The Sound and the Furry

Last weekend I attended a NASPD (National Association of Steel Pipe Distributors) function in Pittsburgh. As I entered the rather ornate lobby, I couldn't help but notice a rather dirty looking young man sitting at a cafe table and staring intently into his laptop. He looked out of place among the well-dressed hotel patrons not just because of his grubby attire, but also because he was sporting a hair band with attached fuzzy ears and false fox tail. I was, however, too jet-lagged and tired to ponder on this, and proceeded to the front desk.

After getting my room key, I turned and noticed a group of even more unsavory young men clustered around a bench. It was apparent from their wardrobe and poor grooming choices that these young men were, well... nerds. And I'm not talking about the kind of "nerd" that it's hip to be these days. Not where it's "cool" to be a "nerd," as our society has been celebrating "brains" over "jocks" in some cases. I'm talking about Booger from Revenge of the Nerds, but without any of his redeeming qualities. I began to observe more and more of this particular flavor of humanity as the day went on.

Finally, I found myself in an elevator with one. Being something of a nerd myself (I have a love for just about anything that's Sci-Fi/Fantasy. I have logged more hours on MMO's than I will mention here. Oh, and I was a frickin' theatre major), I was genuinely interested, and I thought I would be able to express my interest with some sincerity:


Me, warm, genuine interest: "Hey, can I ask you what's going on in the hotel?"

Nerd, immediately defensive: "What do you mean?"

Me, patient clarification: "Well, like, those name tag / convention pass things you're wearing... what's that for?"

Nerd, intentionally vague and aloof: "Oh, it's Anthrocon."

Me, unassuming, rational follow-up: "I'm not familiar - what's that?"

Nerd, dismissive, with an audible sigh: "It would take too long to explain."


He slips out of the elevator. Like any reasonably cutting edge geek, I have a smart phone, and instantly google "Anthrocon" after he leaves. I quickly discover that the "long explanation" he was trying to avoid could have been summed up in two words: "Furry Convention."

After that, I posted a new Facebook status update, and was encouraged to get some photographic evidence. Furry photo-hunting is more difficult than you might think. Here is my favorite photo:

These are shy, timid creatures, and it is best not to approach them indoors.

I am probably more in touch with internet goings-on than the average 33 year old American, but I still I confess that my first exposure to the term "Furry" was through a more socially acceptable medium - namely, the HBO series Entourage. In the episode, one of the main characters was asked to dress up like a stuffed animal in order to have sex with an attractive young lady he contacted through Craigslist. Based on my recent experience, I have to conclude that Entourage misrepresented the Furry community. Do Furries look for sex over the internet? Probably. Are they attractive? Probably not.

I have been to comic book conventions. I have been to role-playing conventions. I have been to Star Wars and Star Trek conventions. Sure, you will see a hodge podge of various characters. You'll see all kinds. But you will occasionally see a hot chick wearing chain mail. Or Vulcan ears. Or a Golden Bikini. I kept expecting to, almost literally, see a "Foxy Lady" among the Furries. Maybe some kind of Catwoman type in sexy leather. I never saw anything close. What I saw, over and over and over and over again, were people who were just awkward looking to an extreme.

Believe me, I am really not trying to judge here. I am no male model. And I realize that there are things like inner beauty, and that beauty is usually in the eye of the beholder. I totally get that. But when you are consistently viewings specimens who have so clearly made ungainly grooming choices, you begin to wonder. We may have differences of opinions on what is "fashionable" or "attractive," but most of us would agree that "basic hygiene" is a common thread among what we find appealing.

Confused, I went to the internet to see what others may have to say on this topic. I found that my observations were widely supported. Nerds often fall into specific categories, and they even embrace that, participating fully in nerd elitism and nerd prejudices. The Star Trek and Star Wars camps feud constantly. Both factions may or may not get along with Stargate, or Battlestar Galactica nerds. And that's within Sci-Fi. We still have Lord of the Rings nerds and Larpers and so on and so on. However, Furries seem to be, quite simply, the most universally reviled subset in all of nerdom. Other nerds often simply do not tolerate the Furry Fandom.

