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Here it is at last. The 400th edition of @Action News, including The Ferret and all the paper's incarnations.

I could go on and on about the paper and the fun I've had in my affiliation with it, but I thought it would be more fun to read about the effect @Action News has had on SpinDizzy and its residents, and their memories of SpinDizzy during all that time. So here are what some of the muck's staff and "old timers", have had to say:

Morticon --

As a frequently featured infamous wallaby in the paper, it would be difficult to narrow down my most favorite item, but I have fond memories of the series of comics drawn by Boki about the SED and me.

It's fun being able to say I had a whole series of comics drawn about my (mis)adventures! Though none of them were true, I swear it! The plots were so much like something I would do, though, that I often wondered why I didn't do them first.

Vixie --

Hi all, Vixie here, the world's cutest fox. I've been asked to share my thoughts on Spindizzy here in the 400th issue, so here I go. I think I have helped make the place much cuter since my arrival. I mean, there were some cute folks here already, but not up to my level of cuteness. It's not too hard to be cute, but how many have world class cuteness? I know my fellow Spindizzians agree, as I was awarded the most cute award two years in a row. It's been a lot of fun helping make Spindizzy a more cute place.

I should mention it has been fun meeting everyone here, as most recognize my cuteness, and seem to enjoy it. One thing I have enjoyed is the amount of coffee and chocolate I have been showered with since I've been here. Those are nature's most perfect foods, and nice that everyone seems to like to award my cuteness with offerings of each.

In closing, I know I haven't been around as much as I used to, but maintaining this level of cuteness is not easy. Also look for a new look for me in the near future, it will be a lot different, but with that same level of cuteness and humility you expect from me. It has been a lot of fun, and I plan to help keep making it fun for a long time yet.

Mouser --

As most of you know, I'm one of the Spindizzy old timers, the hardy band of refugees from Toons, Fur & Fluff that migrated to this land in the depths of MUCK history. Argon asked me to name my favorite memory from the days here. It's a little hard to choose, but I think the most memorable evening I've spent on Spindizzy is that way more on account of Real Life (tm) than what happened here.

A few years ago a hurricane plowed its way up the East Coast from the Carolinas to Pennsilvania. It was my player's first experience of one, so, as a challenge, I decided to see how long I could stay connected to Spindizzy before the winds knocked me off of the Internet. As it happens, Butterfluff had the same idea. (We weren't neighbors, but didn't live that far away--DC and Baltimore areas, respectively.)

It was a long night, with winds howling around my player's house, and Butterfluff and I entertaining the Spindizzy crowd with tales of this mysterious RL phenomenon that seemed to be affecting just us two. I was posting updates from the US Weather Bureau website, and Butterfluff would crack jokes about "ents knocking on her door and trying to get into her house". Amazingly, we were both able to stay online the whole evening.

It was not long after that that we lost Butterfluff. One of the few regrets I've had about the muck is that even though Butterfluff's player and mine were within driving distance of each other, we never met. It's a reminder that Spindizzy friendships are just part of a greater whole that we shouldn't lose sight of.

Austin

It's a special thing to have a newspaper. So far as I know -- and without actually doing the research -- only Spindizzy and Toons Furr & Fluff have managed it over any substantial time. TF&F had only a handful of issues, since it turns out to be harder to get people who aren't thinking of the fun of journalism to stop what they're doing and to write about what they're doing to deadline, and that's another bit of tradition which was handed down to @Action News when it began to organize in the post-catastrophe society of early Spindizzy.

One of the things that's remarkable about the early days of Spindizzy is to see how many of our cherished modern traditions were established within the first months of its opening: longwinded public meetings dedicated to establishing just why the muck isn't fun anymore, pleas for more events to be scheduled and more submissions to the newspaper, and the occasional article which I submitted anonymously and which was wholly made up. (There were others I wrote which were only partly made up, and some which were perfectly true.)

I don't know why I petered out from writing articles, exactly. Most likely it corresponds to leaving Singapore; I just don't quite have the time to myself to compose that I'd like anymore. I suppose that's a reflection of how it can seem like a chore to spend some of one's time living in reflection instead of moving forward.

