Okay, I uploaded all of my pictures form Midwest FurFest. Okay, let's get the link to all of the pics out of the way: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dmuth/sets/72157622889526042/. And now, pictures that I found especially interesting!

First picture is from the Method 1 Live show. Since the hosts couldn't have beer in con space, they instead reviewed Drank Beverage. Along the way, they also decided it would be a good idea to drink Brawndo, and even mix them in the same glass and drink the olive oil-colored concoction. That didn't end so well, as this picture tries to illustrate:




One Standard Issue Furpile that happened Sunday night outside of the dance:




And some actual huskies, who were part of last year's charity, came by to be trained for working with large crowds:




The first Steampunk fursuit that I recall seeing at a furry convention:




This Beast fursuit--or combination of fursuit and face paint, rather, was pretty cool. The first time I've seen someone do something like that, too:




Poor Raptor Red!



Want the rest of my pictures? They're at http://www.flickr.com/photos/dmuth/sets/72157622889526042/. Have fun!

Had a great 4 days at Midwest Furfest. I worked in the Art Show again this year and had a wonderful time.

I went to a couple of the dances (Thursday night at girtygrin's dance and Sunday night at 0ddj0b's dance) and danced for about an hour each time. Or at least, my attempts at trying to dance. It was dangerously close to being more fun than drinking!

Got to meet some of the folks from IndyFurCon at the con and was pretty impressed by the amount of work they've put into the effort thusfar. I'm gonna see if I can't make that con this August.

I had no problems with the hotel whatsoever this year. Got the room type I wanted, and the staff was friendly and cooperative. Having the consuite in the old restaurant was also full of win. It was a nice big area with ready access to food preparation facilities.

I got a bunch of photos from the con which I will upload as time permits.

Hope everyone has a happy and safe Thanksgiving!

I'll be arriving at Midwest FurFest on Thursday and leaving on Monday.

I'm working in the Art Show again. Here are the hours I'll be on duty:

Friday: 11 AM to 3 PM
Saturday: 1 PM to 3 PM, 7 PM to 1 AM
Sunday: 11 AM to 6 PM

Hope I'll see the usual gang of folks there!

In what is definitely a blast from the past, I found this old news story laying around on my hard drive of TurnTide from 2004:



Strangely enough, I make two appearances in this--the first one at 2:40 is of file footage from when they interviewed me for a story about spam in 2003. That was amusing.

A few months after this story was shown, the Symantec Corporation bought us for $28 Million. Those of you who saw me at Anthrocon 2004 might recall that I was tightlipped about work, as well as carrying around this skateboard. Now you know why. :-)

Had a pleasant experience at FurFright the other weekend. While there were 979 attendees in total, the con didn't feel like there was nearly a thousand people present. This was probably due to the overflow hotel being some distance away and people heading off site for food, as well as furs going to the attached water park.

Once again, I worked security with the Dorsai Irregulars. Things were pretty quiet there, too. The attendees were well behaved, and the room parties were quiet. As for that crazy GM at the hotel, we did the best that we could under the circumstance. The rest of the hotel staff (especially the bartenders) seemed pretty cool and seemed to enjoy us.

I got to direct fursuiters during the first fursuit parade, and was in a location where I could take a bunch of pictures:



Yeah, that's a furry Pinhead. That is a very nice box he's holding. I need to find one like it.


Cakecon did their thing again this year:



I wish I had more pictures from the party, but other than checking on them when I was on duty, I didn't get off duty until 1 AM, at which point all I wanted to do was sit down and have my first (and only) beer of the evening. :-P

Of course, we also had our share of weird and silly this year:





The whole archive of pictures is in the usual spot on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dmuth/sets/72157622567912403/

Other than that, I spent most of the con relaxing, chatting with friends, and generally having a good time. I think I'll return next year.

I'll be driving up to FurFright tonight with desteredra and departing on Monday.

It looks like I'll be working security with the Dorsai Irregulars again this con, so here's my schedule:

Friday: 1 PM to 7 PM
Saturday: 7 PM to 1 AM
Sunday: 1 PM to 7 PM

Been pretty busy with work and life lately. Tweaking the registration system for Anthrocon (adding multi-year support) and getting ready to deploy it for Furry Connection North as well.

