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By Flipline_Tony, March 20, 2026 10:49 am

Vol. I: Issue 013                                                                                             March 20th, 2026

For those of you not already in the know, Sprocketworld is the annual event for all things steampunk, and every year it draws thousands of cosplayers, retro-tech enthusiasts, and creators from the worlds of games, film, and art. Its longtime home has been Oniontown’s Sourdome, where that entire brass-and-steam spectacle comes together under one roof.

But this year, an unfortunate clerical mix-up has thrown the whole event into uncertainty. Organizers missed the deadline to renew their bid for the Sourdome, and now they are scrambling to secure a new venue. At this point, it appears Sprocketworld may need to leave Oniontown entirely and find a whole new host city.

And that is where the pressure really starts to build. Vendors, attendees, and performers have had this event marked on their calendars for well over a year. Many are now left in limbo, hoping the convention is relocated, not canceled.

For the cosplay community especially, the stakes are high. Some attendees have already poured hundreds of hours into handmade costumes for what is considered one of the cornerstone events in their world. Missing it would be more than a scheduling disappointment, it would be a real heartbreak.

For now, all eyes are on the organizers, and the big question is where Sprocketworld lands next. You can count on me to keep watch on the gears as they turn, because Duke’s Gotcha covered!

Hiya friends!

Well, I’m feeling awfully special today. Somebody sent flowers to the newsroom this morning to wish me a happy birthday, and I have to wonder if it might be the same mystery someone who sent those delicious chocolates to my desk last month. Whoever you are, thank you. You certainly know how to make a girl smile.

Now, onto the weather. Over in San Fresco Wharf, it’s looking like a cold and blustery stretch to start things off, with a messy mix at first and some light snow and flurries hanging around for the first part of the week. Then, later in the week, we finally get a little brighter break with a touch more sun and slightly milder afternoons before clouds and a few damp chances try to sneak back in.

So keep the warm coat handy, hold onto your hat by the waterfront, and maybe save those longer strolls for later in the week when that brighter little patch rolls in.

The Mumph here, and tell me if I’m wrong, but I could swear I smell some Candy Jack in the air. You know what that means, folks… Baseball spring training starts this week, and the season is three short months away. Oh yeah, The Mumph is getting pumped.

Alright, let’s talk about what went down on the ice. Oilseed Springs came out like they had somewhere to be. This one started tight, then the Fryers just kept leaning on Tastyville until the legs went. Filion was the tone setter, relentless on the forecheck, winning pucks back, and cashing in on a two point night. Cutler did the thankless work in the hard areas, screens, bumps, chaos in front, and that stuff wears a goalie down over sixty. On the back end, Dillwyn kept cleaning the porch and getting pucks out, the kind of clears that do not show up in the highlight reel but absolutely tilt the ice.

Tastyville had some push, Olivieri kept them hanging around, but when Oilseed got to their depth and started rolling waves, the Cold Cuts could not keep up. Sorby handled the traffic without giving up anything juicy, and that is how you turn a close game into a calm one.

Final score, Oilseed Springs Fryers 5, Tastyville Cold Cuts 2. Winner, Oilseed Springs. MVP, Filion. Well played Hambone! Just do me a favor and stay off of NuBetcha, ok boy.

My two cents, when your best player is also your hardest worker on the forecheck, you are going to wear teams down like this all season.

Hello out there…

Two days ago, I started hearing the usual online rumbling about a new piece of street art at the corner of Damsons Ave and Horner Street here in Whiskview. So I headed over, hoping I had not already missed it, hoping the cleaning crew had not beaten me there with their buckets and gray paint.

When I arrived, winded and a little annoyed at my own pace, I looked up and knew immediately this was the same artist whose work turned that alley wall into an impromptu gallery last month. The style was unmistakable.

This time, the piece was built around four salvaged windows mounted to the north-facing wall of the electrical substation. Each was roughly three feet by four feet, but none matched. They had clearly come from different buildings, each with its own trim, its own chipped paint, its own little history of wear. A few panes were cracked. Some were missing altogether. And behind those windows, painted directly onto the brick in that same stark stencil style, were figures staring out.

Not welcoming figures, either. Some looked frightened. Some looked angry. None looked like they wanted company.

Then I noticed the detail that pulled the whole thing into focus. Painted on the ground was a long, black shadow, stretching from a pair of round footprints. I stepped into place and realized the shadow was meant to become my own. Suddenly, I was no longer just looking at the piece. I was inside it, standing there under the collective glare of every face in every window. It was uncomfortable. It was clever. It was powerful.

When I moved in for a closer look, I spotted something I had missed last time. Each painted figure carried the same signature: RypToe. At last, a name to go with the work.

I only wish I had more time with it. Since then, the whole piece has been power-washed away, which is often the fate of art like this. Temporary, inconvenient, and apparently too memorable to be left alone.

And that’s The Scoop.

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By Flipline_Tony, March 13, 2026 7:34 am

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.

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By Flipline_Tony, March 6, 2026 12:38 pm

Vol. I: Issue 011                                                                                             March 6th, 2026

Morning arrives in Oilseed Springs. As the rising sun climbs over the rocky hills and weathered buildings, a sharp sparkle flashes off an otherwise rusted framework: a long-lost roadside guardian.

Cluck-a-Luck, as the local’s call it, was once a proud fiberglass statue billed as the largest chicken in the world. It stood as one of many reliable beacons along Historic Route 06, the old highway that ran from the East Coast to the West Coast and helped connect the entire continent.

