Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

There are no moderate republicans – only extremists and cowards.

Too little, too late, ftfnyt. fuck all the way off.

Bad people in a position to do bad things will do bad things because they are bad people. End of story.

They don’t have outfits that big. nor codpieces that small.

If America since Jan 2025 hasn’t broken your heart, you haven’t loved her enough.

If you voted for Trump, you don’t get to speak about ethics, morals, or rule of law.

Well, whatever it is, it’s better than being a Republican.

They were going to turn on one another at some point. It was inevitable.

The republican ‘Pastor’ of the House is an odious authoritarian little creep.

Let’s bury these fuckers at the polls 2 years from now.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

You would normally have to try pretty hard to self-incriminate this badly.

There are times when telling just part of the truth is effectively a lie.

Dear elected officials: Trump is temporary, dishonor is forever.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

“Alexa, change the president.”

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

Let me file that under fuck it.

A fool as well as an oath-breaker.

People identifying as christian while ignoring christ and his teachings is a strange thing indeed.

Compromise? There is no middle ground between a firefighter and an arsonist.

My right to basic bodily autonomy is not on the table. that’s the new deal.

Is trump is trying to break black America over his knee? signs point to ‘yes’.

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

You are here: Home / Humorous / I am (inadvertently) at FurCon

I am (inadvertently) at FurCon

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Hipsters Ruin Everything

I’m in San Jose staying at the Fairmont Hotel (as I always do when I travel to San Jose for court appearances.) I love staying at hotels (especially on someone else’s dime). I love room service. I love how dark hotels are when you close the blinds. I like being able to dump my suitcase on the floor and let my clothes explode out of my suitcase like a bomb. I like the tiny lotions. I like the bathrobes. I like that I can make phone calls while I’m peeing. I like that I can watch TV while I’m peeing. I like smoking in the bathroom with the fan on even though there’s a no smoking sign (while peeing and making phone calls and watching TV, obvs.). I like extended check-outs. I like mini-bars. I like being a member of “The President’s Club” and being able to haughtily proclaim at the front desk that I am a member of said club even though the only perk I get for being in this esteemed club is free Wi-Fi that doesn’t even work in my room. Oh, and membership is free. So there’s that. I like this particular hotel because the concierges know me. “Back again?” they say every time I show up. Even some of the cab drivers know me. I reckon they don’t see a lot of small black ladies playing dress-up in lawyer suits.

All that said, this particular stay has been… interesting. I first noticed something was strange when the line at the front desk was 25 people deep.

I then noticed something was really strange when I looked around and saw a lot of this:

and this:

and this:

Soon I was surrounded by them:

Finally, I asked someone what was going on and was told that it was some “sci fi thing where people get dressed up as animals.” Some folks on the Twitterz clued me in that I was at FurCon. Then someone told me about furries. Then someone told me about yiffing. Then someone advised me not to do a Google images search for “yiffing.” I, of course, promptly did a Google images search for “yiffing.” And now, what has been seen cannot be unseen.

My work duties here in San Jose are going to be over as soon as I publish this post, after which I will flee across the bridge to San Francisco1 to hang out with some normal people in assless chaps.

But before I do, I want to point out that hipsters, once again, ruin everything:

::shakes head::

Friggin’ hipster furries with their Paul Frank backpacks and their laissez-fur attitude.

For shame, Furry.

For shame.


[I’m literally clicking “publish” and hitting the road.  Gotta run to court and get the hell out of dodge.  There’s a gallery of photos of phurries on Angry Black Lady Chronicles.  Click here.  FYWP for not letting the Juicers see furry foto gallery.  Have a great weekend, y’all!  Consider this an open furry thread. Cheers, – ABL]

1 I’m not sure whether or not there will be a bridge involved. I haven’t mapped out my route on my iPad yet.

Reader Interactions

190Comments

  2. 2.

    burnspbesq

    Why anybody stays at the Fairmont in SJ is beyond me.

    Next time, try the Doubletree by the airport. Free cookies!

  4. 4.

    srv

    There is no bridge between SJ and SF.

    I think Furries actually pre-date hipsters. And in SF, we call them trusters/richsters as you can’t be hip and living on a trust fund.

