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 :f    i    s    t    f    u    l     o
    f     s   t    e    e    l  :
 ::
 :..:

Pondering the real meaning of Rice Krispie Square

        Rice Krispie squares aren't really squares.  They are 
cubes.  Cubes 
formed of elliptical grains of puffed rice.  Straight edges fa
shioned from 
many curved ones.

        But there is more.  If the simple reaction of Rice Kri
spie plus 
marshmallow called Rice Krispie Squares results in a cube, the
 creation of a 
Rice Krispie Cube would have as its final result a Rice Krispi
e Tesseract, a 
construct capable of holding an entire cowful of milk and stil
l floating on 
top and retaining its crunchiness.

        What would be the product of the attempted creation of
 a Rice 
Krispie Hypercube?  We're not sure, but we think that they res
emble 
inside-out pretzels.

        ...

What the HELL happened to FOS?!  Believe it or not, there
's been a lot
of people asking me that.  Yes, a lot of people have actually heard o
f FOS,
and since we haven't released since last summer, it's understandable 
to think
that we died.

We didn't die, dammit.

After some discussion among the members after our July `96 pack, 
we
agreed to take some time off...there wasn't enough art assembled for 
a full
release in September, so we opted for October.  Then the deadline kep
t changing
and changing some more.  Then things went down the toilet.  Side proj
ects began
to take priority.  Hard drives crashed.  People moved, ran away, etc.
  All of a
sudden, most of the members were unaccounted for!  Thankfully, Ct
hulu reminded
me of the planned dual-release (this pack) that we had talked about b
efore.  I
fired up my trusty Pine e-mail and sent out mail to the FOS mailing l
ist for 
the first time in ages.  Believe it or not, several faithful members 
replied!
So between some old art I had originally collected for last October a
nd a LOT
of new material from the VGA division, FOS has awakened.  Her
e's the lowdown
on members and sites:

City of Shadows is down, as is every other artboard in
 612.  Royal 
Assassin is moving, and the board is history.  Myself, Royal 
and RBX are the
only remaining active artists on our native soil (although Royal is b
asically
a full-time parent now)...White Noise and Brimborio
n have apparently cooked up
a zesty anti-matter recipe which they mistakenly taste-tested.  
Phyn is missing
in action...I called his house, and his parents thought maybe *I*
 knew of his
whereabouts!  Nope.  Radjan vanished without a trace, alth
ough I ran into him
on a local WWIV board.  He hasn't returned my mail.  Finally, 
Estatic leaves us
after a long time with the group.  He came with me to ACiD!ANS
i and like me leftwith the departure of Cool T.  H
e will remain in CiA, so best of luck to him.
Amazingly, we did pick up a new ascii artist, Silence.

There wasn't any other site news.  We will publish an updated sit
e list
in the next pack.  The WWW page (www.warped.com/~kwagner) wil
l serve as our HQ
until everything is sorted out.  It's looking VERY nice, thanks to th
e efforts
of Sector Slayer.  Watch for art from the whole FOS crew on t
here.

Next pack???  Yes.  March will mark the second year of FO
S, so there
WILL be a pack.  Be warned, our ansi team is back to where it started
.  Yeah,
I was the only ansi artist when FOS began in `95, simply because we o
nly needed
an ansi artist to handle BBS art for member boards.  Gree has
 primarily switchedto hirez, and Wolverine is simply n
ot as involved in the scene as he once was.
Alas, I draw ansi for Acid now, so even I will be joining the
 VGA bandwagon.
As many people have noted of late, ascii and hirez are the most calle
d-for
mediums...ansi is for the enjoyment of other artists and the loyal BB
Sers, but
ascii and hirez are the most used on the Internet.  So FOS will follo
w suit to
survive.  There will still be ansi, but less of it.

Anyway, enough about FOS...it's Mist's turn.  Watch for a
 FOS pack againin March sometime.  Until then, hasta lasagna.

