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Patch O'Black, local Jellicle cat, was making sandwiches for some friends in the Rose Garden this week.

Royce, local perpetually hungry Senior raccoon, wanted a sandwich, so Argon, local centaur asked Patch if he might use the large kitchen in the Jellicle cat's cat basket to make the raccoon a sandwich. Patch of course said, "Yes," so the centaur went through the passeges in the cat basket, followed by the raccoon, and prepared a fine "Dagwood" style sandwich.

However as Argon was preparing the sandwich, Royce was filling a red wagon he had brought in with all the food and snacks he could load and had filled his arms with even more. The centaur handed the raccoon the sandwich which Roce stuffed in his mouth and made a beeline for the door.

Royce found however that even the amazing attributes of Patch's cat basket, it being much larger on he inside than the outside, which was described in the August 12, 2007 edition of @Action News, weren't enough to allow Royce, his arms full of food, his sandwich and his wagon, were a very tight fit through the cat basket's exit.

The raccoon pulled and pushed and, in a very un-raccoony action, worked hard to get the food out. He finally succeeded, however his cashe of "foods" fell all over the Rose Garden. Royce was happy to share his "liberated" stash of food, and everyone enjoyed Patch's snacks, much to the pleasure of the Jellicle cat.

Concerns that Patch might go hungry were alleviated by the Jellicle cat's assurances that his kitchen would restock itself. All were appreciative of Patch O'Black's feeding the group.

Raphael, local feline, in his experiements with The Force had him trying a number of experiments to see if he could "tune into" it.

After Suri, local lemur, and Argon, local centaur, began discussing the use of explosions, mostly by followers of the "Dark Side" of The Force, Raphael decided to give it a try, however his apparent inexperience caused him to cause himself to explode and reform into a puddle of goo!

Austin, local coati, asked who in the group could be a sponge? R'sheena, local Andurusian, claimed she could as Raphael oozed over by a park bench and promptly absorbed it. As R'sheena watched, she said, "Umm...this plan seems to have some...logical errors." And backed away.

Austin said, Well, hop to it, R'sheena, we can't have Raphael diluted. what could possibly go wrong?" The Andurusian wandered back over to Raphael and asked "Umm...I know I'm going to regret this, but what happens if I touch you?"

Raphael bubbled, "I'm ... in a bit o a sticky situation. But other than that I'm peachy. .... Uh.. I dunno. There's a park bench down here. With that, Raphael's paw extended from the goo. Candy, local clown, poked at the goo, and found her hand being drawn into it. Raphael was roughly standing on a park bench inside the goo-verse, trails of goo seemingly attached to him as he tried to reach out of the puddle. All that can be seen from outside is a paw, and the goo attempts to pull anything that touches it into itself.

Candy eeped, "I'm stuck in the goo!" R'sheena aaacks! Also stuck in the goo, she tried deperately to disengage from it, Raphael was stretched as his goo self tried to absorb Candy. "Meep!" He holds a paw out of the goo. "Somebody grab on?"

Argon offered a hand which Candy grabbed on to as R'sheena found herself losing ground and slipping into the goo. Argon set his hooves and leaned back using all his weight to pull Candy out. Toledo, local skunk, grabbed R'Sheena's paw and pulled. Suddenly, Candy's glove slid off and Argon slipped backwards!

A seeming balance was found between the tug of folks trying to pull R'sheena, Candy and Raphael out, and the goo trying to retain what it had captured. Patch O'Black, local Jellicle cat grabbed Candy's hand as Argon tugged on Toledo's tail to help pull out R'Sheena and Raphael.

With all the tugging and pulling, Candy and R'sheena were pulled out. Raphael'd paw was also pulled upon and as he came out of the goo, the goo disapeared and reformed itself into Raphael. Leaving the park bench behind.

All were relieved that Raphael and all who had fallen into his goo form, were all right. It is unknown if Raphael's experimentation with "The Force" will continue to be based on casual ideas tossed out by centaurs and lemurs in the future.

Morticon, local wallaby and alleged leader of the Society of Evil Doers (SED), arrived in the Rose Garden with a strange spray bottle of, what he called, "Suzina 2000".

Naturally suspicious of Morticon with any weapon, chemical, or even a record player, folks kept their distance. Especially as it was assumed that earlier experiments on himself had left him with pink legs and his back a brilliant electric blue.

Suri, local lemur, pointed out that the Ancient Oak has a large patch of plutonium on it. The lemur agreed with Argon, local centaur, that turning the tree to zinc would have been far preferable.

Austin, local coati had posession of the bottle at the arrival of this reporter. After jumping on the centaur's equine back, Austin sprayed the Suzina 2000 at Suri. Suri "zoofled" when hit with the spray, so "zoofling was added to the apparent attributes of the substance.