  5. 5.

    Anne Laurie

    Some thirty years ago, I was at the Detroit sf convention that shared a hotel with the national AME choral convention.

    You cannot fully understand the importance of civility until you’ve been trapped in a hotel elevator with half-a-dozen entrants for the Saturday night costume call and a dozen choir ladies from the “Mighty Clouds of Joy”…

  8. 8.

    Sko Hayes

    OMG, that first picture. Have you fallen down a rabbit hole, by chance?
    And I will not look up whatever that is you mentioned. I learned my lesson on googling “sexual terms you never heard of and wish you could forget” a few years ago.

  9. 9.

    Mark S.

    free Wi-Fi that doesn’t even work in my room

    That’s the worst. I hate having to take my laptop downstairs to the lobby to surf porn check on what’s going on at Balloon Juice.

  10. 10.

    Jager

    I can’t remember his name, but a comedian once asked “if we had tails, would it be legal to have them hang out in public”? He was the same guy who said “the only person ever jailed in my family was an Uncle who was arrested for milking a Jehovah’s Witness”. Or something like that, too, also.

  11. 11.

    Jane2

    I love hotels for the same reasons. FurCon certainly beats the National Clown Convention in Minot, ND.

  13. 13.

    Anne Laurie

    @srv: __

    And in SF, we call them trusters/richsters as you can’t be hip and living on a trust fund.

    Steve Gilliard, may he always be remembered, introduced his readers to the epithet “trustafarian“. I still like that one.

  15. 15.

    lee

    I think something about those images is making baby jesus cry because the webpage is loading very slow.

  17. 17.

    Anne Laurie

    @Ash Can: __

    I’d rather be surrounded by eccentrics in animal costumes than College Republicans.

    You do realize there’s an overlap between those two groups?

  18. 18.

    freelancer

    I have Keith Olberman black frame glasses and a drawer of ironic T-shirts. I am not a hipster. However, Do NOT blame this shit on hipsters. Hipsters are by and large, douchbags.

    This is a hipster.

    The freak in the antlers. Not a hipster.

  20. 20.

    burnspbesq

    @Anne Laurie:

    Sci-fi conventions are generally the strangest. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen 250 women (none of whom look remotely like Lucy Lawless) in full Xena costume.

  21. 21.

    Omnes Omnibus

    I was once involved in a wedding that occurred at the same time and in the same place as a convention of little people. ‘Twas a bit surreal.

  23. 23.

    Mike Kay

    I like being a member of “The President’s Club”

    Meh, Mile High Club is better.

    What? What? You never been in Denver.

  24. 24.

    JPL

    Hotels seem claustrophobic to me. Of course, my income doesn’t allow for presidential suites so there’s that. The furry people are strange.

  26. 26.

    numbskull

    I like smoking in the bathroom with the fan on even though there’s a no smoking sign…

    So you’re the one…

  28. 28.

    Ash Can

    @Anne Laurie: I do seem to recall reading about some blogger putz in a skunk suit, but in my experience (I’ve known furries, although am not one myself), they tend to be lefties if they’re even political at all.

  29. 29.

    Comrade Colette Collaboratrice

    @Violet:

    How do these people get through airport security?

    If they have any sense, they fly into San Francisco instead of San Jose – non-TSA screeners who are familiar with the local fauna.

  30. 30.

    JGabriel

    ABL:

    Some folks on the Twitterz clued me in that I was at FurCon.

    It could be worse, ABL. I took a business trip once where I ended up in a hotel that was half full of the attendees to a Fundamentalist Christian Children’s Clown Festival.

    I swear to … God (?) … that I’m not making this up. Unfortunately, that’s all there is to it. Just a bunch of people walking around in clown make-up and polite, staid, BORING conversations overheard at the bar. Usually, children’s performers curse like a fucking sailor backstage, but not these clowns. There I am in my mid-20’s, on a business trip in a new city, hopin’ to get some strange, and the place is filled with fundamentalist Christian children’s clowns. I am neither vanilla enough, nor kinky enough, depending on your POV, for strange that strange.

