So,  buckhopper (known as T. Matt Latrans) started this thing called the FBA, the Furry Basketball Association. It's a fantasy thing, where he records podcasts in the guise of a sports reporter giving summaries of games, drafts, and whatnot.

I'm not a sports guy. Lack of 3D vision, coordination, and WAY TOO MUCH FUCKING DIGNITY conspired to keep my interests intellectual and carnal, rather than physical (note: I am not fat, FYI) so I was rather bemused at how much I enjoyed the podcasts.

I haven't listened to them all. The game continues to confuse me and I think I listened to them out of order so it really makes little sense to me, but I get this fantastic vibe from the project. It oozes enthusiasm and energy and fun, in a way that's actually surprisingly rare in this fandom of ours.

See, T-Matt is a dab hand at this business. He knows his game (and loves it) and he's an accomplished audio engineer, not to mention a rollickingly energetic presenter. He's opened his sandbox to many others who want to play, letting other folks create teams and characters and storylines, cultivating a wonderful sense of community.

Since I love the sound of my own voice, when he asked me to record a few lines for a snide British stoat character named, naturally, John Stoat, I was really into that, and immediately agreed. I did a few more, and yesterday I had the pleasure of attending a live recording via livestream.com.

Two things really impressed me. The chatroom that ran concurrent with T-Matt's recording was lively and fun, and since I hadn't been on anything resembling IRC in years, it was a rather lovely nostalgic experience, despite the fact that I didn't know anyone there. They called me Mr. Vance, which goes a long way to incurring my good will.

The second thing that impressed me, and the more substantial, was the immensely positive awesomeness T-Matt himself seemed to radiate. His banter was vivacious, his lines were presented with aplomb, but what really blew me away was the way he engaged the little community that attended, and got them to participate.

He invited volunteers to do voices for some pieces of his script, and where they were sometimes nervous or inexperienced or self-conscious, T-Matt was warm, helpful and encouraging. Effortlessly he put people at ease, diplomatically dancing around errors they might make to ensure they were having a good time, and that they could relax enough to give the performance he knew them to be capable of.

This is the sort of stuff that keeps me so enamored with this goofy little fandom of ours. Talented, enthusiastic and more than a little visionary folks like  buckhopper spending their precious free time and energy on cool, fun stuff to share with anybody who wants to play.

T-Matt, I tip my hat to you.

And the rest of you: I heartily encourage you to check out fba.furtopia.org, or twitter.com/furrybasketball -- maybe you can even explain some of this basketball shit to me :)