(Reprinted from the Wednesday October, 15th edition of the New York Post)

NEW YORK, NY – Contrary to many rumors, the staff of the popular New York website spudWorks is not dead as reported in this paper two weeks ago on Page Six. An investigation revealed that the staff still shows up every morning at the East Village headquarters but instead of producing new written and video content, they end up playing with their Linux servers and computer video games.

"[Civilization] 3 is really popular right now," said spudWorks spokesman Dean Keaton. "Since everyone's on the network, they end up just playing each other instead of working. Speaking of which, it's my turn, I've got to go."

Todd Hockney, Vice President of Video Production begged to differ. "We're not all playing Civ," he said. "I know that the video staff is mostly playing Neverwinter Nights. I've got a level 20 Sorcerer that is more powerful than Gandalf himself!" Several of the video engineers were found programming custom modules for the game when not actually playing. Ignoring Mayor Bloomberg's new city wide smoking ban, every employee sat at their desk furiously chain smoking while deciding their next move.

The main reason for the staff's declining productivity is probably company's newly acquired DVD box sets of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Angel, and Star Trek: The Next Generation placed on shelves in the office that formerly held neat stacks of new ideas organized by topic.

When asked about future content, Head Writer Michael McManus said, "I've been playing with this idea of a guy who works for NASA, but it's still kind of rough." After reviewing a printed draft, rough apparently means two paragraphs. "Like I said, it's an idea I'm still playing with," McManus explained.

A quick inspection of the company's President and CEO Colin Ferm's office revealed that he spent most of his time not running the company but looking over his pictures from a recent vacation to Paris and Barcelona. "Yeah," said Colin. "I haven't really had time to whip everyone back into shape. I've got to scan these photos so every friend and distant relative can vicariously enjoy my trip with me." Ferm, who was apparently in Europe for only two weeks in August, responded to questions as to why the website had not been updated since late January by saying, "The three words any slayer must live by: preparation, preparation, preparation."

When asked about how he might entice his workers back to productivity, Ferm replied, "I've been thinking about taking the free beer out of the fridge, shutting down the mini-bar, and canceling the company sponsored afternoon trips to the bar but if I did, well, the French Revolution wouldn't have anything on what would happen here."

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