    Got a lot of reading done that trip.

    Edited to Add: BTW, do you really expect us to believe that you just coincidentally ended up at FurCon? How naive do you think we are?

    .

  35. 35.

    4tehlulz

    Hipsters are many things, but calling them furries is blood libel, and just another step in the ongoing pogrom against hipsters.

  37. 37.

    rh

    As nebulous as the term “hipster” is, I *really* don’t see what anything referenced in the post above has to do with hipsters.

  40. 40.

    rh

    As nebulous as the term “hipster” is, I *really* don’t see what anything referenced in the post above has to do with hipsters.

  43. 43.

    trollhattan

    Jaizuz, I’ve never been more glad fur the poor quality of cellphone cameras. Nevertheless, this post had me howling (sorry, but a must-do) as well as cringing.

    And may I add: ABL, you do love yourself some puns!

  46. 46.

    Origuy

    Welcome to San Jose. You should have been here for AnimeCon; herds of kids walking around in cosplay outfits.

    There is a bridge between here and SF, only not across the Bay. Since she’s in downtown SJ, the quickest way may be 280, which has a fairly long bridge across San Mateo Creek. At the north end of the bridge is the Flintstone House, which is probably a different color now that when this picture was taken.

  50. 50.

    Comrade Mary

    Once upon a time, at another web site, a well-meaning member posted a link to explicit furry porn, and took a long time to understand why people were so upset with it.

    I have never been able to look at a stuffed toy with jiggly eyes the same way again.

  55. 55.

    Barb (formerly Gex)

    @rh: I’m convinced that’s the beauty of the “hipster” epithet. Everyone rails against hipsters, even the people who most seem like hipsters. Instead of the No True Scotsman argument it should be the No True Hipsters argument.

  58. 58.

    Yurpean

    Best.
    Blogpost.
    Ever.

    Despite being vaguely aware of the concept of yiffing, I’d never actually searched google for it before. Oh my, what a strange world we live in.

  59. 59.

    demkat620

    Oay, I will admit to be a bit naive. I am 44, happliy married with children.(I know,Oxymoron)

    But, I have to confess, I had no idea what Furries were until I saw it on CSI. Who says TV can’t be educational?

  62. 62.

    Warren Terra

    like smoking in the bathroom with the fan on even though there’s a no smoking sign

    I love ya, ABL, but this isn’t terribly cool. Unless it’s a smoking room, of course.

    More topically:
    1) Looks like it’s a Friday!
    2) That picture of you among them may not be so well advised – you look happy and lovely and all, but with the poor quality image it looks like your clothing might also be quite fuzzy. Furry, even.

  63. 63.

    cmorenc

    @Anne Laurie:

    You cannot fully understand the importance of civility until you’ve been trapped in a hotel elevator with half-a-dozen entrants for the Saturday night costume call and a dozen choir ladies from the “Mighty Clouds of Joy”…

    The costume people I could take or leave, depending on whether they were wearing smeary makeup or not that might accidentally rub off on other passengers,
    BUT:
    it would be a privilege to be in an elevator for a couple of minutes with some ladies from “Mighty Clouds of Joy” doing some impromptu acapella singing.

  64. 64.

    Chyron HR

    A hipster walks into a bar, and derisively snorts, “This place sucks now. It’s full of hipsters.”

  66. 66.

    asiangrrlMN

    Never watch Princess Mononoke with a bunch of furries. Trust me on this one.

    P.S. I hate staying at hotels. I can only (barely) sleep in my own bed. Or couch. Or floor.

    P.P.S. Maybe today is NOT the best day to change my name to asianotterMN….

  67. 67.

    Mark S.

    Well, curiosity got the better of me . . . that wasn’t too bad. Not traumatic like some of my visits to Urban Dictionary.

  68. 68.

    David Atkins (thereisnospoon)

    A hipster is generally anyone whose lifestyle and dress habits are pursued in an ironic, rather than straightforward, fashion.

    Hipsters define their lives by thinking they’re cooler than their fellows by appropriating symbols and subverting them.

    I can see how someone might identify people wearing animal costumes in a disturbing way as hipsters.