Austin then pointed the spray bottle at the ground under Morticon's feet. The ground, and the wallaby's feet began to soften like quicksand. Austin then sprayed Morticon's tummy, which turned a bright yellow. Morticon seemed quite stuck.

With a look of suprise and perhaps fear, Morticon jumped out of the quicksand and grabbed the bottle of Suzina 2000. Morticon said, "This demo has concluded! Hmmph!" and hopped off.

Most observers found the demonstration of the product interesting. Many asked where it could be purchased and its price. Although the price of the Suzina was unknown as of press time, it is rumored that it will be available at Dollar General stores.

As everyone knows, one of the most well known and widely celebrated holidays is arriving this week.

Talk Like a Pirate Day is coming up this week. Wednesday, September 19, 2007. Although always celebrated on September 19th, this year this celebration falls on a Wednesday.

What, you may ask, is Talk Like a Pirate Day? It's a full day when everyone talks like a pirate. A full and complete observation requires wearing full pirate regalia, however the wearing of pirate attire is not to be confused with the requirement of such apparel by Pastafarians, those who worship The Giant Spaghetti Monster. The practice of their beliefs is year round, whereas Talk Like a Pirate Day is only observed on September 19th.

So when you hear a lot of "Ahoy" and "Matey" being said on Wednesday, now you'll know why!

Trance, local cybernetic felitaur, made an interesting observation this week.

In a discussion about robots and their place in society, including the amount of sentience, self awareness, and the variations and / or even the inclusion of Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics, Trance made an interesting observation concerning robot "animals".

Trance noted, "I've heard rumors that few people believe in the existance of robot sheep. If any of you are among them: Ask yourself what Brillo is. I rest my case."

Several folks were unaware of Brillo, soap soaked steel wool pads used for cleaning really deep crusty stains and dirt, so thanks to Google, Brillo Pads were found and everyone got the joke.

Kit Skyfire, local squirrel, made an off hand comment concerning having to go feed his captured cat after Austin, local coati asked him about the "Squirrel Conspiracy".

This caused the felines to perk up their ears especially when Kit replied, "Oh its going well. We've almost got the captured feline completely tame. Soon we shall know its secrets." PatchO'Black, local Jellicle cat asked, "What captured feline?" as did Cora, local bear.

Upon more intense inquiry, Kit suddenly seemed to have developed ammnesia in reference to his statement. The squirrel proclaimed innocence and denied having made any statement or reference to any "captured feline", in spite of Patch O'Black's survellience satellite footage.

Although witnesses and evidence seemed iron clad, Kit continued to proclaim his innocence through out the evening until he left to go feed the captured cat.

Local felines and allies are continuing their investigation.

On Monday evening, Cora, local bear and society matron, held an "End of Summer" party at her house. "It'd been a long time since anything like this was done." she is quoted as saying. "Thought it might be a fun thing to do." The party turned out to be a smash, with locals like Argon, Patch O'Black, DTF, and Austin, just to name a few, in attendance.

No one went hungry, as Cora, good host that she was, provided sodas, hot dogs, hamburgers and potato chips for all. As a special treat, Patchy brought his ice cream cart and after the meal treated everyone to luscious, cool ice cream treats.

There were a few surprises revealed at the party as well. For one thing, Argon, local centaur, stated that Kunoichi, local human, would be holding a "Welcome back SED party" soon, but no one seem to believe him. More on this it comes to pass.

All in all, a good time was had by all, but that's not all. Cora expressed interest in hosting more parties. "One of the ideas I'm kicking around is a costume party next month in honor of Halloween" she is quoted as saying. "We'll see about that."

Whoa, friends and neighbors! The fun continues this week with us looking at real inter-company crossovers between the two big guns of the comic industry. Unlike last week, when we looked at each companies and their almost-cross-overs, this is going to be the real deal! The true characters, meeting, greeting, and fighting together! This all started back in the 1970's. In the past, DC and Marvel were big bold rivals and the idea that one company would work with the other was laughable. However, by 1976, these two giants decided to give the fans something they had been crying out for: They took DC's iconic hero, Superman, and teamed him with Marvel's own standout character, Spider-Man, and made super-hero history.

In this story, Lex Luthor teamed up with Doctor Octopus to kidnap Lois Lane and Mary-Jane Watson while stealing a computer chip. Of course, this lead to Superman meeting Spider-Man, the two think the other is somehow involved, figuring out that nether is at fault, and then going out to beat the true villains. A fairly simple plot, and one that would be used again. While the story might not have been that complex, this epic meeting of two well-known heroes from competing companies was so well received, it warranty a then almost unheard-of second printing. pastedGraphic219.tiff

This also became the first appearance of what was to be known as Earth-Crossover. You see, this story couldn't appear in the standard DC or Marvel universe, as nether company could use the other's trademark people and places outside of the crossover. Thus, they were deemed to occur on a whole different version of Earth where both Marvel and DC characters exist, but didn't normally meet.