 -inazone(fos)


        And so the conflict escalates.  It is imperative that 
we beat the 
teams of German physicists and become the first to successfull
y split the 
Rice Krispie Square and tap the potentially unlimited souce of
 snaps, 
crackles and pops.  We have already become isolated by the Axi
s fleets of 
Untersee-Os and should they come to land with their blitz puff
s tactics it 
could be a disaster of uncomparable taste and excitement as pa
rt of a 
balanced breakfast.

        If we fail to make use of our Lucky Charms, then it wi
ll be as bad 
as if we had already succumbed to their dirty Trix.  Silly Fuh
eur, 
Czechoslovakians are for kids.

        As for the other front... we must not allow Japan to d
raw us into an 
extended land war on their soil, no matter how devastating the
ir 
Honeycomb-i-kazee tactics.

        God, it's a dirty little breakfast, isn't it?

        All these lives lost and still no one seems to be able
 to find the 
secret prize.
        
...

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`ý++ýøý+$$,`++'.`.+ý  `+ `^^',
+'
`ø'.'`'++ý^ý+.`ý+ ý' `

        In some major news this release period we here at M
istfuls (er...
Fistfuls) of Steel managed to acquire th
e following artists from the
faltering Blade Nation:

  Platinum, Iori Yagami, mega!, Neophyte
, Cereal Killer, Rage, the extremist
,
     Jughead, Handiboy, Questor, Iseilice
, Weird, Grateful Dead, Dead Soul
,
      Alannon, The Iconoclast, NME, Pubil
us Enigma, plastic, Wishbringer,
  Genocide, angst, Bast, Crowkeeper, Cthu
lu, D'artagnan, Zinnia Kray, Sylphid,  
    Basic, beatle, Flying Fish, Bi
g Brother, Jake Blues, Remohraz, Journ
ey,
   Silver Angel, Hippy, Spirit Wolf, Singlemind
, Etana, Sentience, IllusionX,
     Thanatos, Silent Knight, Fetus69, Fo
olish Bird, kolz, The Pope, Fritz,
    Melodia, Dr. CPU, Eto, Mavrik
, Sylphid, Xavier, Melkor, Wo
dan, and Ranma
                                      Man.

        Blade, we OWN you!  Obviously they 
won't be able to easily recover
after the loss of so many vital members, and we hope to move in to th
e kill
within months.

        With all of these new members, we hope to be able to increase
 our
annual releases to five.

        In keeping with the diversified talents of these new members,
 we've
opened up a music and a lit department.

        We've also promoted Cthulu to vice-leader-guy
 status and given him
the access to maintain the top-secret FOS porn-stash on the W
WW.

        When asked about his unusual group-hopping, Cthulu sa
id, "It was
nice conspiring to take over the world, but now I have time to follow
 my
true calling - music tracking!"

        In other news, we got a bunch of sites, but we're too lazy to
 list
them all.  They include The Screaming Tomato as our OTHER
 World
Headquarters, City iZ Burning as our Canadian HQ, and Sav
age Exile as our
new Underground HQ.

...

        I politely declined his offer of the impeccably formed
 Rice Krispie 
Square.  To think that he felt that my loyalties were swayable
 with a 
perfectly-cut, expertly prepared slab of breakfast cereal.  Go
urmet 
breakfast cereal at that.  Still, I knew that the stakes were 
too high to 
allow myself to be distracted by his promises of geometrically
-arranged 
grain products.  The fate of humanity and all her colonies was
 lying between 
our hands, and the fucker expected me to hand it over for a fe
w 
harvesterloads of the Rice melange, that rare and precious sub
stance 
secreted by the paddy-worms of Arakis.  My crysknife twisted i
n its sheath 
and his head was lying in his lap before he could apologize.  
Never have 
breakfast with a Harkonnen - how tactless.  Stepping over his 
corpse, 
sprawled on the lush carpeting, I delicately plucked a cube of
 the Rice and, 
ritually, brought it to my forehead before allowing the cube t
o be 
envelopped by the walls of my mouth.  Were my eyes visible ben
eath their 
marshmallow-like sheen, they would have been seen as rolled ba
ck in 
religious ecstasy.  Gom Jabbar, eat your heart out.


(end)