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Austin Dern started some "raccoonyness" with the following note on the Rose Garden bulletin board:

We're coming up on spring, we've gone too long without an odd theme weeked, and so why not? So next weekend, from the 14th of March through the 16th, we'll take a bit of time for Shiny Weekend.

The theme is simple: to be more shiny than usual. That can mean polishing yourself to a high gleam, or wearing rather reflective outfits, or just trying to have a more sparkling personality. Creativity in implementing shininess is strongly recommended. There may be prizes, and not merely in the cheer brought to the procyonid community.

It seems the idea of a shiny weekend brought out the raccoonyness in many folks. Once Royce, SpinDizzy's "senior raccoon", showed up, the talk in the Rose Garden turned to the shiny weekend. Of course any talk of shiny things brings out the raccoon in most folks so Findra who is usually a bunny although sometimes something else, became a raccoon. Argon, who is almost always a centaur, became a raccoontaur! The Rose Garden was very raccoony and with the arrival of Zoie, another raccoon, the raccoonyness level become very high.

Although Austin's idea was for folks to become shiny, the idea of "shiny" sure made folks become "raccoony". Hopefully, the raccoon in folks will fade a bit and they will become shiny themselves. Either way, it ought to be a fun weekend!

Morticon, local wallaby, arrived in the Rose Garden this week accompanied by his red panda fiance, Portia. Morticon said something about making some sort of announcement. As he went on about something, someone, possibly Argon, local centaur, pulled out a TV remote. It was pointed at Morticon and the "mute" button was pressed. Amazingly, it silenced Morticon!

This upset poor Portia, so the remote was given to her. Being from a world that doesn't use such technology, and with as many buttons as the remote had, the red panda was a bit confused by the device.

As she tried to restore Morticon's voice, she began pushing buttons hoping to fix the problem. Unfortunately, she pushed one button that somehow made Morticon's arms disappear as he was pounced by Jaxen, local fox. Portia then pressed another button that began to change both Morticon's and Jaxen's coloring. It was quite a sight to see Portia frantically trying to restore her future husband to normal by pressing button after button.

After a while, with a little help, Morticon's coloration, arms and voice were restored. However, Jaxen is still a green grey fox!

Once back to normal, Portia and Morticon went home. The location of the TV remote that caused all the trouble is unknown at this time.

Patch O'Black, SpinDizzy's Jellicle cat, has been very Jellicle this week.

Patchy's Jellicleness is "measured" in a sense, by how much he sings and dances, and how "Jellicle" he makes other folks feel. Patchy is a great singer and knows a lot of songs that folks like. Patch is also a wonderful dancer. Being a cat he is very graceful and light on his paws. In fact, he was even seen dancing with Argon who is a centaur. Patchy was able to avoid Argon's big hooves and his wonderful dancing made even Argon's large form look graceful.

Patchy is also well known for his cooking abilities. Many Saturdays, he is in the Rose Garden making breakfast for the folks who are there. And his Jellicle Fields are a wonderland of different themes and foods that he grows.

With so many folks happy and at ease, it is obvious that "Jellicleness" is at high levels. This can only be attributed to Patch O'Black somewhat magical ability to make folks happy. Of course this is true of most cats, but Jellicle cats seem to have a much greater amount of the ability to do this.

So next time you see Patchy, say thanks for keeping folks happy by being a Jellicle cat and keeping Jellicle levels high.

Here I am, once again, ready to delve back into the gaming of yesteryear.

I posted on my last article about what you would like to see. Well the votes are in.... NONE!

It kinda made me sniffle a bit but I guess people are pretty busy so I guess I will throw my own vote in. I choose "PARTY GAME"

Well, to me, a party game has to be a game where everyone can play and in rapid succession. The first one that comes to mind is............

That's right, 8 players of intense skating action. This game drove my brothers and his friends crazy when they got it. They spent many a night trying to outdo the other, with me and Misha sneaking on and eventually embarassing them to the point they get my momma to get me away (hehehe).

You start off looking at the start-up screen of someone racing down hard on his skateboard with a very high paced music, it almost gets you into the mood to shred some asphalt. To talk about the music, each portion of the game has its own particular music that helps you get into the mood even more. As in the downhill Jam, the pace is upbeat and gives you the mood to thrash your opponent or the semi-surf style of the high jump to urge you to get higher and highe

Well, now with the events!

