Tuesday, June 29, 2010

News Flash! - News in 1 Minute

Mutabak Kingdom (Freaktopia) – Last night, at approximately the haunting hour of 1 am, there was a break-in at 911 Siow Building at 99th Heavenly Avenue. The 841- storey high skyscraper is where the headquarters of the Meng Sisters Food & Beverage International located in. Investigations by the Mutabak Police Force revealed signs of forced entry and that not a single penny was stolen from the cashier till[1], but a safe full of secret recipes for Meng Po’s soups and Meng Mei’s congees had vanished into the thin air. The office where the safe was placed is splattered with blood, entrails, gore, leftovers and an unidentified green substance. Chemical analysis revealed the green substance to be vomit and the police concluded that either the culprit or victim have projectile vomited all over the office’s walls and ceiling.

“According to our not-so-thorough investigation, we discovered that the Meng Sisters have several jealous rivals in the food and beverage industry. Loy Kee’s Worst Chicken Rice, Boo Dong Kee and Whiskie’s Connoisseur Cuisine are among our 24-page long list of prime suspects, which also include the convenience shop located in an ulu corner of Beggar Lane,” said Senior Inspector Masalah Mati. He intended to haul the suspects down to the station for intensive interrogation. Mr Mati said he would try to apprehend the culprits as soon as possible, though Freakstimes’s reporter Mr Kaypoberry had insider’s information that claimed the senior inspector to be a hopelessly lazy lout.

“I estimated at least 12 have perished in the office as the amount of offal, volume of blood and piles of leftovers are simply rough approximations of the death toll. It is the number of heads left all over the place that gave my forensics team the clue,” said a forensic personnel who declined to be named for fear of sacking and assassination. “furthermore, I daresay the twelve consists of a confusing mixture of culprit, victim and kaypo toilet cleaners, hostages, oblivious colleagues and perhaps a security guard sleeping on the job,” he concluded. The forensic report revealed that the office’s shredding machine, espresso machine and a mop are the primary murder weapons, though it seems that the culprits have made effective use of the 840th storey’s windows.

The theft of the secret recipes was so huge a blow to the Meng Sisters to bear that they were reduced to a useless weeping heap on the floor. Neither the police nor Freakstimes’s army of persistent and busybody reporters could pry any information out of the crying, weeping, sobbing and wailing pair whom are doing a splendid job of flooding the area with their tears. “Without our recipes, we can’t sell jack!” wailed a thoroughly distraught Meng Po, who proceeded to swoon into a dead faint and had to be sent to Freak Tock Seng Hospital for Expiration Therapy. A report from the hospital showed that the sisters have been receiving treatment for Terminal Leaky Memory. And without the guidance and detailed instructions of the recipes, kitchen catastrophes and culinary disasters are bound to ensue and would end with their customers living healthier and with extended longevity.

The Mutabak Police Force is under tremendous pressure applied by the overly-concerned public, a hysterical pair of wailing Meng Sisters and a furious royal patron; Queen Mutabak I. With time racing against them, will the useless and overweight legal force crack the tough-as-a-walnut case or will they crack under its strain?

- Reported by Adam S. Apple. Additional reporting by Kaypoberry and Duck Medium

News Flash! Special Feature on Veggiepura

Veggiepura (Somewhere in Freaktopia) – Established nearly thirty million years ago, in the year 32010 B.M. (Before Mutabak), the Gullwings Exploration Corporation had constantly been on the move to explore the wild, insane, ever-expanding, mysterious and impossible lands of Freaktopia for the benefit of Freak-kind. Ever since its ground-breaking discovery of the incomprehensible universe of the Heavenly realm and excavation of the long-lost civilization of Euthanasia, the Gullwings Exploration Corporation has yet to create another tombstone in its career for nearly twenty-nine thousand years.

Facing mounting criticisms from the highly critical Sinkapooreans and complaints from its investors, stockholders and board of directors, the Gullwings’ YRP (Yuna Braska, Rikku and Paine) could bear the incessant naggings no more and stormed off to the Imperial Library of the Royal Urban University of Mutabak at Mount Pra to conduct research on decaying scrolls and worm-ravaged tomes scribbled in childish squiggles by rheumatic hands.

After being buried by several lethal avalanches of collapsing mountains of books, fistfuls of hair being torn out in frustration and throwing tantrums befitting the member of a royal Mutabak family, the YRP finally chanced upon an ancient tome written in characters resembling vegetables. The trio concluded that the book might lead to the discovery of a new land in Freaktopia inhabited by vegetables walking on stubby little legs, as well as a way to shut the traps of the public and its investors for several seconds before they begin their tirade anew.

