Prevuze In Peril

This is the forest Prevuze. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks,

Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight,

Stand like dudes of eld, with voices sad and prophetic,

Stand like harpers ho, with beards that rest on their bosoms.

Few have had the courage to traverse the Prevuze Compound, nestled deep within the dark Prevuze Forest in the Kingdom of Prevuzia. Here, daily, teams of dedicated and talented technicians tirelessly work to capture top-secret transmissions, interpret their content and bring you that infamous literary effort, Prevuze. To cross the miles of treacherous terrain on the Prevuze Compound requires the skills of a Navy Seal, the strength of a Marine, the deep-woods instincts of Native Americans and the tenacity of Hope Brady on a mission for another tidbit of gossip.

The Prevuze Compound is so remote the Federal Government has classified it as The Area 51 Annex. In order to bring the all-important satellite signal into Prevuze HQ, the satellite dish sits on the perimeter of the Compound and a single unburied cable extends across the miles of hostile landscape. The route is so harsh, burying the cable would have been impossible. It took the same team that laid the Alaskan Pipeline to install the Prevuze Cable.

In one of the most remote areas of the Compound lies an uncharted, uninhabited wasteland known only as Mordor II. Here, the Prevuze Cable crosses the mighty Prevuze River. At this point, the cable runs several feet above the ground in order to cross the deadly Prevuze Chasm.

Recent torrential rains flooded the Mighty Prevuze River. A logjam just past the cable area exacerbated the near-Biblical event by holding back the floodwaters and significantly increasing the time it took for them to recede. For days, the banks of the Mighty Prevuze stood underwater and softened. The softening, in turn caused a large walnut tree to lean toward the river creating a new landmark, The Leaning Tree of Prevuze. In and of itself, this would not be a significant thing, BUT...

DUMB-DA-DUMB-DUMB

The Leaning Tree of Prevuze leaned right into the Prevuze Cable! Daily, the tree leans a little more and stretches the Prevuze Cable ever tighter. The Prevuze Cable is now approaching the breaking point.

Now, a perilous quest awaits the Prevuze team. Somehow, we either have to get that cable on the other side of the offending tree, or we have to release enough slack in the cable so that WHEN the tree falls, it won't take the cable with it. Cutting down the tree above the cable would almost certainly break it.

As we see it, we have two options, neither one really good.

First (and this is probably the preferable option) we can check the bowels of Prevuze HQ to see if there is enough cable to allow us to extend it outside and provide enough slack that the cable can sit at the base of the tree and (we hope) won't be harmed when the tree goes. The problem here is working our way back through the un-navigable territory to slacken the cable which we know is wound around at least one additional tree that would have to be cut down.

The second option would be to deliberately cut the cable and re-splice it on the other side of the tree. I don't have to tell you the problems associated with that option. If we don't get it spliced right – no Prevuze. And then there is the issue of getting down there in the first place. We could hire someone to do it, but the aforementioned crew that built the Alaskan pipeline is no longer available.

So that's it. We'll have to keep you posted on this one. Of course, if you wake up one morning and there is no Prevuze, you can pretty well guess the cause.

Send us ideas if you have them, and we'll be sure to...

WAITAMINUTE! DAVID COPPERFIELD! Oh, yeah, I think I read where he's busy. I wonder what Penn and Teller are up to.