A Funny Thing Happened…
The IGNN staff's coffee cup tower--arguably the most impressive edifice ever created by mankind--had unintended consequences.
We’re a bit at a loss to explain the bizarre events that followed the launch of the Imaginary Game News Network, but it all seems to have begun when the staff decided to pile up all the mugs of coffee they’d consumed over the past few months while building the site. The results were impressive–an undulating white tentacle of mugs reaching past the moon and attesting to our dedication to the absurd. One result, of course, was that the tether effect of all those stacked cups tipped the Earth on its side, which gave rise to our credo “Veritas Adversus” and the logo viewable on our front page. We apologize for that. The other impact was a bit more frightening, and the details of it have only just come to light. Thanks to the dedicated investigative skills of IGNN’s Nell Chase, we can now trace the events that followed.
IT’S ALL IN THE CUPS
After the accidental tipping over of the planet, an alien overlord passing by happened to notice the unlikely cosmic tilt and altered its course straight for Earth. This overlord was a cunning xenoform who disguised himself in the one terrestrial body-type guaranteed to avoid suspicion of insidious intent–a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, charmingly (though unimaginatively) named “Charlie.”
This adorable rascal nearly destroyed the world. From now on, humanity must remain vigilant.
KING CHARLES’ PLOT
The faux “Charlie” observed the antics of humanity for nearly a year and a half, at which time it seems that he lost all patience with mankind and called for his cohorts to invade the planet as a precursor to enslaving the human rabble and bringing some measure of order and dignity to the world. Coincidentally, the overlord’s decision corresponded precisely with the first post of IGNN. We can only assume that there was no connection between the events.
ALIENS! ALIENS! GOOD GOD, RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!
As you may recall, the aliens swept in with their evil, green hornet-inspired stinger ships, blasting and melting everything into strange landscapes somewhat reminiscent of layer cake. The world cringed. Our staff hid beneath their desks and prayed for deliverance…that is except for one brave reporter.
LITTLE NELLIE–EARTH HEROINE!
They swatted us like flies on a sunny countertop. You remember, right? Scary!
Nell Chase had been trained from the age of two by her vetrinarian parents to observe the minutia of mammalian behavior, and when she noticed her cute little pet Cav sneaking off in the middle of the night to send untraceable e-mail messages into the ether, she suspected something was afoot. Even so, it wasn’t until the stinger ships actually descended from the heavens, spitting green death and performing impressive barrel rolls over the Dallas-Ft. Worth airport, that Nell put one and one together and arrived (through an impossible series of Boolean transitive calculations) at 26. Indeed, Charlie was the culprit, and he had to be stopped at any cost.
The end came swiftly once Charlie got a whiff of some freeze-dried chicken jerky.
Fortunately, the alleged overlord’s disguise was too perfect for his own good. Nell used the dog/alien fiend’s unquenchable appetite for treats to her advantage, luring the dastardly pup into his kennel, where he became ensnared by his own canine hungers. Irony? Perhaps, but who cares. He was a freaking alien.
AS THE WORLD FLIPS
That was yesterday, of course. And today we are happy to see that normalcy has returned. We have received numerous reports of spontaneous celebrations in major metropolitan locations around the globe. In New York City, a massive throng of looters, upon hearing the news that the aliens had been defeated soundly, transformed into a joyful parade that circled the dental district. NASA’s deepspace tracking network released an update noting that the aliens stinger ship armada has retreated to the far side of the sun and a message received by the armada’s admiral promises that they will leave Earth alone forever as long as no harm comes to their overlord. In fact, they even provided us a service by blasting the coffee mug tower to smithereens, thus restoring the natural balance of our world. And Charlie, resigned to his new life as a helpless pawn in this interstellar stand-off, has been given a large, tasty pig ear on which to gnaw. Now, back to the exciting world of games.
Millions turned out in the Big Apple to celebrate the demise of the alien threat and good dental hygiene.