Perhaps I just grow more foolish as I age, a thought which is unhappy but which I keep concluding must be so. The value of the newspaper is maybe not so obvious when one's regularly part of the evening (muck time) crowd and sees the things which most often get to be the lead for the paper, but when you are on the morning crew it's a wonderful way to get the sense of what one's missing. And even more the reading of old papers cuts through the years and brings me, at least, to remember just what it was like in those older days that seemed so busy at the time. The grand baseball game from May of 2004 I had thought I remembered as if it were yesterday, but the report (/newspaper200.htm) stunned me with the moments I had forgotten I knew.

Maybe the best value of the newspaper isn't the recording of the big events which we would be unlikely to forget anyway, such as the memorial services for Butterfluff and Aushae or the marriage of Mavra with Argon. It's in the preservation of those special little moments when one is surrounded by friends and enjoying the moments as they develop and doing nothing with any particular grander plan. No one of those moments seems like much but taken in aggregate they're life, and with them recorded we can touch forever the people who were in a time and place now removed from us.

It's been difficult keeping the newspaper going and I admire Argon's determination and perseverance. I'm very glad that for the overwhelming majority of this past decade he's been putting in the time and the energy to write much of, edit all of, and publish the @Action News. Perhaps the muck would have been about as lively and about as active and about as interesting without the newspaper, but many of its wonderful moments were lost to the onrush of new ones, and we're certainly the richer for having so many of them captured here.

Gilead -- How It Came To Be That You May Sometimes See Gilead as Harbor Seal

I was still pretty new to SpinDizzy when we had our first themed weekend, Aquatic Weekend. Although I had planned to just stay an otter because it was improper for me to be anything else, Austin insisted I go as something different. I considered just not showing up at all. However, after thinking about it a while (and having a wonderful visit to Marine World) it occurred to me that according to the fossil record, harbor seals are descended from the paleo-otter Potamotherium. So I could be a harbor seal. But right as the weekend was to start, and I was about to change, a 50 lb. bag of emu chow fell on my left forepaw and crushed it. Being unable to walk then anyway, I got stuck as a harbor seal, flopping around like an inchworm on land, for several months.

Nevertheless, it was a lot of fun, and I've enjoyed several theme weekends since. And several more times being stuck as a harbor seal due to injuries too.

Skyler the bunny turned into a toy balloon not too long ago! It was Beltrami's idea it said, since as a toy balloon Beltrami likes it when other people are toys too, and Skyler is happy like this way now.

Beltrami was doing some of her magic like she likes to do and like her mother Aushae would too, and like fairies do too. And Skyler says she started out by making a feelerglow go inside its middle and you could see the light coming through it even when he was a real toon. But the glow started making its belly fur change into smooth vinyl, and it says, "It's a little like butterflies in your stomach." And then Skyler said the yellow was all the way around its middle and there was air inside, which felt funny, and air plugs opened up and it got mitts to be paws, and the last things were Skyler's head and ears turning into balloon stuff on top of that. And plus on top of that there's these little divots and bulges in Skyler's feet because vinyl is so slippery and this way it can walk without slipping so much. Skyler likes being a toy balloon now although it also liked being a toon bunny before too. But it's fun being picked up and squeezed and it likes being empty inside! Its insides were made into air, or maybe they were made into skin that's all there is to Skyler anymore.

Skyler hasn't yet gotten filled up with helium to float around but is still pretty new to being a balloon. There's stuff it misses from being a cartoon like turning into a puddle of water though or hopping between two and four feet easily or being just as bright yellow as it wanted or wearing anything or taking off its ears to clean them. You can do that with a toon and it's okay but not with a balloon because it would break.

But Skyler likes being a toy balloon now too. "I think being played with is fun" it says and "Also, being crumpled when you're squeezed is sort of neat." And Skyler thinks if it talked loud enough it would echo from inside too!