The other weekend I was up in Detroit, and visited girtygrin and nikvulper. We stopped by a Middle Eastern restaurant, and I tried Turkish Coffee for the first time:



Strong stuff, I'll tell ya. I must have it again.

[Edit: Forgot to talk about the waiter, too. The restaurant actually swapped out our waiter in the middle of the meal and offered us free desserts. The poor fellow seemed a bit out of it, and kept spilling various liquids. It was scary and awesome all at the same time.]

Folks,

The organizers of First Friday Main Line in Ardmore recently approached me, knowing of my involvement in the furry fandom, and asked if any fursuiters would be interested in performing at First Friday in Ardmore on Friday October 2nd, between 7 and 10 PM. This will be a Halloween-themed First Friday Main Line, and they feel that having fursuiters around would add to the atmosphere.

The First Friday Main Line website is at http://www.firstfridaymainline.com/. According to the website, FFML is a non-profit, 501C3, community organization founded in 2006 by the area’s business and cultural leaders. The Mission of FFML is to bring Art to the Main Line community by creating opportunities to experience Art in everyday life while creating a regional spotlight for a diverse body of talented Artists, Musicians, and Performers.

They have kindly offered a secure changing room where valuables may be stored and water will be provided. If anyone needs crash space that night, please let me know.

If you're interested in attending, please RSVP with me so that I may have an accurate head count to give to the FFML organizers. Non-fursuiters are welcome to attend as well.

Thanks!

(X-posted to pa_furry and pa_furry_se)

A couple of weekends ago, omnibahumut, ferian, foxlord, Agri, M4, and myself went to Seaside Park/Seaside Heights for the weekend. It was a nice way to relax after previous events.

Hurricane Bill was off the shore that weekend, so we weren't allowed to go out too far into the waves or bodyboard, but we did get to still have some fun in the ocean.

If you're looking for pictures of the beach itself, you won't find those here. I know better than to take my camera onto the beach during the day. Instead, I have pictures from the evenings:



"Tide's in!"




The Boardwalk at about 1:30 in the morning.

The rest of the pictures are up on Flickr, at http://www.flickr.com/photos/dmuth/sets/72157622255288394/.

I think the strangest thing about this trip was on Sunday morning, when people were out on the boardwalk handing out fliers for some guy who was running for New Jersey State Governor. Why were they handing these out to a crowd that consists mostly of tourists? Doesn't seem too smart to me.

Finally, on the way back home, Omni and I saw this:



Yes, the gentleman was hanging off the front of the truck while it was in motion. Doesn't sound like the safest/smartest thing to me.

Please note that hotel reservations for Anthrocon 2010 are not yet available. If you try to contact the hotel for a room right now, they will tell you that the block is "sold out," because that's what the computer screen says. It is not sold out; we have not opened it yet, and will not open it until February. This decision was made based on feedback we received from our members, and applies to all of the hotels which have offered us rooms for next year.

(X-posted to anthrocon)

Just an update on the previous two posts, Kasi Frost was nice enough to transcribe ALL of the voicemails and make the individual MP3s available for download:

http://www.narutoiswatchingyoupoop.com/mozdoc_voicemails/

Looking through the list, it's interesting to note the frequency distribution of certain words, as well as certain phrases being repeated.

After I finish work today, I'm heading out to the beach with fellow drunks omnibahumut, ferian, foxlord, and others. I need it. Not to mention the 5 to 9 foot waves Hurricane Bill will be bringing. :-)

So, I was on my way to run an errand today, and I ended up getting a front seat to this around 5 PM:



This went down on Woodside Ave., just by the Wawa on Lancaster Ave. As best I can tell, it was only shrubbery that was burning. No other property appears to have been harmed.

The Merion Fire Company's Ardmore truck arrived on the scene shortly after I did and promptly extinguished the blaze. Woodside Ave was closed for all of about 20 minutes.

The rest of the pictures can be viewed in this slide show:



The full set can also be viewed at this link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dmuth/sets/72157621934261475/

If you do take a cheetah to the bar, it usually ends poorly, as this video demonstrates:



This video is totally heterosexual, I swear!

I went to see the movie Moon yesterday with some local furries (alsaihn, Turtyl, desteredra, and finnishfox), and if you like science fiction, you should see it too! I can't say too much without giving things away, but the movie explores a scenario which could happen in the near future.