High jump - by far one of the most difficult ones I've ever faced. You have to rotate the control pad as quickly as possible. The higher you go, the more points you score. Unless your thumb has the gamer callus, this will really drive you mad (unless you were one of the lucky few to have the NES arcade controller). You get a sweet hole in the ground if you cut too closely to the lip of the halfpipe. You only have 5 passes and you're through.

Freestyle - This is what most people think of old-school skateboard games. You have 10 passes to do as many tricks as possible. By pressing the button as rapidly as possible, you can grab insane air and pull off crazy stunts. Do not forget, you are scored on original tricks as well so there are many lip moves that you can do off the half-pipe as well (rail slides, footplants, handplants, etc). You score 10 original tricks, you can outdo most of your opponents who try to pull the HUGE 720 and 1080 tricks.

Downhill race - this is a one person going downhill as fast as you can go. There are many obsticles in the way that you can score points off of (ramps, pipes, railroad markers, jumping across an island, etc). If you fall off your board, you will be treated to the game insulting your ability! I suggest falling into the water once to just see you go in!

Downhill Jam - this is a major two player mode, going down through an alleyway to get to the end the fastest. Despite the many items you can break (cans and bottles), there are also object to avoid like fences, clothes lines and barrels. You also have the option to punch or kick each other off your boards. There are several "short cuts" to shave off those necessary seconds. At the very end, you are greeted by the police cruiser, ready to send both of your butts to jail. Show him who's boss by jumping over his car! You can also play this mode in single player and race down against Lester, more on him later.

Then here comes JOUST! Yes, the game my brothers loved more than the rest of the events. In an empty pool, two players duel each other, each having five passes to knock the other off with a pugel stick onto the hard pool bottom. You have only to knock your opponent off the board three times and you win. However, if you score a tie at 2-2, you go into sudden death. You will continue to tie/advantage until you can knock your opponent off two times in a row. In single player, you can choose to compete against "Poseur Pete" "Aggro Eddie" or "Bionic Lester" - Yes, the same one you competed with in the Downhill Jam. He is also the son of Rodney, the owner of the Skate shop.

Getting into the skate shop is an overhead view in the middle of the screen. You can choose to go into the seperate events as well. Once you're in the skate shop, you can move the cursor over anything in the shop and Rodney will give you a very interesing comment about it as well as him giving you a hard time about looking at him in the eyes or his hair. You can set up the two player competition mode from here as well as look at the "top scores".

This game was the first party game my family ever gotten. This has caused many an arguement in my home because my friend and I would try our best to make my lil brother look bad in front of his friends. We were eventually "banned" from playing because we wouldn't let them win (and to save my parents a fair share of yelling).

This game came along right when the skatebording scene was starting to gain massive popularity. There are many out there who have their own extreme sport game now, such as Tony Hawk, Dave Mirra, Ricky Carmichel, and many more. This game however brought competition into the household that went beyond the normal sporting games where you could only play as two players.

I shall try this expriment again. So what shall the raccoon try next week... Pre-NES, NES, or post-NES game?

Well, until next week, dust off your old systems and give em a whirl

Zoie, The Lester Fence Shredder brand!

For an additional "double vote" the first preson who can tell me what was the earliest running system that displayed this game gets two votes for their pick of article next week

(As SpinDizzy residents are from many places, it seems logical to talk about holidays from other cultures. Rin, local wintermouse, is a Japanese mouse, and has agreed to tell us about some of the holidays celebrated there. As many of us are fans of Anime and video gaming (Which seems to have been developed in Japan,) it would seem some knowlege about the culture would be of interest. - Editor.)

Gomen-nasai, minna-san! This is Rin Yukidama... I'm very sorry for not getting the article out in time! I'll cover the relevant holidays now, at least, and hope it's alright with everyone that the article's a little late...