Engaging the assistance of the revered Duck Medium, who was taking a well-deserved break at its cousin’s, Count Duckula’s, private villa after making endless pilgrimages to the sacred Mount Ro to pray for the recovery of the collapsing Freaktopian economy (refer to Money-Faced section for more information on Freaktopia’s financial woes), to decipher the ancient herboglyphs, the YRP learned that the book is a field guide to locating the powerful and aggressive vegetable nation; Veggiepura. Upon the full translation of the vegetarian text, the Duck Medium entered into a trance and predicted that the Mutabak Kingdom will prosper if it manages to beat the vegetables into submission. This prediction was presented to Princess Mutabak who immediately summoned her court and had shut themselves up in the State Room ever since, with whispers of conspiracy and schemes floating out of the door’s keyhole.

After trekking across the Congee Jungle, climbing the Hombalaya Mountain Range (a distant geological relative of Mount Pra and Mount Ro), swimming across the piranha-infested Pathetic Ocean and nearly perishing at the cannibalistic appetite of native Fijians, the Gullwings Exploration Corporation finally arrived at the borders of Veggiepura. Strangely, the Duck Medium appears to understand the dialect of Veggiepura and began to engage the Onion Knights, standing guard at the city gates, in a heated debate over the ethical implications of enforced vegetarianism, which earned the party an audience with the monarch of Veggiepura; Emperor Lettuce Le Veggiepura.

Veggiepura is a kingdom which is extremely rich in vegetative resources and mineral water, as well as potent fertilizers which could enable a desert to grow into a jungle within an hour. Its military might is not to be underestimated as its soldiers are trained to choke their enemies to death by stuffing themselves down the throats of their foes. A deadly arsenal of highly radioactive Toadstool Missile AK-222 and Pumpkin King XXX-4 are effective deterrents to potential invaders as each contains an explosive force of 5000 super novas. Despite the vast distance between Mutabak Kingdom and Veggiepura, the Princess Mutabak is attempting to establish diplomatic ties with the vegetable empire via Spirit Conference, an arcane technique of communicating with others over long distances by speaking through a medium connected to the Trance Spiritual Airwaves. The ignorant and obstinate Emperor Lettuce was rudely refusing all the generous terms offered by the Princess Mutabak, which caused several of his Ministers of Trade and Finance to faint as they calculate the astronomical amount of revenue the Emperor is refusing. In addition, the Minister of Foreign Affairs died of acute cardio failure when the Princess Mutabak demanded to speak to him. However, Emperor Lettuce yielded to the conditions laid by the Imperial Princess of Mutabak when she finally snapped (as she had completely lost it) and screamed to decimate the vegetables with the nation’s latest and most sadistic weapon; the Thousand Spice Chicken Curry Warhead MK-IV. If the diplomatic dialogue goes well, Mutabak Kingdom would be able to procure an extremely cheap source of yeast, which could be obtained by executing the death row prisoners whom are festering beneath the Fernleaf National High Security Prison, located in the Poison Ivy Wastelands just 5000 km from the capital of Veggiepura.

Discovery of Veggiepura and the establishing of diplomatic ties between Mutabak Kingdom and vegetable nation soon reached the ears of the kaypo Mutabakians, who suddenly realized the hidden potential of vegetables, and soon there is a roaring market for the vegetable trade. The Immortal SSW had requested the Gullwings to export some of Veggiepura’s citizens to his laboratory in the Royal Urban University of Mutabak, as he wanted to study their anatomy and learn how vegetables are able to move about, and more importantly, to find out if Veggiepureans will increase the potency of his immortal pills. Simultaneously, the Meng Sisters are also demanding fresh samples of Veggiepureans as they want to use them in their culinary experiments to produce new dishes to satisfy the customers’ palate, provide interesting dining sensations and experiences, and to hasten their expiration. Prata, too, had jumped into the fray to obtain illegal and rare specimens of Veggiepureans as his tingling fashion sense tells him that Potato skin Bags and Celery heels would be the fashion of that season.

Upon the discovery of Veggiepura, the shares of Gullwings Exploration Corporation are expected to rise for the next few days. The YRP will also be able to enjoy a few days of peace and quiet until the board of directors and shareholders decided to start complaining to break the silence. To credit the exploration team for its efforts, the Imperial Princess of Mutabak bestowed the YRP the Order of Masala, the Second highest honor given to a civilian citizen of the Oily Empire of Mutabak.
- Reported by Duck Medium and additional reporting by Urban Geek