Vol. I: Issue 012                                                                                             March 13th, 2026

Duke Gotcha here, and today is Whiskview’s official Bring-Your-Kid-To-Work Day, a tradition we at NowTime News are always glad to take part in.

This year, I brought along my son, Deuce Gotcha, a senior over at Whiskview High. Now, naturally, I would be delighted if he one day followed in his old man’s footsteps, but as you can plainly see, Deuce has a style and stride all his own, and I could not be prouder of that.

He’s a talented young man with a sharp creative eye, and that is not just a proud father talking. Deuce has earned the Excellence in Art achievement four years running. Not bad at all.

He’s also got a real love for horror pictures, so with that, I’m handing things over to Deuce for his review of the latest indie fright sensation, The Mountain of Doctor Merlot.

Hi. I’m Deuce Gotcha, and Dad, please stop bringing up those awards. It’s really not that big of a deal. Seriously. Anyway, I’m here today to review the newest movie from famed director Trentin VonTorto, The Mountain of Doctor Merlot.

This dark, atmospheric film tells the story of a crazed scientist working out of an old army barracks hidden on a remote mountainside deep in Hemlock Forest. When a group of hikers accidentally wander into the compound, they’re horrified to come face to face with the doctor’s twisted creations.

Some people might call this movie a little plodding, but I think it works better as a slow-burn thriller, the kind that slowly pulls you deeper into a mind of madness before finally paying off in a big way by the end. The score feels timeless, with real orchestration that adds to the mood without overpowering the story. But for me, the biggest standout is the sheer amount of practical effects and costumes, which make the human-snackimal hybrids feel both terrifying and strangely tragic.

With solid acting and a tightly written story arc, I’d honestly say this is one of VonTorto’s strongest works, and it really feels like a return to his earlier Quilltoad Creek days. I give it my full stamp of approval, and I strongly recommend seeing it for yourself, preferably alone in a dark, cavernous theater.

Hiya friends!

Great job, Deuce! I have to say, I don’t think I’ll be seeing that movie anytime soon, especially not by myself. The last scary movie I went to, I think it was The Gasping, and oh my gosh, I barely saw half of it. My hands were over my eyes for most of the movie, and I was peeking through my fingers like that was going to make it any less scary.

But anyway, onto the weather. I’ve had so many of you spring breakers asking what the forecast is looking like down at Ketona Beach. I really wish I had better news, but we’re heading into a cooler-than-normal week. Wednesday and Thursday are looking like your best bet for beach plans, so keep those towels and flip-flops ready for the middle of the week.

And as a little bonus, I invited my niece Isadora into the station to try her hand at the weather map. She’s awfully camera shy, but such a cutie.

Take it away, Dizzy Izzy!

The Mumph here, and this one was tight the whole way. Starlight City Jackpots take it 2 to 1 over the Toastwood Veggie Dogz. Winner, Starlight City. MVP, Bufford.

Bufford earned it, folks. He slams the door on a breakaway in the dying minutes and that is the kind of save that turns a one goal game into two points you can actually keep. Starlight’s best shifts were built on Drummond protecting pucks and Perigo doing the dirty work on retrievals, keeping plays alive and keeping Toastwood stuck defending. And when it was time to strike, Zestler was reading the play like a thief, jumping lanes and flipping defense into quick offense before Toastwood could even get set.

Toastwood had push, no question. Rennard was the engine, driving their offense and forcing Starlight to defend honestly, but late in the game the Jackpots did what good teams do, sticks in lanes, bodies in the middle, and they clogged things up until the clock ran out.

My two cents, that is a textbook grind win, and Bufford was the difference.

And hey, quick note before I go. It’s Bring-Your-Kid-To-Work Day at the station, Duke has his boy Deuce in here, Zepha brought her niece, and I figured I’m not getting shown up, so I brought my right-hand-man, Hambone. He has been pacing around the studio like he owns the place, sniffing every microphone, and staring at me like he wants my chair.

Here we go, Hambone’s prediction for next week, we have Oilseed Springs Fryers versus the Tastyville Cold Cuts.

He took one look at that matchup, huffed once, and planted himself on the Fryers logo. Hambone picks Fryers! Hambone picks Fryers!!!

