12/2/2001

 Argon - Editor

Newswire Sources Christmas Wallaby 
 
A touch of traditional Madagascar-style holiday cheer came to the Rose Garden Thursday night when local Wallaby Morticon kindly agreed to serve as the Christmas Wallaby.  Decorating a Wallaby for the holiday with colored lights and ornaments, much as a tree is used elsewhere in the world, is a longstanding tradition among the Lemurs of Madagascar.  Local Lemur Suri donated her bag of decorations, and ably assisted by local Wolverine Max, local Fursnake Mouser, local Otter Gilead and local Vulpnines Alex,  Cye and Amy, proceeded to decorate Mort up in fine style.  Only minor amounts of wrestling were necessary, and Mort put up hardly any resistance at all after being trussed with lights and tinsel.  Amy took  several photographs of the festive scene.  
 
The festivities were marred when Morticon was set on fire while testing the lights, due to a combination of a defective light string and not enough water in his pouch.  Mouser, who was serving as a sort of live garland at the time, was fortunately uninjured, but the Christmas Wallaby escaped in  the resulting confusion.  Any resident of SpinDizzy seeing the Christmas Wallaby at large is urged to redecorate him and return him to the Rose Park.  Prospective Wallaby decorators are cautioned to always keep the pouch filled with water to  prevent a repeat of Thursday's fire.
Argon No Bones About It
  Last week in the Rose Garden, Max, local Qavvigaarjuk (at time of printing) for some reason developed a craving for Terry, local robot Otter, (at the time).  Through a series of circumstances Terry found herself 'accidentally falling' into a large pot of boiling peanut oil.  Another series of unfortunate circumstances led to the top of the pot being held down.  Although it is reported that she struggled mightily, the boiling oil soon did its work, and when the lid was lifted Terry's body had been deep fried, and only her bones crawled out of the pot.

Looking like '..an Otter with the skin scraped off,' Terry, now local Otter skeleton, emerged as just that, a skeleton.  Although she was pretty disconnected at first, a few wires got her together.  In an attempt to relieve her bony stature, Terry suggested that Natasha, local elastic Coati, allow him to crawl into her skin.  Terry's logic being that since Natasha is all stretchy, she might need a skeleton.  Natasha wisely resisted this idea.  Several other methods of getting Terry a skin were discussed, including planting Natasha and then letting her grow.  When nuts developed, they could be planted and used to grow another elastic Coati tree from which Terry could acquire a skin.  Again, Natasha resisted this plan.  Terry then decided he might be able to clone an elastic Coati skin.  Getting a sample of Natasha's skin proved to be impossible as it is so elastic it can't be cut.  As a last resort, Gilead suggested using his whiskers to make Natasha sneeze onto a slide.  The theory being that some organic portions of Natasha would end up on the slide.  This plan was effected successfully.

At press time, Terry's sample of Natasha's DNA is in his freezer with hopes that it will grow into an elastic Coati skin.  As Coatis prefer sub tropical and tropical temperatures, it is unknown whether Terry's experiment will be successful.

Rown Cursed Mud
 

Chaos erupted in the Rose Garden when Arkitah, local male avian and SpinDizzy regular, decided to play in the mud.  But the mud had become cursed somehow and Arkitah was transformed into a pig. Of course transformations like this aren’t unusual in SpinDizzy as anyone who’s been bitten by Kendra in one of her rabid times can attest, but this TF also preformed a TG as well leaving Arkitah a sow.

This distressing development was accentuated when he/she claimed that he/she would wrap his/her tail around a boar’s nose if one should approach him/her with any intentions of anything less than a platonic relationship. Not realizing that the action might be taken as a mating ritual, Arkitah insisted that it’s what he/she would do. Of course when the thought of it really being a mating ritual sunk in, he/she decided it wasn’t such a good idea after all.

The curse must have been absorbed by Arkitah completely since Shoe decided to attempt the transformation and rolled in the mud but was not TF’d. Others stayed away from the mud completely. Then Arkitah insisted on hamming it up by trying to fly but his/her wings had been clipped since his TF and although Argon, local centaur and SpinDizzy regular, tried to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear Artikah just couldn’t get off the ground.

When it was asked who could have cursed the mud the usual suspects were brought up but no proof could be found outside of SED wanting a Christmas ham this year that isn’t Morticon. Although Morticon was not around to be asked, it’s safe to say that SED was not involved since the curse worked.

The questions still must be asked though. Who cursed the mud in the Rose Garden? Will Arkitah ever be changed back into a male Avian? Will we ever get an answer?

Maybe, when pigs fly!

(You knew it was coming!) J

Editors note:   Arkitah eventually made it out of the world of pigdom after Alicia inversed the curse’s field with a few well chosen chants, a really neat light show and Arkitah clicking his trotters together and saying over and again “I need to concentrate and relax” while Alicia bathed him in blue light. The wizard of ID flew home in his hot air balloon, the tornado escaped being ravaged by cliché’s and even Toto came close to having a new hit single.

Newswire Sources Alicia Discharged From Ranks Of The Dead
  Alicia Vulpnine, local Nine Tailed Kistsune, had raised a few eyebrows by appearing to have joined the expanding ranks of the dead in SpinDizzy.  As described in an earlier edition of @Action News, Alicia, was fatally injured due to a malfunction of her Gundam Robot suit.  After leaving her quickly failing body in the care of personnel at her dome, she reappeared a few days later as a 'Spectre', with no memory of her former life, or much of anything for that matter.

At the time of this paper going to press, Alicia seems to have regained her 'normal' form, that of a Nine Tailed Kitsune.  When questioned about the accident, Alicia claims to have no memory of the event, or Gundam Robots at all.  Although she seems a bit confused about portions of her past, and her memory of the last week is completely gone, she looks about the same, and appears to be in good health.  However, Alicia is a lot more rounder than when she died and keeps wanting chilidogs and Japanese food.  The mystery of what has happened to her since the accident has yet to be solved.

Argon Weekly Survey
  Argon asked in this week's survey, "I'm doing a survey to be published in @Action News.  The question is,  'What global (Hug, Snug, Poke, etc.) Do you use the most?'
Natasha says, "Oh. 'page', then. With 'whisper' coming a close second."
Drake hmms (and unidles). :) "'Hug', and 'page' are my Most Used Globals, Argon. :)"
Sunni says, "page, wisper, hug, huggle, "
Maxl grumbles, "'Murder'."
Arkitah snorts, "Hmmm... I use 'whospecies' over and over again for no explicable reason."
Gilead may groom more often than he pages.
Alicia says, "I'll often use 3w"  (heh, try it!)
Suri zoofles. "Um... Prolly +read."
Cye says, "Rose :)"
Darwin scratches his chin, and then an ear. "Hmmm, I'd say the one most used is probably 'hug'. It's almost the standard greeting among furries! After that I'd say fluff, fuzzle, snug, and tickle." :)
Rown says, "Well, it a toss up between hugs and snugs. *blush*"
Kaerad remarks smoothly, "Would 'look' count?"
Argon The Doze Garden
 

@Action News Info Guidelines and Procedures for Submitting Articles
  Submitting a story or artwork for @Action News is easy!  Just send it to newspaper@spindizzy.org, or qmail or page Argon about it.

Most any type of story or article will be excepted.  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!