So far as Skyler knows Beltrami hasn't started turning other people to balloons. But Nyni has started being a mousey because she has the magic power to change into almost anything she wants, and she thought being a little mouse would be cute, and she is. She's been a bunny before and a unicorn fairy too, and a whole lot of other things. Austin even thinks she's part toon because when she's confused little question marks bubble up around her head. But we don't know why they do that yet.

Well Well Well,

It's me, Zoie, gazing at the stars once again while having the familiar glow of a TV and classic games playing.

Well, for the 400th edition of the newspaper, I did a lil question.. what do people want to see.... fox, snake, horse or owl.... The funny thing is that this article goes back to when the newspaper first started... April of 1998. There were many great games that came out.... Lunar 2: Eternal Blue Complete, Star Ocean: The Second Story, and so many more... however, there were two games that were heads and shoulders above all the others and the two, yes TWO, that I'm doing are.....

First I shall do MGS...

The game starts on the premise some years after the events at Zanzibar Land... Solid Snake has killed off another Metal Gear, Big Boss and his best friend, Grey Fox. Events in Shadow Moses Island of it being captured by FOXHOUND troops and the Genome Soldier Army. So, as a last resort, the government forcefully drafted Solid Snake back into duty after he was hiding out in Alaska, happy at being a musher.

From there, he had no choice but to go in and stop the "terrorists" threat of using a nuke. However, the situation became much worse... you discover there is a new model of Metal Gear being develolped, that the person behind it was Dr. "Otacon" Emmerich (whom's grandfather took part in the Manhattan project), let alone you have to "babysit" Col. Campbell's nice, Meryl. Let alone, you have to deal with a psychotic psychic, a sadist torturer, a woman who's a bit too focused on you, people dropping around you like flies and a surprise that caught many by storm... Solid Snake actually had family... let alone a bit of "Star Wars" drama put into it.

The game had many factors put into it; stealth, weapons that would make Batman happy, family feuds, a bit of shamanism (which I adore *churr*), giant mecha, ninja, an adorable wolf puppy, even a bit of romance.

It was this game that made many insertions into later games... start with no weapons, a torture scene, hawt "kickass" women, a touch of romance, and a VERY strong dose of anti-nuclear message. This game had a great moral story behind it that spoke about family as well in the later games. Though in the DS version, you wind up getting a "matrix" feel to it, but I think it was pulled off well for the "super soldier" known as Snake, pesonally I didn't like it because it removed the realism it had in the PS version.

Now, its time for the other "Mr. Utility Belt", Link. IN the Ocarina of Time, you play as a young boy named Link, the Kokiri without a fairy. In the beginning you dream an evil dream, a foreboading sense of the future. However, the Great Deku Tree senses that Link may be the one to shine light onto the darkness and banishing it. So, you grab the Swords and Shield of the Kokiri and go on your adventure.

Throughout the game, you meet many interesting people from Daruna of the Gorgons, Ruto of the Zoras and Saria of the Kokiri *your best friend*. There are many others who help you along your way until you meet Princess Zelda and her caretaker, Impa. Throughout the story, you are faced with the minions of Ganondorf, the one who wants to rule Hyrule with an iron fist. However, during your travels to get the jewels to open up the Temple of Time, Ganondorf was only biding his time for you to claim the Master Sword and open up the Temple of Light for him to claim what he needed to finish his goal... The Triforce. However, all didn't go as planned. Zelda escaped and gave Link the Ocarina of Time, Link was safeguarded in the Temple of Time and the Triforce broke up into three pieces, with only the Triforce of Power in his hands.

As you awaken years later, you are grown up and drop dead handsome! You discover that you have to awaken the 7 sages and save Hyrule from Ganondorf's evil reign. Through your adventure, you discover Shiek, a Sheikah, assisting you in learning new songs for your powerful ocarina, Navi, the pain in the ass fairy that never leaves you alone (remember the old 80's cartoon where the fairy was deeply in love with Link and couldn't stand Zelda?), and Epona, the wonderful steed that you need to save.

You gather many types of weapons... though Solid Snake gets a wide variety of firearms and high tech items... Link uses Swords, Shields, potions, hook shots, arrows and more.