After the movie, we wandered around Bryn Mawr and visited the local Borders, where I picked up a few things:



This was partly because I was running out of things to read, and partly because I wanted to say "screw you" to Amazon's online presence. For those who haven't heard about the current controversy with the Kindle, Amazon recently took it upon themselves to remove purchased content from the customers' Kindles. There was no warning or announcement, just *poof*, and peoples' purchases disappeared.

While customers were refunded their money, that's little consolation for someone who might have been halfway through reading the book in question. Furthermore, I find this sort of unilateral action on Amazon's part to be very disturbing. It would be like if Borders employees were to walk into my apartment and remove the books I just purchased. It's one of the reasons why I feel DRM on "purchases" is illegal. ("rentals" are another story) Anyway...

Some folks might find my purchase of books on Calculus and Physics to be surprising, but that's because my background in higher math is kinda weak. The furthest I went in school was pre-Calculus in the 12th grade. Part of the problem is that during that period of my life, I had a real attitude problem and didn't try very hard in school. If I wasn't going to use something in real life, I didn't see the point of trying to learn it.

Recently, I was having that discussion with a colleague at work, and he pointed out to me that not knowing calculus can still be a problem, because if I don't know something, I won't know when it's a skill that I might need to solve a real life problem. So I figured it can't hurt to buy this book and try to educate myself a little more about that particular field.

From CNN:



What's even cooler is that the trolley in that pic isn't run by SEPTA nor the local government, but instead it is part of First Friday Main Line, a once/month event put on in Ardmore (and surrounding towns) by local businesses.

What's unfortunate, however, is that a substantial portion of downtown Ardmore is still legally listed as "blighted". A reminder of our crazy local government's attempted eminent domain takeover from a few years ago.

And what's strange... is where they got this "15 minutes to Philadelphia" idea. Did they even drive on the Surekill Distressway? :-)

And by that, I mean I got Comcast Internet over the weekend. (FIOS isn't available here) I'm seeing about 14 Megabits down and somewhere around 5 Megabits up.

Don't get nervous, folks. After I cancel DCANet ($55/mo for 1.5 Mbps down just isn't worth it anymore) I'm going to get Basic DSL from Verizon for about $17.95/mo to use as hot backup. It'll be nice to have two different wireless networks running here so I can just switch if Comcast starts acting up.

Along with the Comcast Internet service, I also broke down and got basic cable TV, for the first time in about 8 years. It's nice to be able to channel surf through 2 digits worth of channels and not worry about static or a complete lack of signal.

I then spent the rest of the weekend doing cable management of all the computer cables at my place. I actually ran out of wire ties on Sunday afternoon and ran over to radio shack to get more. I'm afraid I didn't get any before/after photos, but take my word for it, the area behind and under my desk is much less cluttered than it was before. :-)

On Sunday night, omnibahumut and I met xshengx and two of her friends at a local Chinese restaurant for some cheap food.

And that was one of my most stress-free weekends in awhile.

From Anthrocon 2009, courtesy of Warphammer:



Click on the picture for a supersize 4210x1796 version.

Outstanding work, Theyain.

Just wanted to let folks here know that we have our own photo pool on the awesome Flickr photo hosting service:



If you took pictures during the con, please add them to the pool. If you're looking for pictures from past Anthrocon conventions, we have them going as far back as 2006.

Share and enjoy!

(X-posted to anthrocon)

I'm home safely from the con, and have today off so I can recover and catch up on errands, do laundry, etc. Maybe I'll be in IM later tonight.

Seems like our brains were completely fried at closing ceremonies and we forgot to mention the post-convention survey. Here it is:



Please tell us what you liked, and what we can do to make next year's Anthrocon even better.

I have a ton of pictures, and more details about the con, which I'll post at some future date.

(X-posted to anthrocon)

We did not think it would happen, but the Westin has a VERY few rooms that they are willing to release back to our block at the convention rate of $115 per night. If you waited to the last minute, that's NOW, and here's your chance. To claim one of those rooms, you must call Ms. Sam Waterman at 412-560-6365 directly. Try to stampede in an orderly fashion.

Yes, I have a Dolph plushie. It's rather big, about 30 inches.



Now the $700 Billion Question (adjusted for inflation):

Poll #1421722
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 68

Should I bring this Dolph plushie to Anthrocon?