The commonly held theory is that the unattractive and socially awkward are particularly drawn to fantasizing about being something they are not, like a majestic centaur. I did observe this to be exactly the case in Pittsburgh. The Furries were downright unapproachable socially (as in my elevator conversation). And there were no slick, good-looking people were wearing rabbit ears over their business casual gear. These were people sticking fuzzy tails through the same pair of dingy cargo shorts they hadn't washed in seven years.

Again, I am not here to judge, just to make some observations. People fascinate me. But for those of you who might think I've been too "mean" in this Blog, let me leave you with this:

One of the local four-star hotels had to kick several Furries out last weekend. It was discovered that there were about 6-8 of them sharing a room. But it was not for this cost-saving practice. The problem, it seemed, was that these Furries had opted not to use the well-appointed human facilities that were included with the lavish hotel room. Instead, this group of Furries brought, and made ample use of, a box of kitty litter. Yes, that is correct. The cleaning maids found the box of kitty litter and the evidence contained therein.

Coming home from some cocktails on my last night in Pittsburgh, I again found myself in an elevator with some Furries. Someone from my party had recently heard the above story, and just had to ask if it were true. The Furries confirmed the story. They did assure us that we should not view this as the norm, but that yes, it does happen.

Good night, everybody!

Why you are homeless:

So, since my last roommate moved out, I've been debating whether or not to replace him. I don't financially need someone to move in, but I think that I would like a new roommate if he/she were a good one. I mean, for as long as I'm single, it's just nice to share expenses, and I do also like the energy of living with another person. So, I finally decided I'd put an ad up on Craigslist just to see what kind of responses I would get.

My ad did a pretty thorough job of describing the place and myself. I've done the looking-for-a-roommate thing multiple times before, so I pretty much know what people are looking for. I did my best to provide as much information up-front as possible just to keep from wasting anyone's time, and also to hopefully do some passive filtering. I would like to limit the amount of people to whom I give out my real email/phone number/home address. At the end of my listing, I asked that anyone who wants to contact me to please not just send a one-line email message. I want to know more about you than that (and verify that you're not a scammer / serial killer/ douch-nozzle) before I call you or invite you to my home.

I received some very nice emails where potential roommates identified themselves as real people and told me a little about themselves. Some even provided a Facebook/MySpace link for me. Here are the rest - the poor lost souls without the necessary social or reading skills to save themselves from their homeless plight. Again, I remind you that the last paragraph of my ad was a single sentence requesting that you NOT send me a one-line email (I will change names, etc. and otherwise do my best to protect the identities of the mentally deficient):


still opean get back to me ? im fazul e mail or call (636)***-****

What's with the odd spacing? It should be noted that "fazul" sent me an email from an address that showed up as something like MikeandMaggie2006@free-email.com "Mike and Maggie" appeared as the sender.


Give me a call 636 *** **** I live at 94 & 70 now by wal mart. Thanks John 636 *** ****

"John's" email address was something like JOHNWANTAHARLEY@AOL.COM. I'm not sure what listing your phone number twice is going to accomplish. This isn't a voice message, I don't need a second chance to hear it and write it down. Good luck getting that Harley. (And get off AOL... seriously?! What kind of sick, twisted freak still uses AOL?!)


My name is Bob. My # 913-***-****. I have employment here in St. Charles, and would like to live in area that I work. Call any time. Thank you.

Ok, this one is actually a couple sentences long... and includes all sorts of juicy details about himself. But wait... does he sound like a robot to anyone else? I'm already pretty intimately involved with my home computer, and I would not like to cause any sort of robot - computer love triangle. Oh! One more thing.... "Bob" emailed me from an address like fred7@att.net "Fred" appeared as the sender.


