled, "Life's Road." Aushae followed with a brief excerpt from "Ants Marching," by the Dave Matthews Band. Findra dashed off another, quick Haiku about rebooting. She admitted to having "one liners for haikus" coming through her head all night. Ray provided an initial diagnosis of "mad poet disease," and prescribed laudanum and absinthe. Ba'ar then reprised his poem read the previous week, "For Rodney," a memorial for the late comedian, Rodney Dangerfield. (See below.)

Stormsong then followed by sharing an untitled filk on the upgrade for the Microsoft OS (to the tune of "Old Deuteronomy"). Findra followed with what appeared to be a stream-of-consciousness Haiku. Stormsong then dropped another untitled Microsoft parody, precipitating a brief discussion of things technical. Findra then sang "Pigs on the Wing," by Pink Floyd, commenting, "It just seemed one of those moments."

It was about 9:30pm Spindizzy time by that point, and the Circle adjourned.

The next session will be Friday, October 22, from 7:00pm to 9:00pm Spindizzy time (luge N5 W4, [B]asalt [P]illars, [E]nter [P]ortal). All are welcome, either to read or just to listen. Check the eventlist for more details.

Notes from the SpinDizzy Live Journal Community

• In light of the crash we suffered this week, please report to a wizard any anomalous glitches with the database, any programs, any geographic anomalies or the like. The mistake with spoof which caused the parentheses to stop showing up has been fixed. Austin had turned them off, it turns out muckwide, to spoof the various messages in the Control Room which eventually people started forwarding to other rooms. It wasn't meant to be a permanent change, or even a lasting change in that one room.
   
• And how'd Adara_Merriin's experiment in being a balloon turn out? We saw Crymson turned into an egg for a while, but goodness knows what'll come of that. She'd gotten quite little, too, which let her flutter up to Tristan's nose and, uh, get sneezed on. That sort of thing will happen.
   
• Rumor has it that Skyler isn't quite as many or as few as they ever used to be.
   
• And in response to a request from Chanspot Austin has prefixed a ## to the message at login which reports how many connections you've had, and what the current date and time are. They're working on prefixing a ## to the report of how much mail you have; this way all the "overhead" greeting messages reporting various bits of status will have the same start, It'll likely make the opening more pleasant to read.
   

Welcome to the latest edition of Bearing up, the advice column where Ba'ar (That's me!) has answers to your most challenging questions.

Dear Bearing up:
Now that we've landed, what next?
- Clueless

Dear Clueless:
We take off again.

Dear Bearing up:
What's scarier? Frankenstein or Dracula?: J. Whale.

Dear J. Whale:
Neither: It's a toss up between four more years of President Bush or four years of Senator Kerry.

Dear Bearing Up:
I'm a centaur and and am finding it difficult to find a Halloween costume. Any suggestions?
- Argon

Dear Argon:
How about a Cowboy and his horse all in one package?

Dear Bearing Up:
I've got Win xp and I just installed SP2. Now they say I have to install yet another service pack. What to do?
- B. Gates.

Dear B. Gates:
Switch to Linux.

Remember possums (to steal a term from Dame Edna ;-D), 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, Argon asked, "I'm doing a survey for @Action News. The question this week is, 'With debates being on some folk's minds, what two folks here on SpinDizzy do you think would make the best debators?"

• Morticon -- The best debaters (among others) would be Argon and Kinsor! Or maybe Tarka and Tami! Or perhaps some combination of those!
• Austin says, "Aushae and Ping. Of course, Royce and Boki had some fine debates about tuna fish."
• Roofus_roo says, "Ping and Tarka. Though Tarka would be able to doom anyone into submission. "
• Beltrami shrugs.
• NeverNever hmms... she doesn't know about best, but she thinks a Sunshine/Morticon debate would be fun to watch
• Cye says, "Alicia and Morticon."
• Nikon says softly, "Austin, He's the smartest fur I know on here."
• Annalee drawls, "Ah would have to say Morticon and (Argon)."
• Alicia says, "I'd go with Morticon and Austin."
• Ping's not sure.
• KevMan chuckles "I'm going to go with Mosi and Moricon."
• Adara -- I only get two? I think there would be a lot of good debators on Spindizzy: Austin, Argon, Slug, and Skyler are just a few I can come up with off the top of my head.
• Vixie says, "No debate here, I'm cute, and that's that."
• Gilead chirps, "If we could work into the 23 pages of rules that biting your opponent was OK, I'd be the best. Hmm. I suppose if biting was allowed, who'd be second.. Vixie, I think
• Tanuki barks, "I don't know, I'd say it depends on what the debate is about."
• Butterscotch -- "I'd think Vixie and Gilead. Vixie would try to take over the debate and turn it all to about herself being cute, and Gilead would end up biting her."

The comedy world is darker now.
A star has fallen. Rodney Dangerfield has left us.
Gone but not forgotten.

Born of humble beginnings,
he rose to become a comedy legend. 'No Respect' was his cry,
the paunchy loser, his personae.
Always making fun of himself.

A Ceasar of comedy,
he first conqured the stage,
then the big screen, then recordings
always turning pain into chuckles.

His work done, he went to sleep,
leaving us a lasting legacy of his humor.
Rodney Dangerfield, gone but not forgotten.

Submitting a story or artwork for @Action News is easy! Just send it tnewspaper@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 thave 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 tapply.

Thanks! Argon, Editor @Action News