  70. 70.

    drew42

    Ever since I learned about furries, I get nervous whenever I’m near a college mascot. Because it’s highly likely he/she is one.

  73. 73.

    Joseph Nobles

    Perhaps this is a better thread to mention that the Tucson police have discovered pictures Loughner took of himself nude or in a G-String. They also apparently feature the Glock he used in his attack. I believe they were being developed at a drugstore and Loughner hadn’t picked them up.

    I’m beginning to move toward the “pretending to be insane” hypothesis.

  78. 78.

    Michael

    I like smoking in the bathroom with the fan on even though there’s a no smoking sign

    Shorter ABL: I got mine, F all y’all.

    Those signs are not just there for you to feel hip about disobeying them (think people with medical issues)

  79. 79.

    asiangrrlMN

    @Mark S.: True! I renounced my membership to the human race in an earlier thread and said I was going to be asianotterMN from now on. I have changed my mind.

    @freelancer: No! I will resist Googling it, damn you!

    ETA: Oh. That wasn’t what I expected. I’m actually kinda disappointed that I wasn’t grossed out or shocked.

  80. 80.

    Josie

    @demkat620: I saw that CSI episode. I think they actually talked about yiffing. I was fascinated with the whole concept. What a strange world it is out there.

  81. 81.

    Taboot

    Went to see phish in Indy this summer. Our hotel was overrun furries. Spoke to a couple furries in passing, but they don’t seem to speak while in costume (at least to non-furries). Shocked the hell out of me. I had no idea such an obsession existed. The wife also told me she saw a commercial for the strange addictions show on tlc. They’re going to be covering furries on their next episode.

  84. 84.

    Faisal

    In fairness, the cabbies don’t see a lot of anyone playing dress-up in suits. Welcome to Silicon Valley.

  86. 86.

    HRA

    @andrea:

    I will first admit I do not have a clue what this is all about except for some other commenters words and so I have a vague idea.

    “Last year, the Buffalo Sabres were in town during FurCon. ”

    LOL
    from a Buffalonian

  88. 88.

    j low

    @lee: Thank you. I think whoever coined the phrase “assless chaps” had only ever seen a cowboy in a gay pride parade. “bare assed in chaps” would convey the point much more accurately.

  92. 92.

    freelancer

    @asiangrrlMN:

    Is this the double-space after a sentence thing?

    See, even if it’s just a matter of opinion, she still digresses into excuse-making for her reasoning. She can’t just be like, “I prefer the double-space” and have that be the end of it.

    She has to deconstruct it like “Well I do it because I learned to type on a typewriter unline some people, and even if I didn’t it’d still be something not worth addressing, and speaking of addressing such issues independently, this guy needs to get a life, because I have one. Also, sometimes I hit the space twice if I have hiccups.”

    Even if I agree with you, fuck you for writing and sounding like a toddler. How fucking hard is it to be a person, much less a professional?

  95. 95.

    Catsy

    @asiangrrlMN:

    Never watch Princess Mononoke with a bunch of furries. Trust me on this one.

    Oh Jesus fuck.

    I used to run with a pretty strange slice of fringe anime/manga fandom, I’m well informed about furry fandom, and I don’t want to know how you know this. Or how much SAN you lost as a result.

    Also, since there seem to be a whole lot of people here who are just now learning what furries are, I must share what still reigns as the most memorable time when that fandom and political blogging intersected: the Cigarskunk epic.

    And the moment of glory when Sadly, No discovered him.

  98. 98.

    jurassicpork

    I just put up a relatively somber Assclowns of the Week. #86 won’t be played so much for laughs given the events of the last week but you may still find a few chuckles in it. The usual suspects made the list and there’s even a bonus in a dishonorable mention.

  99. 99.

    Kewalo

    @Josie:

    I saw that episode of CSI too and thought they made it up. I’m stunned to find out that there actually people like that.

    And I think you’re right about the yiffing.

  101. 101.

    asiangrrlMN

    @Omnes Omnibus: Yes.

    @freelancer: Yes. That’s exactly how I felt. Even when she agrees with me, I want to punch her in the nose–metaphorically. Or better yet, take her computer away from her.