Cluck-a-Luck was built to pull passersby off the road, get them out of their cars to stretch their feet, and, if Oilseed Springs was lucky, spend a little money in town. For a long time, it worked. It put Oilseed Springs on the map.

But that was many years ago.

Today, Cluck-a-Luck is barely recognizable, reduced to a rusted skeleton of what it used to be. In a way, it matches the fate of Route 06 itself, a highway falling into disrepair, with some sections cracked, patched, and fading, and other sections simply lost to time.

To understand what we are losing, you have to talk to someone who watched it happen.

Oakie Deloke is old enough to remember when Powder Point was still wide-open fields, and a small but thriving town along Route 06. Back then, Oakie’s Corral and Curios was an anticipated stop on the trek. Kids would pile out of the car, eager to stretch their feet and grab a souvenir that proved they had been there.

When I asked Oakie what sold the most, he did not hesitate.

“The Powder Point Wooly,” he said.

A fleece baseball cap with plush sheep ears, felt eyes, and a Route 06 emblem stitched on the back.

Then Oakie told me about a day that still sits in his mind like it happened yesterday.

“Well now,” Oakie said, “I was runnin’ sodajerk duty at the corral for my pappy when none other than Old Man Cornelius Powder come hobblin’ into the shop. Now, we didn’t see hide nor hair of that old codger much in those days, since his kids did most of the shoppin’ and work for him. I’m in no place to throw around names like ‘codger,’ though. Old Oakie’s probably older now than Corny was then, heh heh heh.”

Oakie smiled, then shook his head as if the memory still surprised him.

“I whipped up an Egglime Fizz and he drank it down lickety-split. He took a look around, didn’t say much of nothin’, and left without a word. But what he did do was leave me a fourteen-dollar tip. Fourteen dollars! Why, that was more money than that there eleven-year-old ever saw in one sittin’. More than my pappy would have paid me for a whole year workin’ that soda fountain. Oh, my yes.”

Oakie paused, and his voice softened.

“It was shortly after that my dad come back in, blank-faced, and told me Old Man Cornelius had just gone and sold the town and headed off to Tastyville. Things… they were never the same after that.”

When you stand beneath Cluck-a-Luck now, you can still feel what it was built to do. You can still see the shape of the old promise in the rust. The road was saying: come on in. Stay a minute. Look around.

And yet here we are. Route 06, once the lifeblood of the continent, now sits in disrepair. In a time of planes and quickskip tunnels, where does an old highway like this fit? Does it still have a place out there in the world, or has it been reduced to history books and Peekapedia pages?

This is Duke Gotcha with a special report, signing off.

Hiya friends!

Duke, I’m so glad last week’s little hack scare didn’t slow down your big story. I know you’ve been building that one for a long time, and I love where it’s headed. And speaking of things that survive a little chaos, I spent the weekend helping my mom move and stumbled across my grandmother’s old recipe book. Wouldn’t you know it, there was a recipe tucked inside for Powder Point lambchops. Funny how that happens.

Now, about last week, even though all the text got scrambled, the pictures held strong, so for anyone keeping track at home, that was Frostfield’s seven day forecast. This week we’re sliding over to Oniontown to see what the weather has planned for the days ahead.

The Mumph here, and whew, last week was a mess. I learned my lesson the hard way on email safety. Just because something looks official does not mean it is. Check the URLs, and if you are even a little unsure, do not click. Go straight to the real source and handle it from there.

Now, back to games, because that is the good kind of stress. I caught this one from the cushy loge of wrestling great Kruisin’ Kit Brewis, and boy did Tacodale handled business. Final score, Supremes 3, Tridents 1. Winner, Tacodale. MVP, Comino.

And the period line tells the story clean. Tacodale up 1 to 0 after one, up 2 to 1 after two, then they shut it down and finish it 3 to 1. Comino backstopped it with poise, steering rebounds to safe ice and never letting Portallini turn a look into a scramble. Up front, Masden and Corvan stacked zone time with those below-the-goal-line cycles that make a defense hate life. On the back end, Piconi’s gap control kept Portallini to the outside, and Carnett did the thankless work clearing the front of the net.

Portallini did get a few moments, Molinaro can still threaten off the rush, but Tacodale’s structure held, and once the Supremes got that lead, they never gave it back. My two cents, this was a tidy win built on details, and Comino was the anchor.

Now back to the topic at hand… Lambchops! Zepha, I sure hope your planning on trying out that recipe, and when you do, don’t forget to think of your old pal The Mumph, and how much he loves leftovers!

Hello out there!

I do not know about everyone else, but last week’s hack left a terrible taste in my mouth. I do not take kindly to having my words swapped out, and I certainly do not take kindly to being turned into a mouthpiece for a service that must not be named.

So I did what I do when something feels wrong. I went looking for the source.

I took my questions straight to that company’s headquarters and demanded an explanation. Their response was polished and practiced. They claimed they were not responsible for the hack, and suggested it could have been the work of an overzealous, misguided advertising agency. They said they work with several, and that each one subcontracts to another group of subcontractors, and those subcontractors subcontract again. A chain of hands, a chain of excuses, and suddenly nobody is holding the rope even though everyone is being paid to pull it.

If that sounds messy, it is. If that sounds convenient, it is. And if that sounds like the kind of system where accountability disappears on purpose, well, now you are thinking like me.

Next week, I will be interviewing an expert in the field of hacking to see if we can figure out where this really leads, because the truth rarely stops at the first door you knock on.

And that’s The Scoop.