Since this worked out pretty well for both companies, they decided in 1981 to have Superman work with Spider-Man again. This time, Doctor Doom conspired with the Parasite to defeat the heroes. In addition, Wonder Woman and the Hulk showed up for some added star power. Action-packed on every page, It featured such things as Superman going toe-to-toe with not only the Hulk but Doctor Doom himself, as well as Spider-Man meeting amazon warrior, which has got to be an geek's dream.

Later that same year, DC and Marvel dove into the pool again and came up with a tale featuring Batman and the Hulk. They squared off against the Clown Prince of Crime, the Joker, who had gained access to the cosmically powered Shaper of Worlds, who found the Joker's unique mind, which is to say he had never met someone who's brain was more twisted than a century's worth of pretzels. Fortunately, Batman was able to keep the Hulk under control long enough to avoid him raging about so that he could cause the Joker to have a mental meltdown when, even with the power of the Shaper, he couldn't keep dreaming up new worlds and eventually his brain shut down.

The last of the "Classic" crossovers in 1982 was, undoubtedly, the biggest. Originally, the fans had been clamoring for the two greatest super-teams of both companies. That would be the Justice League of America from DC and The Avengers from Marvel. However, nether side was willing to throw all their best characters into one basket. So, they went with their next best groups, DC's Teen Titans and Marvel's X-Men. This was a good choice of super-teams, as both were made up of teens and young adults, and both were very popular at the time. In this crossover, the dark immortal ruler of Apokolips, Darkseid, gains a device known as the Psychon-Wave. He then has his minions gather energy at places visited by the X-Men's former teammate, Phoenix, who had later become the evil Dark Phoenix and had incredible power before she regained her senses long enough to destroy herself for the good of all. As you can probably guess, Darkseid manages to recreate the Dark Phoenix. Memorable moments from this match-up included Wolverine facing off against super-assasin Deathstroke and Starfire attacking the X-men over what the inter-planetary destruction their former team had caused the last time Dark Phoenix went on a rampage.A personal favorite scene of mine has to do with the fact that Starfire can learn languages simply through prolonged physical contact, usually done by kissing. When she hears russian Colossus speaking his native tongue, she takes advantage of the opportunity to increase her linguistic skills by planting a nice big one on the rather shy X-Man. The shocked reaction of his then girlfriend Kitty Pryde, as well as the roguish Nightcrawler's comment of "Fräulien, sprechen Sie Deutsch?". This would, however, be the last big name crossover from the two companies for at least another twelve years.

Well, I think we will pull the crossover cab into an interdimensional rest area and call it a day. But be back here next time for more high-action fun with your pal the Four-Kolor Kitty. Until then, see you in the funny pages!

Fine cuisine? Crazy cutlets? Cheesy chopsticks? Everything is found on Spindizzy. SpinDizzy Kitt--er, kitchen! highlights unique recipes from our local denizens with each issue. This week, Findra's beef stew with dumplings. And, of course, plenty of carrots!

Findra's Beef Stew with Dumplings

• 1.5 lbs Stewing beef, cut into 1" cubes
• 4 tbsp Olive oil
• 1 lb Coarsely chopped yellow onion
• 8 oz Carrots, chopped into thick rings
• 8 oz Celery, chopped
• 1 tsp Garlic powder
• 2 tsp Kosher salt
• 1 cup Tomato sauce (not ketchup!)
• 2 tsp Ground cumin
• 2 Bay leaves
• 2 tbsp Dried parsley
• 2 tsp Dried thyme
• 1 tsp Black pepper
• 2 cups Vegetable or Chicken stock, double strength
• 1/2 cup Cider vinegar

For dumplings:

• 1 cup All-purpose flour
• 1.5 tsp Baking powder
• 0.5 tsp Baking soda
• 1 tbsp Dried parsley leaves
• 0.25 tsp White pepper
• 0.5 cup Buttermilk
• 1 tbsp Olive oil

Preheat your oven to 275F.

Heat the olive oil the bottom of your favorite large casserole on a medium-high heat. If you don't have a casserole, use a large pot, the heaviest you can find, that'll be safe to put in the oven. Once hot, put in as many pieces of beef as will fit, without touching, into the bottom of the casserole, and brown on each side. Don't mess with them until you're ready to turn them over, which will take several minutes each side. Use a splatter guard or just the lid of the casserole. Turn them over with a pair of tongs. Once brown, take the beef out and put onto a plate, leaving the oil in there.