    @Barb (formerly Gex): Sane conclusion with the usual aggrieved, “Don’t tread on me” whine. I really don’t like having to agree with her for any reason.

  102. 102.

    Bubblegum Tate

    @Catsy:

    Ha! I was about to ask if CigarSkunk was making an appearance. He is the conservative playboy of the furry scene, after all.

  105. 105.

    asiangrrlMN

    @tim serbo: This. I agree with this–though not her sanctimonious bitchy whining. WARNING: I am actually linking to MM2. (And thanks for gallantly offering a hug).

    @Ash Can: I got no problems with that. I just do NOT need to hear, “I’d do that handsome wolf/dog (whichever, I’ve blocked it from my memory)” when I’m watching an animated movie.

    @Catsy: ‘coz it fricking happened to me. I haven’t been able to watch it since.

    Omnes Omnibus, well if you’re ever offered the choice (I wasn’t), RUN!

  108. 108.

    JPL

    OT…sorta because on a yiffing furry post what is ot

    Yesterday morning on Morning Joe while discussing the President’s speech, Pat Buchanan mentioned informing President Reagan about the Challenger disaster. He said the President asked whether that was the one with the teacher aboard and Pat answered yes. The Challenger launch was a huge deal because schools were going to work with Christa McAuliffe to do experiments. The response from Reagan seemed to indicate there were other shuttles around the same time. Today I read that his son his releasing a book claiming his father had signs of memory loss while in office… Just saying.

  109. 109.

    asiangrrlMN

    FYWPWAVRPF, Part Deux:

    @Ash Can: I got no problems with that. I just do NOT need to hear, “I’d do that handsome wolf/dog (whichever, I’ve blocked it from my memory)” when I’m watching an animated movie.

    @Catsy: ‘coz it fricking happened to me. I haven’t been able to watch it since.

    @Omnes Omnibus: well if you’re ever offered the choice (I wasn’t), RUN!

  110. 110.

    Angry Black Lady

    I wasn’t clear in the post — I meant the furry with the Paul Frank backpack is a hipster furry ruining all the fun for the DFH furries. The O.G. furries, if you will.

  111. 111.

    tim serbo

    @asiangrrlMN: oh, ok, i’m all caught up now. i’m a single-space guy myself, and working as an editor since 1984 i have probably closed up a couple million surplus spaces. but that’s just because it was a style thing at my first magazine and it’s become an automatism. i have turned matters of grammar and usage into moral crusades, but the single/double-space question hasn’t been one of him. let civility reign.

  112. 112.

    Off Colfax

    Actually, to be completely accurate, that is Further Confusion.

    (Rocky Mountain) Fur Con is in Denver.

    …

    What? Listen, just because I know firsthand the horrors of a tuxedo-clad skunk and a transgendered merlion yiff in public, in the lobby of the same hotel as San Diego Comic Con no less, doesn’t mean you can look at me like I’m some sort of…

    …

    Okay. Fine. You can look at me like that for the last one. But what has been seen can never be unseen, regardless of how many self-initiated concussions you put yourself through.

  113. 113.

    Jeanne ringland

    @Violet: Most of them drive to the convention. And they do it in street clothes.

    *sigh*

    I know a bunch of furries and … my adult son is one of them. They are not into yiffing and they tell me that the people interested in that are truly the minority fringe group, maybe ten percent of all furries. They are into wearing animal costumes, playing dress-up, playing pretend. It’s weird but harmless.

    CSI got it entirely wrong, focussed on the strangest, most fringe group, kinky sex, etc. and made it sound like the entire fanbase is the same.

    Sort of the way all Muslims are tarred with the “terrorist” brush.

    If I recall correctly, this was the article I saw a few years ago that got it just about right:
    ljwilliamson.com/articles/furries.htm

  115. 115.

    JCT

    @John Cole: Ah, reminds me of the time I was too lazy to Google “MILF” and instead asked my teenaged son. Whoa, did he turn red and beat a hasty retreat…. good times.

  118. 118.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @tim serbo: Two spaces and the Oxford comma for me, thank you very much. if i am writing or editing it, that’s what it gets. If someone else is doing, that person may do as he or she pleases. I might judge a little.