 

Hello out there…

Bring-Your-Kid-to-Work Day may be a fine tradition for some people, but I will be sitting this one out. I did bring someone with me, though, a close friend whose anonymity, I promised, will remain safely intact. Online, he goes by DrydenTH3Cultivar, and in the world of ethical hacking, that name carries some weight. After the recent NuBetcha hack on our Newsletter, I figured it was time to sit down with someone who knows how these things actually work and start asking better questions.

Shannon:
So Dryden the… could I just call you Dryden for this interview?

DrydenTH3Cultivar:
Yeah, that’s fine. Way less annoying.

Shannon:
Dryden, people hear the word hacker and immediately picture broken locks, stolen data, and somebody slipping out the back door with a sack full of passwords. So let’s start their. You work in what’s called ethical hacking. What exactly makes it “ethical”?

DrydenTH3Cultivar:
Ethical means I’m not wrecking stuff just because I can. People hear hacker, they picture some dude in a dark room with green text, full goblin mode. Fine. Aesthetic’s real. But the line’s real too. Consent, scope, receipts. You test what you’re allowed to test, prove the risk, write it up clean, and get out. Same doors. I just don’t walk through them to hurt people.

Shannon:
How does that look in practice? Give me an example of your handiwork.

DrydenTH3Cultivar:
Mostly I hunt cheaters in online games. Scripts, dupes, modded clients, packet junk, whatever busted shortcut they’re using that week. I figure out how it works, grab proof, pass it to the devs, and let them bring the hammer down. Not flashy. Just pattern-matching, patience, and watching some clown think he’s slick for about ten minutes too long.

Shannon:
So let’s bring this back to the mess that landed on our doorstep. Our Newsletter was hijacked, our columns were swapped out for that clumsy NuBetcha ad copy, and The Mumph now suspects he may have taken the bait on a phishing email. For people who hear that and think it sounds almost too easy, walk me through it. How does a scam like that actually get its foot in the door?

DrydenTH3Cultivar:
Usually way simpler than people think. Email looks real enough. Maybe urgent, maybe friendly, maybe boring on purpose. You click, log in, open something, whatever. That’s it. Either you hand over your password to a fake page, or you let something nasty in. A lot of hacks aren’t super-genius tech wizard stuff. It’s just catching somebody tired, distracted, or too trusting. You don’t smash the door. You get somebody to open it.

Shannon:
So that points away from some grand infrastructure collapse and toward something much more familiar, somebody got in through a door they should not have had. Which brings us to the question that actually matters. How do you figure out who did it? NuBetcha is denying involvement and hiding behind that convenient daisy chain of marketing firms, subcontractors, and whoever-answers-to-whom. To me, that already smells off. So when the excuses start multiplying, where do you look first if you want the truth instead of the spin?

DrydenTH3Cultivar:
You follow the logs. Not vibes, not finger-pointing, not whatever NuBetcha’s PR ghoul says. Logs. Login history, IPs, session data, email headers, password resets, CMS activity, third-party access, vendor accounts. All of it. You build the timeline. Who had access, who used it, when the junk got posted, what account touched it first. Then you start cutting people off the suspect bored. If NuBetcha keeps passing blame to some chain of marketing weirdos, fine. Then you check every link in that chain. Everybody lies. Systems usually don’t.

Shannon:
After something like this, what is the very first fix? Not the polished statement, not the public apology, the actual first move. Where should NowTime News be tightening the bolts before this turns into the kind of mistake that gets made twice?

DrydenTH3Cultivar:
The passwords. Immediately. If one person got phished, you assume more than one thing is dirty till proven otherwise. Reset passwords, kill old sessions, turn on two-factor, check who has access to what, and start trimming the extras. Lot of places get hacked once, then hacked again because they only cleaned the part they could see. After that, lock down the email side. That’s usually where the mess starts.

Shannon:
Thank you, Dryden. I suspect that cleared up a few things for our readers, and for me as well.

That wraps up my conversation with DrydenTH3Cultivar. I did promise to buy him a coffee at a certain lounge with famously unsecured Wi-Fi, just to see whether this NuBetcha mess is still rattling around out there.

And that’s The Scoop.