The Troutown Gazette

Welcome to the first ever online article of The Troutown Gazette! As you might have heard, the debts of the physical (paper) version of The Troutown Gazette got to be more than our virtually non-existent revenues could support. So the dang banks came and repossessed all our printing presses, equipment, and, heck, even most of the staff. I wasn't aware you could mortgage a human being, but, well, I ain't no banker, thank goodness. Anyhow, now that Jeb, T-whiz, Yankee, and Breckelsworth have been sold off to some Malaysian Organ Conglomerate, I am the lone employee left at The Troutown Gazette. I'll tell you, I thought we'd have to hang up the whole shebang. But then I overheard one of the learned youngsters of Troutown jawin' about how you can write and publish anything you want, for free, long as you got a computer! I was able to pry some more information from him and get lessons on how to use these newfangled computers, the internet, and "blogs" as he calls them. 'Course he made me buy him some Pogs and a couple of Beenie Babies for his trouble, the greedy so-and-so.

Until I (or anyone in Troutown for that matter) can afford a computer, I'll be commuting to the Stumpville library to use theirs. It'll have to be a secret operation though. If any of them Stumpvillians found out their rival town's news rag was being published right under their noses, well, they'd give me quite a beating! Thank god they abolished the guillotine last month. I don't know why those Stumpville folks are so stingy with their resources anyhow -- they got the richest population in the tri-county area. Sure, most of their logging money has dried up since there ain't no more trees left, but heck, any town whose library can afford to buy practically brand-new Gateway Pentium II computers with 15 inch color monitors should be willing to share the wealth with their neighbors.

But I digress. Hopefully with the advertising revenues from this blog, I'll be able to afford that Packard Bell x486 I had my eye on at the Stumpville New-Too-U used computer emporium. If I get the hang of that, I might even get what they call a "mouse"! It's supposed to make computing that much easier, even though it already seems pretty easy, what with the backspace key and all.

Anyway, down to the business at hand: the news! Well, other than the shift in strategy at the The Troutown Gazzette, there's actually not much to report. Oh, except for one big story. I nearly forgot, what with all the hooplah down at the paper...

# posted by Jiminy Grizzle @ 8:45 AM