  120. 120.

    Jeanne ringland

    @Catsy: What a pathetic piece of shit.

    He brings females to the conventions? And that’s why the furries hate him? There have been quite a few female furries in the photos my son’s friends post on flickr, and they were actually pretty good-looking women.

  122. 122.

    asiangrrlMN

    @Omnes Omnibus: I actually liked the post of the guy she linked to better than her ‘argument’ such as it were itself. Personally, it’s how I learned to type, and I like it for an aesthetic reason as well. A little extra pause at the end of the sentence. Nice. I also deliberately break rules like putting the punctuation mark inside a “quote like this”. Or in the parenthesis (like this). I know technically I just did bot of those wrong, and I don’t care.

  123. 123.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @asiangrrlMN:

    Personally, it’s how I learned to type, and I like it for an aesthetic reason as well. A little extra pause at the end of the sentence.

    That is my reasoning as well. As for the rest, we should agree to disagree.

  124. 124.

    Sad_Dem

    @asiangrrlMN: When you were watching Princess Mononoke with the furries, did you wonder if YOU were the weird one?

  126. 126.

    asiangrrlMN

    @Omnes Omnibus: How very bipartisan of you

    @Sad_Dem: Well, I am a weird one, just not in that sense.

    @Jeanne ringland: Oh, I’m not chastising you. You’re right. For the most part, it’s harmless and goofy fun. It’s no different than, say, dressing up as your favorite anime character. I just had the misfortune of knowing some hardcore yiffers.

  127. 127.

    Suffern ACE

    @Jeanne ringland: And good for your son for finding something he likes to do and others to share the same idea. Unlike following political blogs as a pastime, there probably aren’t a lot of people who populate the Furry culture whose sole purpose is to make a person angry or scared. I wonder how strange they would think we are.

  132. 132.

    maus

    @rh: Things furries are not known for that hipsters are:

    Taste
    Fashion
    Trust funds
    Elitism

    Things furries and hipsters both possess

    Beards

    I guess you might hear furries say “oh yeah, I was masturbating to tiny toons, omaha the cat dancer, and bugs bunny in a dress back when nobody else was, when it was cool…”

  133. 133.

    asiangrrlMN

    @tim serbo: Hm. Tis true. I am a dastardly liberal, which means I’m all for embracing diversity! Hugs!

    @tim serbo: Just not cricket. No. Not a purpose for the word. And, I don’t personally like the Oxford comma, but I have adopted it since most styles of writing approve of it.

  134. 134.

    Ked

    There was this one time at the Roseland/O’hare Hyatt (I think? This was six or seven years back)… let’s just say that anime conventions are probably less sexually-charged than furry events, but things got truly weird when a herd of the more-gothy Buffycon types wandered across the street from their hotel. And then there were the drunken cosplayers who tried jumping from balcony to balcony in the atrium. Would have had a decent weekend except for the ambulance arriving five times over the two nights I was there.

    Furcon. *shudder*

  135. 135.

    tim serbo

    @asiangrrlMN: back atcha.

    as a general question, what is the the best snark definition of “reince priebus,” a la the snark definition of “santorum”?

    and y’all remind me never to look up “yiffing.”

  136. 136.

    tim serbo

    @asiangrrlMN: you have answered the challenge and broken the first seal. proceed.

    and since i no longer believe i was put on earth to correct humanity’s grammar, the impassioned defense of the O. comma will remain in its crypt.

  140. 140.

    JGabriel

    tim serbo:

    what is the the best snark definition of “reince priebus,” a la the snark definition of “santorum”?

    You can’t spell Nicer Brie Pus without Reince Priebus.

    .

  142. 142.

    jinxtigr

    Wee hoo! Several of my friends are at that very con :) I’m building a website for one just today- we’re going to seek out and produce furry musicians, some are VERY good :)

    Yiffing and outragous perversion (furversion? ;) ) is a small percentage of the furry congoing scene. Think about it as the 27 percenters of that scene. Only a worry to con security, as no convention currently operating really runs with that sort of thing. You have to get along with the hotels, the staff, etc.