These two, though very different eras, are very similar. They both have a strong sense of right, they are very skilled and adaptable warriors, very knowledgable and if they need help - they do not hesitate to ask.

In both games there are many secrets and items you can get, even easter eggs if you know where to look.

Personally, if you want to start out on an action game, Legend of Zeld
A: The Ocarina of Time is a sure bet to start on. Once you complete that, I would recommend trying the other NES Zelda games before taking on Metal Gear. Once you understand that you need to look for items and extra things, you should be able to roll through Metal Gear much easier since you can see patterns and recognize it.

I apologize for the lack of any pictures or videos this time around. This was going to be a long article and I wanted to keep it "sane" for our editor's sake.

If ya wanna challenge me in SMB:Brawl, my friend code is 1590-6881-1227.

Editor's note: Associated screen captures, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbcmNoWBedE&feature=related

The ones for MGS I prefer is the one for "Snake v Raven" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5nItHfHgcQ mainly because it is so spiritual and literally at the end of that flick is the raven announcing the fight as well as this one, "Snake v. Mantis" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFLeNTM9SG4" please be sure to put a warning on both pictures for the videos because it could be a bit offensive.

Kinda as a clincher for LoZ: Ocarina of time - a voice version of everyone's fave equine http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vlhmufYVDg&feature=related

Zoie, Ms. Utility Belt and Psychopomp

Thank you to everyone who contributed to the newspaper this week!

Special thanks go to:

Morticon, Vixie, Mouser, Austin and Gilead, who were kind enough to send in their SpinDizzy Memories,
Leslie, for the report on balloons and mice,
Zoie, for the report games from back when the paper was first published,
Patch O'Black for his story on famous papers from comic books,
Gilead, for his 400th Issue puns,
Argon, for the survey,
and, Argon for the 400th Issue cartoon.

Hello, loyal readers! In honor of the 400th issue of the @Action News, I thought we would take a look at the two biggest newspapers in superhero comics, The Daily Planet and the Daily Bugle. Both are well known for their ties to iconic superheroes, and providing several supporting characters, as well as jobs for said superheroes' civilian identities.

Let's start with the Daily Planet, the "great metropolitan newspaper" where Clark Kent works when he is not saving the world. Originally, in Action Comics #1, it was known as The Daily Star. The name changed when Superman started being published in newspapers, to avoid confusion with real life newspapers of the same name. The fictional history of the paper is impressive. The Planet started publishing, including an editorial by George Washington himself in the first daily edition. Flash-forward to the 1940s, the Daily Planet was being hawked by a group of young orphans known as the Newsboy Legion. Meanwhile, a cub reporter named Perry White starts working up the ladder. He would, of course, eventually become the Editor-in-Chief. Soon, he would have a staff consisting of Clark Kent, Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen, and several others.

In the past it has been owned by several folks, including Lex Luthor at one point. He took great pleasure at disbanding most of the staff and disposing of the famous globe from atop the building into a junkyard. Later, as part of a deal with Lois Lane (who promised to kill any one story of his choice in return), he sold the Planet to Perry White for the sum of one dollar. Currently, the Planet is owned by someone who will insure it never has to worry about being used in any evil schemes: Bruce Wayne.

Meanwhile, over in the Marvel Universe, we have The Daily Bugle. While The Planet is known for being a fair, unbiased bastion of truth, the Bugle is more in line with tabloid reporting, thanks to it's publisher, one J. Jonah Jameson. It tends to report the news that J.J.J. wants to be reported, whether the facts match the story or not! J. Jonah started as a reported for the Bugle while in high school, eventually purchasing it with inheritance money when the paper was having financial troubles. Ever since then, it has been the self--proclaimed "voice of the people", if the people are a certain cigar-chomping loudmouth with a flattop hairdo.