Hi my names joe read your ad online about the roommate. I would maybe like to come by and see the room. I'm a 20 year old male and have a full time job me and my girlfriend would be moveing in she is 20 also with fulltime job please call me at 636*******

No, she won't be "moveing in." Neither will you.


i am interested in your listing if you could give me a call asap i would appreciate it very much my number is 314******* please call me

*sigh*


There were more, but I think I must have deleted them before I decided to start collecting them. I remember that one guy told ME how much he was going to be paying. Anyway, if you are reading this Blog from a coffee shop because you don't have a home with internet of your own, maybe now you know why.

O O O S

Obama's Oval Office Speech

It's been a while. I've been bad about Blogging. I'm going to try to be better. It'll probably last about a month before I'll see something shiny and get distracted again. But, to prevent that, I'm giving myself a few homework assignments. I feel like I owe you a couple of Blogs. So, stay tuned for a post on:

1) That Almost-Perfect Baseball Game
2) The LOST series finale (Not gonna lie, I've pretty much already exhausted this topic elsewhere already, so this will probably be a lot of cut & pasting from a Facebook thread discussion I got myself involved in.)
3) Perhaps I'll do a post on the spill itself if I don't cover it today.
4) And... maybe something about some product advertisements that have been bothering me

Ok, so here we go. The speech:

I actually highly doubt that I have any type of special insight that you haven't already heard elsewhere, especially if you pay attention to this kind of stuff. But I did notice a couple things and I do have some small exposure to the energy market that some of you may not have.

One thing that struck me about the speech were all the "God" and "prayer" references. First of all it just seemed an odd tactic to me. I'm not sure what he (or his speech writer/team) was thinking. I mean, the people who would be most moved by these words probably don't really like Obama very much to begin with. Yeah, I know that's a generalization, but we do have a hyper-polarized electorate, and religious people tend to be linked with the right. So, I doubt he won very many hearts and minds there. And on the other side, I live in Missouri but I could practically hear Bill Maher screaming at the television last night. I don't think he won very many of my liberal atheist friends over, either. And from a completely neutral political stance, I'm not sure faith in a higher power is the answer America has been looking for to clean up the spill. We'll be ok and get through this because God is on our side? We need actions, answers, and plans... not feel-good fluff.

This appeal to faith extended not just to a higher power, but to the faith that green energy is going to save us, and that this answer is just around the corner if only we have the determination to reach for it. I want other options to fossil fuels as much as anyone else does, and we definitely need to pursue wind, solar, geo-thermal, nuclear, and every other possibility that is out there. But the honest fact is that those alternative energy sources are not ready to step up and replace oil yet. And we're not going to get there any time soon.

You may not know this, but my company is a licensed wind turbine distributer. In the last year, I've taken courses on wind enery and I have attended several renewable energy conferences. Aside from just being something I'm personally interested in, my company has been trying to find a place in the market. I'm not going to tell you that I know everything. But I can tell you that it is obvious to me that at this point the industry is very young, and it would be extremely unwise to sabotage our current methods and cross our fingers in hope that we'll have the solution as quickly as we'll need it.

This is not something as simple as putting a man on the moon. That's right, I said as simple as a man on the moon. I'd put solving our energy dilemma right up there with curing cancer. You can't just throw money at it and force it to happen.

Finally, and I admit this might just sound picky and silly on my part, but I thought the whole "I'm going to talk to BP tomorrow" thing was a little odd. Really? You're going to talk to them tomorrow? Then why are you on TV today? It's been almost two months, and you're going to come on television for your first ever address from the Oval Office and say, "Ok guys, I got this... I'm totally gonna talk to these guys tomorrow." Like I said, maybe that's just me.

Aside from anything we may feel about how this catastrophe has been handled, I think part of the problem is simply a product of the times we live in. Obama's got it rougher, I'm sure. We get our news and analysis from 24-hour cable and the internet, which obviously never sleeps. There was a time when I'm sure Americans were getting some new information from a President on TV. Well, anyone who cares has been paying attention to a story as it unfolds, and is pretty much already aware of not just the main points but also of some pretty nuanced analysis. We're already watching the game, we don't need a President to come on and tell us the score. And this is new. And the President's speeches need to evolve to acknowledge that.