    I know some stuff that’s too seamy for you to have heard of ;) but I ALSO know that most con hotels end up really liking the furries. We are generous, fun, and often very cooperative and friendly, blowing off most of our drama energy in soap-opera-like interfursonal conflict and not doing too much damage to the zookeepers :)

    It’s all good, and it’s either a great hobby or an inspiring way of life to anyone sufficiently annoyed with the antics and self-satisfaction of humans. I should think Balloon Juice readers would be quite well aware for the latter: can you blame us for identifying with something else? You humans are doing great these days ;P

  144. 144.

    SpotWeld

    I have a theory that so far has proved out in my current experience.

    For any large gathering of people of similar interest about 5%-8% of that population will also be furries.

  145. 145.

    wk

    To add to the period-space debate, I think the extra pause after a sentence is just proper typesetting. I use LaTeX for word processing, which does formal typesetting… and the typical period gets about 1.6 spaces after it. So drawing on the practice of typesetters over many years, I’d say rounding up and calling it 2 is in some sense “better”.

    (And I apparently agree about punctuation inside quotation marks)

  148. 148.

    tim serbo

    @asiangrrlMN: no shit. shameless, the way you flirt. i like that.

    as for furries, whatever gets you through the night. mostly i find it sort of embarrassing, but i’m sure that’s my problem.

    in totally unrelated and self-indulgent news, my roommate the rabbit, after two and a half years, has finally consented to hop up on the couch and flop in my lap and allow me to pet him into bunny nirvana. since my health crisis he’s become intensely more affectionate and attention-seeking. tell me the moral instinct is unique to humans, g’wan, i double-dare ya.

  150. 150.

    cckids

    @JCT: Reminds me of the time my then 10-year old daughter watched “Rent” at a friends house (gee, thanks other mom), came home & asked for definitions of the words masturbation, dildo, and S & M. I also got red-faced, we talked about the first one, but the other two, I just said “you’re really not old enough, trust me, you don’t want to know”. Of course, being my brainiac child, she found a dictionary & looked them up. Came back to me & said “you were right, eww, I wish I didn’t know that”. Still makes me laugh.

  152. 152.

    Pontiac

    Hey, it’s an awesome con and we’re up here on the eighth floor drinking. Two long time balloon juice readers are present.

    Hyena + 4 and windup bird + 4!!!!!!

    murrs and yiffles and wingsnugs! THIS IS WHERE THE FUN IS

  154. 154.

    wmd

    I’m tempted to alert my MC about this. Unfortunately the SF chapter is probably already there.

  156. 156.

    Suzdal

    A good portion of my friends are at that con right now, apparently it’s a pretty good party convention.

    TBH, the fursuitters personally bug me more than the folks who are into the furry erotica-the problem being that they’re in-character so they don’t talk and try to interact through exaggerated body language alone (no proper eye contact either ’cause of the mask) it just creeps me out.

    And yes, for all that we give them shit about it, the erotica angle is a small part of the genre, my understanding is that it covers everything from folks who collect Looney Tunes memorabilia to those who strongly identify with a spirit animal.

  161. 161.

    JCT

    @cckids: Been there, done that. Though I am finding that it is a lot of fun to turn the tables on them now that they are older. “Just Google it, Mom” is a common refrain.

    Thanks ABL — delightful post and an awesome laugh.

  163. 163.

    Anne Laurie

    @Morbo: Yeah, I’m probably involved in that comment thread, but I was too lazy to look it up & link it.

    As someone who (a) actually helped organize one of the first Midwestern amateur Trekkie conventions (b) made, and wore, a ‘Shanna the She-Devil’ costume to ComicCon ’73; and (c) is now a member of probably the only hobby group that gets less social respect than the furries (and without any possible sexual content!), I should be above mocking other peoples’ little indiscretions. But if we all lived by that rule, who’d do the blogging?

  165. 165.

    Wile E. Quixote

    @Angry Black Lady:

    I wasn’t clear in the post—I meant the furry with the Paul Frank backpack is a hipster furry ruining all the fun for the DFH furries. The O.G. furries, if you will.