The paper has maintained a fairly stable anti-superhero stance. This is due to J.J.J. not believing anyone can truly be a hero all the time. This, of course, puts him at odds particularly with one web-slinger. It also allows Peter Parker to continue to sell pictures of his alter-ego at the cost of his ego. Fortunately, Editor-in-Chief "Robbie" Robertson tends to balance out his boss's perchance for using the newspaper as his personal sounding board. The paper has also employed Eddie Brock, who bonded with Spider-Man's black alien symbiote costume to become the villain Venom, as well as one Betty Brant, who started out as J.J.'s secretary but eventually became a reporter in her own right. Currently, as a side-effect of Peter and Mary-Jane Parker making a deal with Mephesto, Jameson suffered a heart attack and his wife, fearing the stress of running the paper caused it, sold the paper to a rival. Unfortunately, the paper's quality of reporting has only gone down, and it has been renamed "The DB!"

Well, that's it for this issue. Remember, if you have an idea for a future column, or have a comic-book question to be answered, page #mail PatchO'Black. Until then, see you in the funny pages!

Q: What do you call a radio station for frogs
A: KRMT

Q: What do you call a radio station for St. Bernards?
A: KUJO

Q: What do you call a radio station for flies?
A: KRAP

Q: What do you call a radio station for stinging insects (and Episcopalians)?
A: WASP

Q: What do you call a radio station for pond fish?
A: KARP

Q: But what do you call the foreign language station for pond fish?
A: KKOI

Q: What do you call the radio station for terrestrial marsupials?
A: WALA

Q: What do you call the radio station for arboreal marsupials?
A: KWLA

Q: What does a college admissions officer look for in their raccoon applicants?
A: Good grades, and a well-roundwormed individual.

Q: What do you call a gorilla that got run over by a semi truck?
A: A crepe ape.

Q: What do you call a tree rat that draw you in as it runs around and around?
A: A squirrelpool.

Q: What do you call it when a tree rat sticks you head-first into his cache of nuts?
A: A squirrely.

Q: What do you call a vampire who tells really bad jokes?
A: Vlad the im-punner.

Q: If you are visiting the Kremlin, how do you tell if the person you are talking to is Vladimir Putin?
A: Ask him to tell his best Vladimir Putin joke. If he tells one and he and everyone who laughs begins mysteriously dying of Polonium-210 poisoning, it wasn't Vladimir Putin. If he tells one and everyone who fails to laugh begins dying of Polonium-210 poisoning, it was Vladimir Putin. However...if he tells one and everyone begins dying, it was the ghost of Josef Stalin. And if he nervously insists that absolutely no jokes about Vladimir Putin have ever existed, it's Dmitri Medvedev.

This week's survey question was, "As you know, @Action News is reaching its 400th issue. What do you think is the most memorable event reported in those 400 issues?."

• Mouser hisses, "Probably the most memorable evening I spent on Spindizzy was the night the hurricane blew through my player's home, and I tried to see how long I could stay online before a power outage knocked me off."
• BunnyHugger says, "The discovery of a survivor in the ruins of Squirrel City!"
• Austin says, "I don't want to pick the infamous Mozdoc article, although I have to admit that's the one I've heard the most about. The dinosaur sheriff picture, though, that was impressive."
• Royce churrs, "The most memorable event at the time of reading this is whatever was just reported in the 400th issue."
• Jimun says, "This has been the most memorable Muck I've been on though. Everyone's very
friendly, and I feel more comfortable here than I've been on a Muck in a long time."
• Leowulf says, "Leowulf says, "Clearly, that would have to have been the landing."
• Borris Gruffs, "The time Cartoon of Borris trying to cook Suri was in paper."
• Andros yips, "When my superiors tried to take over SD."
• DTF smiles "Guess I'll have to say my wedding."
• Gilead chirps, "When Morticon and Portia finally admitted they were engaged."
• Tzolkin says, "Definately not the ice-capades. XP"
• Niran hmms quietly,"Well.. finding out Morticon is strong enough to push a tree down.
• Findra chirrrs softly, "I do particularly remember 'The Lemurs', by Suri Alan Poe. It was very Cretumbrous, Argon."
• Lamar yaps, "Most memorable event, er... It was that time whatsit and thingy did that stuff, you know, thingy... With that whatyacall it. It was on a Friday, no I think it was Saturday. Great Times!"

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 between Sunday and Wednesday each week, although the date of publication may vary.
• 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