After all the meat is browned, turn the heat down to medium, add the chopped onion, celery, and carrots, along with the garlic powder and salt to the remaining oil. If there's not enough, add a little more (olive oil's good for you!). Allow the vegetables to sweat for around 5 minutes, but don't let them brown. Then add the cumin, stir for half a minute or so, and add the tomato sauce (use chopped tomato if you don't have tomato sauce), bay leaves, parsley, thyme, black pepper, and the stock and vinegar. Stir to mix. The liquid should just cover everything.

Cover the casserole with the lid, and put it in the oven for 2 1/2 hours. Taste it after an hour, and adjust the salt and pepper as desired. Put the dumplings on top of the stew with 30 minutes to go.

To make the dumplings, mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda, parsley and pepper in a glass bowl, then add the buttermilk and olive oil and mix together with a fork until it all comes together. Don't over-mix! Using a spoon and wet fingers, scoop up some of the dough and form it into around 8 golf-ball sized balls, and drop them onto the top of the simmering stew. If there's not enough liquid in the stew, add more water, but make sure you use boiling water from the kettle to avoid cooling everything down.

To serve, take the dumplings off the top before scooping out the stew onto a plate, and put the dumpling on top again. It goes really nicely with French bread to mop up the sauce, too. Feel free to experiment! You can use an amber beer instead of the chicken broth, or oregano instead of parsley, for instance.

Q: What do you get when you cross a procyonid with a scorpion?
A: A stingtail.

Q: What is the skinniest procyonid?
A: The stringtail.

Q: What is the world's most powerful procyonid?
A: The strongtail. (Run Strongtail email...)

Q: What do you call a procyonid who doesn't bathe?
A: A stinktail.

Q: What do you call a set of parts to make a baby desert vulpine?
A: A kit fox kit kit.

Q: What would you get if you hooked Argon up to a plow?
A: A tractaur.

Q: What do you call a fae who doesn't bathe?
A: Stinkysmell.

Q: What do you call the frog housing at the zoo?
A: An exribbet.

Q: what do you call a spicy panda?
A: Wah-sabi.

Q: What do you call a breakfast pastry wrapped in a spiral around a lemur?
A: A Procinnabon.

Hi all, Ba'ar here with your Spindizzy @Action News survey for this week. Do you read comic books and if so, what's your favorite title?

• Austin says, "No, and Richie Rich."
• Leowulf says, "Sorry, never really had a favorite when I did read them."
• Xiaoming used to read Gunsmith Cats semi-religously, but now only really follows Hellboy when new graphic novels come out.
• Gatsby says, "my favorite comic book title is 'Giant-Sized Man-Thing'"
• Aurora says, "Oh! Definitely the 'Hi no Tori' series by Dr. Tezuka!"
• R'sheena hasn't read a physical comic in a long time...
• Toledo realizes he hasn't read any comics in over two years, and that's even with half-heartedly trying to keep up with a few titles."
• Royce churrs, "Right now I get some Battlestar Galactica comics, which have been pretty good. Some Star Trek comics, which I haven't gotten around in reading. And for some reason I still get Furrlough, though it's rather sucked for the last half decade or so."
• Fermata says to Ba'ar, "I love reading comics! My favorite title would be The Invisibles."
• DTF shakes his head "Haven't looked at a comic book for years. About the closest to that would be scanned stuff from James Hardiman and such by Radio Comix."
• Ba'ar admits not to reading any comic books.
• Candy says cutely, "I don't read comic books."
• PatchO'Black mews, "Well, lately, I've been enjoying the New Fantastic Four."
• Gilead's favorite comic book is GI Joe, back before the whole stupid Snake Eyes/Stormshadow story arc started.
• Borris Gruffs, "Then I read Ah! My Goddess, Graphic Novels."
• Argon says, "Oh, Micronauts is still my favorite."

R'Sheena, as an Andurusian, doesn't have the instincts some felines do towards mice so she steps back finding that Rin, oblivious to R'sheena's presence as she enjoys some yummy cheese, is practically under foot!.

Got something that You'd like to contribute to @Action News, but aren't sure if You should, or how to do it? Just get in touch with Argon, Skyler, or Findra, and they'll be happy to help! Here are some basic guidelines, though.

Contributing a story or artwork for @Action News is easy! Just send it to newspaper@spindizzy.org, or qmail/pagemail Argon, Findra, or Skyler, with Your article!

• @Action News is published weekly sometime on Sunday.
• Articles received after midnight Pacific time on Saturday may be held and published in the next edition of @Action News.
• Most any type of story or article of interest to SpinDizzy's newspaper readers 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 don't 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