    Fucker probably rides a fixie too. God I hate those people.

  167. 167.

    fucen tarmal

    if you think the furries are freaks in california, they do some sort of reunion or whatever, in pittsburgh….you can imagine the ripple that causes in the general population..even now that people are somewhat used to it.

  169. 169.

    Quicksand

    I once checked into a hotel in Sacramento, and the desk clerk asked me, “so are you with the Promise Keepers convention?”

    Wait, what?

    NO!

    (Only later did it occur to me that I should have said “yes” if it got me a better rate.)

  172. 172.

    Ailuridae

    @freelancer:

    Not a hipster. Budweiser is too good and too uncool for hipsters. Make it a PBR anywhere, an Old Style in the Midwest and a Genny Cream Ale on the East Coast and you have yourself a hipster.

  173. 173.

    Ailuridae

    Re: Hotels.

    I don’t like them either but need to stay at them occasionally. I stay at the upbrand version of Extended Stay America (I am rarely anywhere less than 5 days) and bring sheets with me.

    When I was in Indianapolis for a wedding in August (during ComiCon!) I stayed out by the big shopping center there about 8 miles NW of downtown. I was embarrassed about the sheet thing and not wanting anyone in my room and the desk clerk calmly told me that somewhere between 1/4 and 1/3 of their business was people with similar issues. Something to think about.

  176. 176.

    thedeadcanary

    Hi ABL, hope you made it to court in time. You may not want to leave your suitcase on the hotel floor, all those bedbug stories in the NYT say that’s one way the critters hitch a ride back to your home. Yuck!

  177. 177.

    Ija

    Are these people really hipster though? Seems more like nerds to me. With the obsessiveness and everything else.

  178. 178.

    ET

    I thought the CSI episode that revolved around this was made up for the show. OMG.

    I will not be googling yiffing, this post was way more than enough to be skeeved out.

  181. 181.

    lawnorder

    PS: Furries not sexual ? Dunno, the ones in Second Life are a lot into it.

    Of course there are the pokemon, supermario and sega and role players that are doing PG stuff mostly. But hasn’t anyone here heard of a “tail auction” ?

    the horrors of a tuxedo-clad skunk and a transgendered merlion yiff in public

    Mermaid lion, skunk horse, cat dog, etc… Is amazing the infinite mixes the furries invent. They are very creative.

    PPS: The term Yiffing is not used as often on the last 2 years, as it got to be part of the stereotyping of furries.

  182. 182.

    nycgrlupstate

    I love hotels for the same reasons you do. Ty for one of the funniest posts I’ve ever read.

  184. 184.

    Angry Black Lady

    @numbskull: I don’t do it anymore because it’s dooshy and I don’t like smelling smoke. I don’t smoke in my house either. I don’t even smoke that much… Never have.

    (I also don’t talk on the phone when I pee — the ADD doesn’t permit me to multitask that way.)

  186. 186.

    Your Obedient Serpent

    @lawnorder:

    PS: Furries not sexual ? Dunno, the ones in Second Life are a lot into it.

    … as opposed to all the non-furries on Second Life?

    @Angry Black Lady:

    I wasn’t clear in the post—I meant the furry with the Paul Frank backpack is a hipster furry ruining all the fun for the DFH furries. The O.G. furries, if you will.

    I got that right off — and it made the defensive comments from the hipsters that much funnier.

  187. 187.

    ZorinFox

    I’m the fox with the Paul Fraken back pack.. I’m not hipster lol I just thought it was cute and wanted to wearr it at the con lol

  189. 189.

    Scott Malcomson

    “I reckon they don’t see a lot of small black ladies playing dress-up in lawyer suits.”

    Oh, that was you? Hey there! Hope you had fun while it lasted! -:D

  190. 190.

    Patrick

    Speaking of amusing conjunctions of conventions, my favourite had to be the fur con that was taking place at the same time as some military conference. You haven’t lived ’til you’ve seen drunken soldiers in full uniform carousing with people in suits.
    Then there was the — I think it was — Baptist convention. Many brought their young children; a common refrain was “Hey mommy, lookit!” followed a moment later by, “Ow, leggo my arm!”

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