In Japan, March 3 was Hina-Matsuri, the Doll Festival. It's a holiday more or less specifically for girls, and though it's a traditional holiday, it's not something we poor girls get out of school for! It's unfair, but the holiday's still fun! During this festival, girls put up a set of platforms for displaying dolls modeled after members of the ancient Japanese court. The platforms are tiered, and though placement varies from region to region, the dolls set up on each tier are always the same. Up at the top, you've got the Emperor and Empress; the next level holds a set of three 'kanjo' (court ladies); next down are the 'gonin-bayashi', the five-member orchestra; the fourth platform typically holds a set of two ministers; fifth supports a trio of court helpers... Sixth and seventh levels down display mostly tools and furniture for all the little court-dollies.

On Hina-Matsuri, everyone tends to drink 'ama-zake', which is a sweet, non-alcoholic form of sake (which most of you probably already know is the Japanese alcoholic beverage of choice). Everyone also munches on seriously colorful 'arare', which is basically a kind of rice-composed cracker flavored with soy sauce.

That about covers it for Hina-Matsuri... But also, there's a holiday coming this week that I'm actually not late to give the info on! I'd touched on it before, but on March 14, Japan celebrates White Day! As I'd told you all about Valentine's Day, on February 14, the girls give guys chocolate. Well, a month later, we get the good end of the deal! White Day is pretty much like Valentine's Day off in the west; guys give us chocolate this time! Also, any girls who gave gifts on Valentine's Day can safely harbor some pretty nice expectations: The motto on White Day for guys who got gifts is 'San-Bai Kaeshi'... Giving a three-fold return! It almost makes you feel sorry for the poor things...

...And their wallets...

So, that's it for now! We've got Shunbun no Hi, the Vernal Equinox, next week. It's a bit more of a highly celebrated holiday than the ones I've listed this week, so here's to looking forward to it! But for now...

Jikai made, sayounara!

Thank you to everyone who contributed to the newspaper!

Special thanks go to:

The various folks who descibed the Shiny Weekend raccoonyness,
Argon for the news about Morticon being silenced,
Other folks who provided information about Patch O'Black's Jellicleness,
Zoie for her "Classic Gaming" article,
Gilead for his smelly puns,
Ba'ar for his his survey and
Argon for this week's cartoon.

Q: What do you call a skunk movie classic?
A: A Scentimental journey.

Q: What do you call a Roman soldier skunk?
A: A Scenturion.

Q: What do you call a 100-year old skunk?
A: A Scentegenarian.

Q: What do you call the 200th anniversary of the United Skunks of America?
A: The Biscentenial.

Q: What do you call a skunk with a human torso on its shoulders?
A: A Scentaur.

Q: What's a skunk's favorite car?
A: The Buick Scentury.

Q: What's a skunk's favorite movie?
A: Scent of a Woman.

Q: What do you get when you cross a fish-eating mustelid with a skunk?
A: A river odor.

Q: What do skunks do for their bachelor parties?
A: Get drunk and hire some dancing girls to do a stripetease.

Q: What's a skunk's favorite beverage?
A: White Stripe. Hooray, Beer.

Q: Who escorts patients around in skunk hospitals?
A: Candystripers.

Q: How do you tell a fake skunk at the World Series?
A: It's one! Two! Three stripes, you're out at the old ball game.

Q: Why is it so easy to track a Spilogale putoris?
A: It's always a spotted skunk.

Q: What's the definition of overkill?
A: A skunk eating eggs, cabbage, and chili.

Q: How does a skunk priest start services?
A: "Let us spray..."

Q: What's wrong with a skunk that's foaming at the rear?
A: Spraybies.

• Austin says, "Oh, that's easy. 'What is the answer to this week's survey question?'"
• DTF smiles "What's your favorite fast-food menu item and why?"
• Dingo says, "How many licks does it take to get to the center of a tootsie pop...and why?"
• Natasha says, "Who's braver -- Scooby-Doo, or Courage the Cowardly Dog?"
• Andros yips, "Where's my burrito!?"
• Flossi exclaims, "Can I have a sandwich?"
• Zoie thinks,"Who would you consider to be your greatest influence on Spindizzy?"
• Borris Gruffs, "If your Born on Feb 29th, do you only celebrate your birthday every four years?"
• Argon says, "I'd ask, 'What holidays would you suggest for Portia's idea of unique SpinDizzy holidays?"

Got something that You'd like to contribute to @Action News, but aren't sure if you should, or how to do it? Here are some basic guidelines.

Contributing a story or artwork for @Action News is easy! Just send it to newspaper@spindizzy.org!

• @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