''hi! I'm Howdy Doody/I'm the union man/you can call me Rudy/any of you not paid up on your cards?'' - Frank Zappa, _Rudy Wants To Buy Yez a Drink_

I'm showing chutzpah quoting Zappa. If he were living, he would despise my laziness. But (in his own words) ''what the fuck.''
 

Does JER plan to crown himself the unofficial commisar of Gridcosm? Will the rest of you be expected to submit your squares to him on IRC prior to posting them? Will you be obliged to make the changes to your squares that he recommends? Will Gridcosm have ''theme levels'' in the days ahead? Will you abandon the ridiculously delightful anarchy of screaming information overload that so well mirrors our electronic world? Even visual flamewars can be fun if they don't drag on too long. After all, flaming and the internet go together. Gridcosm feuds are an accurate reflection of our overall virtual environment.

Will you imitate trendy wallpaper art for commerce instead of following the only true remaining artistic trend, which is to carpet bomb the rules to hell? Do you really need to know the rules in order to disobey them? I never even bothered to learn the rules. The writing has been on the wall for decades, since before I was born, and I'm 46 years old.

''The TCA Free Zone.'' Yes. Have a ball. But I'm not sure I'd entrust JER and his flunkies with my fragile and complex psyche. Rod Serling and his stable of writers proved themselves worthy of invading my consciousness. TZ was HUGE in the mid-Sixties. You're probably too young to remember. BTW, it was my privilege to inform the late grandmaster SF author Damon Knight that his classic short story ''To Serve Man'' had received a Retro Hugo nomination. I posted a FYI to his SFF.net newsgroup and he replied that he didn't even know that the Retro Hugo Awards existed. This modest and obscure interchange was without question the most positive and memorable accomplishment in all my online years.
 

"Wow TCA - you better go and yank your own rubber chicken or you might explode with glee. It seems like you are like Mel Brooks Dr., spiraling over an incessantly turning spiral of self-reference."

Heh. Yank your own chicken. Explode with glee. I like that. Self-reference? How do you explain the two ''cheerleaders'' on 1587-a2? Where did they come from if not from my Gridcosmic surroundings? Specifically, JER's 1586 c2 and c3.

''Obscure references...'' I'm a rank amateur when it comes to obscure references. If I ever become an ''in the groove'' pro, you'll have to study at university or art school for years to glean the obviously deep meaning of my obscurely obvious references. Shit, SNY, I don't know what in the hell YOU'RE referring to half the time. More than half the time. And did I ever bitch about it? Did I, huh? Even once? Huh? Huh? Until now?

"was there ever ( why do I ask! ) a Linux Mac issue to justify the juxtaposition? Or is the placement of these images -- just geek love?"

Geek love? Nah. All the real geeks are using BSD. If the next computer that I buy is an inexpensive AMC Athlon desktop or an affordable Transmeta tablet running Linux (if it's NOT a $2,000 PowerMac G5, in other words) then Linux is an issue to Apple Computer... it'll be an issue to Apple if lots of other Mac owners make that choice, that is. Linux is getting easier for average schmucks like me to use all the time. And the price is right.
 

"TCA! Mac n Cheese = Tennis and Jean D'Alos! Come on - can't you see?"

Venus Williams acing a serve on a half-shell of bree? Love it! Then throw in Cher singing the National Anthem at the Super Bowl. In a super bowl of exotic soft cheese. The cheese could be the same color as SNY's 1586-b1. Add an absurd texty aside about the French, and voila! Don't look so baffled. Come on, it's obvious! And it's a real challenge to cram all of that into a 150x150 pixel square, let me tell you. ;-)

"Good thing you did not get to do that upper level ( 1586 b1/c1) solo/salut. That blue you chose would have IMHO spoiled the lovely antique nature that the old sky ( from JER's harbor host or whatvever that was ) gave. I imagined the skyline ( as sketched by someone from the period ) and hell let's go into detail...."

No. Let's NOT go into detail. I've seen much better from you than 1586 b1 and c1. And 1587-c2 is piss yellow and bloodclot red layered over someone else's marginally interesting fine art. Enough said. More than enough said.

"As I write TCA I think about how amped you are for these strange references you include in your panels and text. Where you sorely lack initiative and talent is in the area of how to really evoke sweet imagery out of the forms from the Grid itself!"

If I ever find a way to humor hardcore porn addicts by perfuming a metaphorical pig, you'll be the first to know. BTW, I've never used cocaine and never will. I'm ''amped'' on what little caffeine I dare consume. My ear doctor wants me to quit coffee altogether. It's probably not good for my high blood pressure either. So far I've only been able to cut way down.

"Your slapdash 4 corner hat, thrown into the ring rarely ever seizes the uniqueness, or harvests the raw possibility for newness from the recently mashed levels. You ALWAYS sew in your pieces with a few careless blends, done to I guess assuage past critics."

My squares may look slapdash, but I usually put hours of effort into 'em. Believe it or not, blending is half the fun for me. When one of my squares sticks out like a hotdog, I'm not happy about it. A few times I've even tried to make a square nothing but blendy. Truth be told, ''blendiness for blendiness sake'' (this is what MKC is doing these days) is something I'd hoped to try doing consistently in the days ahead. But now I'm too pissed off to blend with the likes of SNZ. That's why I'm taking a long vacation. Really, if I were to continue posting squares, I'd parody the work of self-important, pretentious twits. So much for blending.
 

"And of course we know your methods of selection ( eloquently and simply detailed by SNZ in 1587 a1 ) You still did not even acknowledge your hacking off your OWN panel (1585a2). Unless of course there is a cryptic reference you can explain, perhaps something to do with the Streets of San Francisco and Michael Douglas."

Eloquently and simply. Feh.
 

In 1586-b1, you bandsawed off the skullcap of MKC's alien from the previous level, SNY. Talk about slapdash. What you did with the blue background in b1 is considerably less than thrilling. Do you really believe that crap about DGT being an urban legend? I thought you were joking. Because urban legends aren't always heroes, they're often freaks, so it made sense to me as irony. Don't get me wrong, I really liked DGT's blog before he abandoned it, but sheesh. His pointers in Gridcosm squares to ''must-see'' art films were downright irritating.
 

The still photo of actor Karl Malden in TCA's 1585-a3 was from an NBC-TV movie titled _Fatal Vision_, based on the bestseller by Joe McGinniss about the investigation, trial and conviction of Green Beret doctor Jeffrey MacDonald for the brutal murder of his wife and two small children. The link that I provided in the level 1585 poem will give you all the info you need about that particular murder mystery. ...gridcosm?level=1585 _Fatal Vision_ is DEFINITELY NOT a must-see film. But I'm a big fan of that nose.